[No-Pasaran] Representative Maxine Waters of California has a curious explanation for why Democrats were so thoroughly humiliated in 2016
writes Benny Huang (in disbelief)
--they were just too nice. "That has been a problem in my party, that when we’re in power we’re nice," said Waters. "We bend over backwards to work with people."
Any hope that the Democrats would conduct a serious post-mortem was dispelled with these remarks. The Democrats lost this year and they’ve been losing with some degree of consistency since Barack Obama swept to power in 2008 but they’re still avoiding introspection. As usual, they’re finding ways to flatter themselves in defeat, convinced that it was their own virtue that did them in--plus Russia, racists, and fake news, of course.
...Compromise is something the modern Democrat party just does not do. They’re quite skilled at all sorts of subterfuge intended to look like compromise but the real thing eludes them. In some rare instances, when the votes simply aren’t there for their pet projects, they may be forced to give a little ground. But it wounds them deeply. They quickly turn to the judiciary or to Daddy Obama to achieve what they can’t achieve through the legislature. By hook or by crook, they get what they want.
What ails the jackass party is what I call "parachute politics," named in honor of Maxine Waters’ fellow California Democrat, Nancy Pelosi. During the 2010 Obamacare debate Pelosi displayed an arrogance that I found shocking. "We’ll go through the gate," said Pelosi at a press conference. "If the gate’s closed, we’ll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in but we’re going to get health care reform passed for the America people."
Since 2001, Lockheed Martin and US military planners have been putting together the F-35, a new aircraft that promises to revolutionize aerial combat so thoroughly as to leave it unrecognizable to the general public.
Detractors of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter have long criticized the program as taking too long and costing too much, though overruns commonly occur when developing massive, first-in-class projects like the F-35.
But perhaps the most damning criticism of the F-35 came from a 2015 assessment that F-16s, first fielded in the 1970s, had handily defeated a group of F-35s in mock dogfight tests.
According to Lt. Col. David "Chip" Berke, the only US Marine to fly both the F-22 and the F-35, the public has a lot of learning to do when assessing a jet's capability in warfare.
"The whole concept of dogfighting is so misunderstood and taken out of context," Berke said in an interview with Business Insider. "We need to do a better job teaching the public how to assess a jet's capability in warfare."
"There is some idea that when we talk about dogfighting it's one airplane's ability to get another airplane's 6 and shoot it with a gun ... That hasn't happened with American planes in maybe 40 years," Berke said.
"Everybody that's flown a fighter in the last 25 years -- we all watched 'Top Gun,'" said Berke, referring to the 1986 film in which US Navy pilots take on Russian-made MiGs.
But planes don't fight like that anymore, and comparing different planes' statistics on paper and trying to calculate or simulate which plane can get behind the other is "kind of an arcane way of looking at it," Berke said.
Unlike older planes immortalized in films, the F-35 doesn't need to face its adversary to destroy it. The F-35 can fire "off boresight," virtually eliminating the need to jockey for position behind an enemy.
The F-35 can take out a plane miles beyond visual range. It can pass targeting information to another platform, like a drone or a US Navy destroyer, and down a target without even firing a shot.
While US Air Force pilots do train for classic, World War II-era dogfights, and while the F-35 holds its own and can maneuver just as well as fourth-generation planes, dogfights just aren't that important anymore.
Berke said dogfighting would teach pilots "great skill sets" but conflict within visual range "doesn't always mean a turning fight within 100 feet of the other guy maneuvering for each other's 6 o'clock." Berke also made an important distinction that conflicts within visual range do not always become dogfights.
Also, "within visual range" is a tricky term.
"You could not see a guy who's a mile away, or you could see a guy at 15 miles if you got lucky," Berke said, adding that with today's all-aspect weapons systems, a plane can "be effective in a visual fight from offensive, defensive, and neutral positions."
"We need to stop judging a fighter's ability based on wing loading and Gs," Berke said of analysts who prize specifications on paper over pilots' insights.
Furthermore, Berke, who has several thousand flying hours in four different airplanes, both fourth and fifth generation, stressed that pilots train to negate or avoid conflicts within visual range -- and he said no plane did that better than the F-35.
Even in the F-22 Raptor, the world's most lethal combat plane in within-visual-range conflicts and beyond, Berke said he'd avoid a close-up fight.
"Just because I knew I could outmaneuver an enemy, my objective wouldn't be to get in a turning fight and kill him," Berke said.
Though it might be news to fans of "Top Gun" and the gritty, "Star Wars"-style air-to-air combat depicted in TV and films, the idea of a "dogfight" long ago faded from relevance in the world of aerial combat.
A newer, less sexy term has risen to take its place: situational awareness. And the F-35 has it in spades. So why did they give it a gun?
#1
"The whole concept of dogfighting is so misunderstood and taken out of context,"
Nope. Just those who live to fly another day. War is like that. You live or you die. All the rest is Monday morning quarterbacking or excuses by the 'experts'.
Actually, a question deserving of an article or two by itself, but the short version is that the USAF and USN embarrassed themselves badly in Vietnam when the F-4 Phantom II - our #1 front-line fighter around the world - was incapable of shooting down North Vietnamese aircraft with the miserable missiles of the time, and they Didn't. Have. A. Gun. Modern missiles (the AIM-9X and AIM-120) are not quite one-shot/one-kill, but they're damned close, and if we deleted guns today you could make a good argument for it - but the services are never going to forget the fact that they couldn't bring down the enemy because they didn't even carry the fighter's most basic weapon.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/04/2017 17:19
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#4
Why this is complete BS, we need 1500 more A-10 and force the Marines, the RAF and the Navy to adapt to the past. Throw in 1200 Thuds and you got a mans Air Force.
#5
And as far as the guns are concerned... the F-35c and F-35b mount them in pods for easy removal. The F-35a recess it's gun in the nose, out of the airstream except when actually shooting, hidden rest of the time.
#6
Second Times is the Charm, eh?
The US bought the "missiles only: beyond visual range" theory going into the Vietnam War dropping onboard cannons. Unfortunately they way, WAY overestimated the lethality of the AIM-7 Sparrow:The Pk (kill probability) of the AIM-7E was less than 10%; US fighter pilots shot down 59[Note 1] aircraft out of the 612 Sparrows fired.[4] Of the 612 AIM-7D/E/E-2 missiles fired, 97 (or 15.8%) hit their targets, resulting in 56 (or 9.2%) kills. Two kills were obtained beyond visual range.[5]
Heat Street updates the hypocrites at MSNBC, who call for higher taxes on everybody but don't walk the walk themselves.
MSNBC’s hosts have a tax problem.
A Heat Street review of public records show that a total of six current, prominent MSNBC pundits have recently settled federal or state tax liens, while one still has tax problems. Moreover, at least two other hosts who recently left the network have also had massive tax liens filed against them.
MSNBC declined to comment, and none of the current or former tax debtors responded to requests for interviews sent through an MSNBC spokesperson.
The Rev. Al Sharpton -- MSNBC’s Sunday morning host -- easily comes in first place when it comes to "issues" with the taxman. He and his various entities--including several dissolved by New York for failure to pay taxes--currently owe about $1.5 million in state and federal taxes, interest and penalties, according to public records.
It’s a staggering sum, but down substantially from the $4.5 million in outstanding tax liens tallied by the New York Times two years ago. Sharpton has repeatedly said he’s worked out agreements with authorities to settle his tax debt, and a source close to him says he’s been paying it down aggressively, aware of how it may affect his legacy. The reverend has repeatedly called publicly for the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes. The only reason he's paying this off is because it's payroll taxes, where the president of the company is generally deemed personally responsible for the tax. He's in agreement plans, which extend the statute of limitations on collections (generally ten years). I'll have to give him some credit bringing the tab down 3 mill.
[NYT] LOS ANGELES -- Girding for four years of potential battles with President-elect Donald J. Trump, Democratic leaders of the California Legislature announced Wednesday that they had hired Eric H. Holder Jr., who was attorney general under President Obama, to represent them in any legal fights against the new Republican White House.
The decision by the Legislature to retain Mr. Holder, who is now a prominent Washington lawyer, is the latest sign of the ideological battle that may play out over the next four years between this predominantly Democratic state and Washington. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate for president, defeated Mr. Trump by more than four million votes here.
"Having the former attorney general of the United States brings us a lot of firepower in order to prepare to safeguard the values of the people of California," Kevin de León, the Democratic leader of the Senate, said in an interview. "This means we are very, very serious."
Mr. de León said he expected California to challenge Washington -- and defend itself from policies instituted in Washington -- on issues including the environment, immigration and criminal justice. He said California Democrats decided to turn to Mr. Holder as they watched Mr. Trump assemble his cabinet and begin to set the tone for his presidency.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/04/2017 11:06
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#3
"Having the former attorney general of the United States brings us a lot of firepower in order to prepare to safeguard the values of the people of California Mexican government," Kevin de León, the Democratic leader of the Senate, said in an interview. "This means we are very, very serious."
Fixed it for ya, Kevin.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/04/2017 11:08
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#4
I guess nothing ever came of the Congressional contempt charge against Holder. I recall something about Obama citing executive privilege and not prosecuting Holder despite a vote by Congress in the affirmative.
#5
I guess nothing ever came of the Congressional contempt charge against Holder.
If Repubs are smart (yeah, I know, big IF), they'd make sure that contempt of Congress charge hobbles / prevents Holder from doing his 'job', if it doesn't already.
#7
"Having the former attorney general of the United States brings us a lot of firepower.."
Not nearly as much firepower if most of his cronies are no longer working for the Justice department, and the rest have had the fear of God put in them.
[Bretbart Texas] Halliburton is set to hire 200 oilfield hands in the Permian Basin region. The move follows a recent increase in crude oil prices.
Halliburton spokeswoman Emily Mir said there will be job opportunities in various parts of the basin, FuelFix reported. The oil services company predicted that 200 new jobs will be created in a report published in the Current-Argus. Mir stated jobs will be available in several areas of operation.
"The Permian Basin is an important area for Halliburton and we’ll continue to make adjustments to our workforce based on business demand as needed," Mir said in a statement published by the USA Today affiliate.
The new jobs were attributed to increased support of the industry expected from the Trump Administration, according to Shannon Carr, development coordinator with the Department of Development. Carr also attributed the growth to new deals made with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
[Breitbart] Fox News reports: Critics who thought the U.S. opened the UN’s anti-Israel floodgates by abstaining on a vote condemning settlements last week say an obscure subsequent move by the world body to establish a "blacklist" of Israeli companies proved them right. That is correct, she too had a rather dark side.
Lost amid the angry words that followed the Dec. 23 UN Security Council vote that critics called an American betrayal of Israel was a Christmas Eve appropriation of $138,700 to fund a database of companies doing business in the West Bank. The measure puts UN prestige behind the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, say critics.
"The types of data they are talking about acquiring would be to form the basis for future sanctions against companies that did business on the West Bank," Fox News contributor and former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton told FoxNews.com. "That’s the only purpose of it that I can see."
[NYT - Obama regime pat on the back piece] An FBI program is making it possible for U.S. military drones to apprehend and kill computer specialists, including social media experts, hackers, recruiters, and propagandists working for the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
As a result of the FBI joining forces with the U.S. military, the U.S. government has killed nearly a dozen Islamic State-linked computer experts and apprehended nearly 100, reports The New York Times (NYT), citing former and current U.S. officials.
In explaining how the FBI program works, the Times reports that the agency uses its ability to sift through the information of thousands of ISIS sympathizers on social media and pinpoint individuals who have been inspired to carry out terrorist attacks. The FBI does that? Not NSA?
The agency then shares its findings with the U.S. military, a move that has reportedly resulted in the death and apprehension of many jihadists. 'Shares with' whom? Military liaison at FBI Main used to consist of one of old duffer. Perhaps the section has expanded. I suspect this effort takes another routing.
In the last two years, the FBI effort has yielded the arrests of an estimated 100 people affiliated with an ISIS cell of computer specialists, identified as "the Legion."
U.S. and allied forces have also killed nearly a dozen of the most important members of the Legion, including its leader, influential ISIS hacker and recruiter Junaid Hussain.
...also cleverly known as "Abu Hussain", the young former Birmingham, Englander was briefly the proud husband of middle aged, former punk rocker Sally Jones. He was killed at age 21 by a drone in Raqqa in August 2015.
NYT describes members of the cell as "English-speaking computer specialists who had given a far-reaching megaphone to Islamic State propaganda and exhorted online followers to carry out attacks in the West."
Meanwhile, the newspaper identifies the program as a "secretive campaign that has largely silenced a powerful voice that led to a surge of counterterrorism activity across the United States in 2015 as young men and women came under the influence of its propaganda."
Despite the campaign’s successes in taking out and arresting ISIS social media experts one by one, the U.S. military, in addition to intelligence and law enforcement officials, conceded that ISIS still maintains a sophisticated social media arm capable of inspiring deadly attacks like those that took place in San Bernardino, CA, and in Orlando, FL.
The ISIS social media arm "remains a potent foe suspected of maintaining clandestine cells in Europe," reports NYT.
Nevertheless, U.S. officials "point to the coordinated effort against the Legion as evidence of the success the United States has had in reducing the Islamic State’s ability to direct, enable or inspire attacks against the West."
The threat posed by the Legion had been initially considered a problem for law enforcement, rather than the military. Gently worded, but standard Bureau 'rice bowl' thinking.
#4
the Times reports that the agency uses its ability to sift through the information of thousands of ISIS sympathizers on social media and pinpoint individuals who have been inspired to carry out terrorist attacks.
#5
hmmm yes well the number of civilians killed within the US as a result of Islamist terror stands at close to 70. Can anyone take comfort in these numbers?
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
01/04/2017 20:04
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"Can anyone take comfort in these numbers?"
I'd say Leftists, Rex, but that's probably not true.
70's not nearly enough to satisfy them.
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/04/2017 20:12
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[USAToday] Two months after her election loss, Hillary Clinton plans to be in the crowd for the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
An aide to the Democratic nominee confirmed Tuesday that she and former president Bill Clinton will attend this month's ceremony, speaking on condition of anonymity until plans are announced publicly.
It will be the first joint public appearance by Trump and Hillary Clinton since the three presidential debates that preceded Trump's surprise election victory.
Bill Clinton will be one at least three ex-presidents at the Jan. 20 inauguration of Trump; George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter have also announced plans to attend.
Bush and former first lady Laura Bush "are pleased to be able to witness the peaceful transfer of power — a hallmark of American democracy," spokesman Freddy Ford said Tuesday.
Former president George H.W. Bush is not expected to attend because of health reasons.
As is tradition, current President Obama will also be at the inauguration of his successor.
[The Hill] The president-elect insinuated that the meeting was delayed because intelligence agencies don't have enough evidence to prove Russia's involvement.
"The 'Intelligence' briefing on so-called 'Russian hacking' was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!" Trump tweeted.
#2
The leftists are claiming the briefing was always scheduled for Friday. Haven't been able to verify that.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/04/2017 11:50
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#3
"mysterious senior intel coward" afraid to give his name claims the briefing was always scheduled for Friday... Yep, credibility is just dripping from the Mr. Mysterious...aka Ben Rhodes.
#4
If it was always scheduled for Friday, why would their boss, the future president who has up 'til now refused most government intel briefings, have thought it was scheduled for yesterday?
[WAPO] A day of pageantry to open the 115th Congress and usher in a new period of Republican governance was overtaken Tuesday by an embarrassing reversal on ethics oversight, with the GOP gripped by internal division and many lawmakers seeking to shield themselves from extensive scrutiny.
The 19 hours of tumult was set in motion the night before behind closed doors at the Longworth House Office Building, where Republican lawmakers decided over the objections of Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to amend House rules to effectively gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics.
They awoke Tuesday to an intense public outcry. Social media lit up with criticism of representatives trying to rein in the ethics office created a decade ago in the aftermath of scandals. Angry constituents inundated their representatives’ offices with calls of protest. Journalists peppered lawmakers with questions. The halls of the Capitol felt chaotic.
Then, shortly after 10 a.m., came the loudest objection of all: A pair of tweets from President-elect Donald Trump scolding Congress for making the weakening of the ethics watchdog its "number one act and priority." He punctuated his second tweet with the hashtag "DTS" -- shorthand for "drain the swamp," one of his campaign-trail mantras.
"In two tweets, Trump wrote: “With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it ........ may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS” Link
#4
Republican lawmakers decided over the objections of Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to amend House rules...
...a pair of tweets from President-elect Donald Trump scolding Congress...
The Mr. Trump quickly and effectively backed up the Speaker, very likely without the help being requested. That kind of quid earns a bunch of pro quo down the line. Especially because the Democratic press would have written endless stories about no-ethics Republicans -- I'd already seen the indignation start on Facebook.
And this is exactly the kind of thing it never would have occurred to President Obama to do.
#5
This independent Office of Congressional Ethics is in serious need of some changes if not just jettisoning it. However, making that the first order of business considering the bad optics was just foolish. I'm glad the President-elect jumped in. I think we will see a very hands on Presidency with Trump, and a yuuuuge amount of push back on the press and the slimy Democrats/RINO's.
They are not accustomed that.
Posted by: Andy de Medici5556 ||
01/04/2017 7:41
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#6
I would agree with Andy. While I don't know enough about the panel to venture an informed opinion, the optics on this is horrible. They definitely should have waited a few months.
#8
A lot of Democrats, especially the Black Caucus, don't like it, either.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/04/2017 11:43
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#9
Whose idea was this?
And pageantry? Who writes this crap? Stupid idea which must be struck down, whoever has the majority. As in, 'Oi, there was a bit 'o pageantry when I caught my child trying to grab a sugar cookie for breakfast.'
[Wash Times] President Obama will leave office after eight years of strutting even while sitting down, of preening even while standing up, of swanking while playing 18 holes. Yet he remains the first president in American history to cast no shadow. Jimmy Carter cast a pale and minuscule shadow. Lyndon Johnson cast an obscene shadow. Mr. Obama leaves absolutely no shadow, even in the moonlight.
Provide me with a picture of this president, standing beneath the white columned portico of the White House, the sun on his face, a gray shadow behind him and I will eat my hat. I might even eat your hat. The reason he casts no shadow anyplace is that there is no substance to him, not even a smudge. He is almost a totally illusory figure.
The last time I drew attention to Mr. Obama’s lamentable condition some readers scoffed at me and pointed to Obamacare, which has practically wrecked the health care system of millions of Americans. Surely that disaster casts a long and dark shadow behind the 44th president, they admonished. I remained serene. And what about Mr. Obama’s dealings with Israel, our most loyal ally in the Middle East? Just the other day one of his henchpersons ambushed Israel in the U.N. Security Council. Admittedly, there have been setbacks suffered by the United States while this incompetent was in office but I believe they will be short-lived. Donald Trump is coming to town and he is bringing with him an exceptional Cabinet. Already he is threatening to erase Mr. Obama’s foolishness, and he is doing it on Twitter. Wait until he is seated in the Oval Office with the power of the other two branches of government behind him. In the end, it will be seen that I was right, as I was right in calling the last election: Mr. Obama leaves no shadow, not even a legacy; Donald Trump won on Nov. 8.
President Trump will arrive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue carrying an attache case bulging with executive orders to rescind and agency regulations to nullify. I am sure he is aware that for years the 44th president and his servitors have been promulgating regulations large and small to give the bureaucracy ever more intrusive control over business and the citizenry. Mr. Trump will as he promised cut the waste, rein in government, and "drain the swamp."
#3
I disagree. He will be an outspoken critic of everything Trump and the Republicans will do. he has a lemming-type following that will believe anything he says and he has an obedient media to give him all the air time he wants.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/04/2017 11:48
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#4
What Deacon Blues said - that's why he's renting (ha ha ha!) that house in Georgetown. He might as well renovate the garage to house the media.
(I mean have it renovated - I'd die laughing watching him try to rip sheetrock off a wall.)
#7
Oh he will continue to throw his little temper tantrums. Even after most people have realized he is bad news and shun him. He is looking forward to being about as influential as the Rev. Jessie Jackson is today.
[Daily Caller] James Woolsey, former CIA director under President Bill Clinton, believes the Russians are "probably" behind some of the hacking of Democratic Party officials, but thinks that more than one country may ultimately be involved.
Appearing on CNN’s "New Day" on Tuesday, Woolsey said, "This is not an organized operation that is hacking into a target. It’s not like taking a number at a bakery and standing in line to politely get your dozen cookies that you want to buy. It’s more like of a bunch of jackals at the carcass of an antelope."
"Is it Russian? Probably some. Is it Chinese and Iranian? Maybe. Who knows? Somebody may be getting more information about it. We may find out more from Mr. trump coming up today and we may find out more from people in the intelligence community, but it shouldn’t be portrayed as one guilty party. It’s much more complicated than that."
#3
I think you were hacked before obama "became" President. Barry had two pops on your radar and a radical woman and Moslem Brotherhood connects thru yen and yang in Indonesian Madrassa. And financiers all that time.
"Subversants" you called them.
How does that suit you, malingerers.
Or traitors. ?
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Turkish authorities on Tuesday detained two foreign nationals at Istanbul’s main airport over suspected links to a nightclub attack claimed by ISIS ’jihadists’ that killed 39, Dogan news agency said.
The pair were detained on entering Ataturk International Airport and have been taken to Istanbul police headquarters for questioning, it added.
The government said Monday that eight people were tossed into the calaboose but the number then increased to 14 after new detentions in the Anatolian city of Konya.
The main suspect, who remains on the lam, was staying in a rented flat in Konya before moving to Istanbul to carry out the attack, press reports said.
He has not been named but is reportedly from Central Asia.
The airport detentions bring the total number of arrests over the attack to 16.
[BBC] The passport image circulated on social media shows a similar-looking man to the suspect, but the head of the Kyrgyz security services told the BBC that the passport holder was not involved.
Rakhat Sulaimanov said the man had been questioned by both their agents and Turkish security and that he had nothing to do with the attack.
The Kyrgyz authorities say they were not contacted by their Turkish counterparts about the possible connection. Tairbek Sarpashev from the Kyrgyz state registration service, said they only started to investigate the man in question after seeing the media reports.
Turkish media have said the man police are investigating is from Central Asia and had rented a flat in the central city of Konya with a woman believed to be his wife and two children, who have been detained.
The highly trained killer's weapon was loaded with armour-piercing bullets, creating the maximum number of casualties in the crowded Reina nightclub on New Year's Eve, according to Turkish security sources widely reported in local media.
He used flares to light up his targets before unleashing a hail of bullets known for their tendency to ricochet as well as penetrate barriers, creating horrific carnage in a short amount of time, the sources said.
Eyewitnesses said the killer carried out the operation calmly and precisely, keeping his ground and picking off his victims in a systematic manner.
His magazines had been bound together to allow him to reload rapidly, and when both were empty, he dropped them on the floor. Six were used in total, the Vatan newspaper said.
Eyewitnesses also reported that the killer used flash bombs to illuminate and disorient his targets.
A bartender who survived the attack, quoted by Hurriyet, said: 'The terrorist threw something that lit up every time he finished his magazine. It happened at least three times.'
In another sign of the murderer's professionalism, he reportedly dropped the flash bombs behind him so that he would be able to see his victims clearly without being blinded by the light, according to the Sozcu newspaper.
When police released pictures of the suspect, his neighbours in Konya called a police hotline and identified him, leading investigators to the family home, police added.
Private Dogan news agency said airports and border crossings were put on high alert and that anyone resembling the wanted gunman was being stopped and questioned by police.
Hurriyet's well-connected columnist Abdulkadir Selvi said an IS strike was also planned in Ankara on New Year's eve but that it had been prevented after eight IS suspects were arrested in the capital.
Together with a unexpected jump in inflation, anxiety over the attack pushed the Turkish lira to a new historic low of 3.6 to the US dollar.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/04/2017
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The Brent benchmark rose from around $57 per barrel to over $58 per barrel in early Tuesday's trading, reaching the highest level since July 2015. WTI crude went past the $54 per barrel and $55 per barrels marks before hovering at just below $55 per barrel after an almost 2.3-percent rally. The North American benchmark also hit the highest levels since July, Sputnik International reported.
Only helps American oil producers: get fracking!
Brent crude March 2017 futures were up almost 2.2 percent and stood at over $58 per barrel, while WTI February 2017 futures rose a similar amount to around $54.90 per barrel.
The rally comes as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member states and 11 major non-cartel oil producing countries, including Russia and Mexico, begin to curb output in an effort to stabilize the oil market. The production cuts, agreed on in late November by OPEC and finalized in December by several major non-cartel producers, kicked in on January 1.
OPEC members promised to abide on a voluntary basis by the production ceiling of 32.5 million barrels per day, which was preliminary agreed in Algiers in September. This is a 1.2-million barrel per day production cut. Russia agreed to cut its production by 300,000 barrels a day, while Mexico, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are reducing oil output by 100,000, 35,000 and 20,000 barrels per day respectively. The collective non-OPEC pledge is a 558,000 barrels per day cut.
The measure, which was under discussion for over a year before implemented, is expected to curtail the glut in global oil supply and bring oil prices to the level of $55-60 per barrel in 2017, compared with 2016 average of $34 dollars per barrel.
Oil market turbulence caused oil prices to plunge from $115 per barrel in June 2014 to less than $30 per barrel in January 2016, causing hardship for oil exporters. Prices have partially recovered and hovered at around $50-55 per barrel before Tuesday's rally.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/04/2017
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Germany's chief prosecutor has charged a 28-year-old German citizen with murder, belonging to a terrorist group and committing war crimes for his role in the execution of six detainees by ISIS militants in Syria in 2015.
The man, identified as Harry S. in court documents, has been in custody since returning to Germany in July 2015, shortly after prosecutors said he took part in the executions in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe said Tuesday the man had traveled to Syria in early April 2015 to join ISIS.
"In mid-June 2015 members of Islamic State (ISIS) publicly shot dead six detainees at the market place in the Syrian city of Palmyra," the statement said. "The accused, who was armed with a pistol, personally took one of the detainees to the execution spot and prevented the others from escaping."
Last year the man was sentenced to three years in jail after being found guilty by a regional court of belonging to a foreign terrorist organization and breaching laws on weapons of war.
An estimated 820 people have left Germany to fight alongside militants in Syria and other war zones in the Middle East.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/04/2017
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Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Hazara region arrested two wanted terrorists with the help of security agencies, according to sources within the CTD.
According to CTD officials, Muhammad Nawaz alias Abrash and Azizullah alias Hazaza are members of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, a banned militant outfit.
Both men are said to have received militant training in Kunar area in Afghanistan, CTD officials said.
Nawaz and Azizullah were involved in a number of terrorism incidents in the past and were also found plotting an attack in the Batagaram region at the time of their arrest, according to CTD officials.
CTD officials said the two men revealed major terrorism plots in Batagaram district during their initial interrogation.
A video clip of District Police Officer Batagaram was also recovered from the men's posession, according to CTD officials.
The suspects have been shifted to an undisclosed location for further investigation.
[Hurriyet Daily News] The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant who attacked Istanbul’s Reina nightclub arrived in Syria from Turkey, according to newly emerged details regarding the attack.
The date when he arrived in Turkey is unknown, but he was in the Central Anatolian province of Konya on Nov. 22, 2016, before heading to Istanbul to carry out the attack on Reina, which claimed the lives of 39 people.
According to the investigation, the attacker arrived in Konya with his wife and two children and hired a house there. His family members, whose identities remain hidden, have been detained by police.
“I learned about the attack from the TV. I didn’t know that my husband was an ISIL militant, let alone a sympathizer,” his wife reportedly said in her testimony.
Meanwhile, new details continue to emerge regarding the attack, with daily Habertürk releasing new footage of how the attacker arrived at the scene. In the footage he can be seen with his backpack and a cigarette while getting into a taxi at 11:58 p.m. from the Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul to head to Reina.
According to Turkish media reports, the attacker used a stun grenade while shooting at people. It has also been determined that he attached chargers to his weapon in order to shoot faster. Around 120 of the 180 bullets used were reportedly found inside the DJ cabin.
The authorities are evaluating how the attacker knew all of Reina’s exits, including the three secret doors known only by the personnel working there. He also knew that the guards of the nightclub were not carrying guns and that weapons were not allowed inside the club.
He did not enter the bathroom at any point as it was far from the entrance and he did not enter the kitchen when he was shooting because he was planning to hide there later on, Habertürk also reported, citing the investigation.
The attacker reportedly had no trouble escaping from the scene and the authorities are evaluating whether he received any help from the inside.
It previously emerged that he got into a cab after the attack and got out in Kuruçeşme, telling the driver that he had no money. According to newly emerged details, he asked to use the cell phone of the driver to call someone and the driver agreed to give it.
The driver was later detained and his testimony was taken by police. He reportedly said the attacker spoke Turkish.
Detentions have been carried out since the attack, mostly of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan citizens living in the Istanbul district of Zeytinburnu, where the police raided eight different addresses. Police also carried out operations in the Istanbul district of Başakşehir, and two foreign nationals were detained in connection to the Reina attack at Istanbul Atatürk Airport on Jan. 3.
Elsewhere, footage of the alleged attacker that he himself recorded in Taksim has emerged, in which he can be seen filming himself and the places nearby. Officials are now evaluating whether he was surveilling the area or sending ISIL a message to say he was in Taksim. Other footage that has emerged shows the attacker at an exchange bureau in the Istanbul neighborhood of Laleli.
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Rada, the Special Deterrence Force, reported that it has captured the leader of a kidnap gang last week and has freed two kidnap victims who had been held for 46 days.
Rada said that together with other security forces, it stormed a farm at dawn in Ain Zara after a stakeout. This came on the back of the arrest of one of the members of the kidnap gang in the Wadi Rabea area who had led security forces to the gang’s hideout.
At the hideout, Rada said they arrested a gang member who had been torturing the two victim in an effort to extort a ransom in exchange for their release out of their families.
The two hostages, heavy goods vehicle drivers from Gaser Khyar, were found with their hands chained to the wall. They reported that they had been tied up for the duration of their 46-day ordeal.
The kidnappers had demanded a ransom of LD 200,000 each in order to spare their lives. Rada said it was still pursuing the rest of the gang, whose names it published.
Rada also reported that it had freed another victim kidnapped from Airport road and taken to the Wirshifana area.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] An air strike in Syria on Tuesday killed at least 25 members of Nusra Front including senior figures, a monitor said. Unidentified aircraft "hit a major base of Fateh al-Sham ...formerly al-Nusra, the current false nose and mustache of al-Qaeda in the Levant... near to the town of Sarmada" in the northwestern province of Idlib, the UK-based Syrian opposing Observatory told AFP.
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Germany’s interior minister on Tuesday outlined plans for a security services overhaul, seeking greater federal powers on domestic intelligence and quicker expulsions of illegal migrants colonists following the Berlin truck attack.
Thomas de Maiziere also called for giving federal police wider oversight across the country’s 16 states, and for a new national crisis management centre to be set up.
"We don’t have federal jurisdiction to deal with national catastrophes. The jurisdiction for the fight against international terrorism is fragmented," he wrote in a guest column for the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
"The federal police’s scope of action is restricted to railway stations, airports and border controls," he wrote, stressing that "it is time" to reexamine Germany’s security set-up.
Policing and domestic intelligence services in Germany are currently decentralised and controlled by the country’s 16 states.
The plans for a sweeping reform come after a series of embarrassing security failures, with the December 19 attack training a spotlight on the gaps.
After Tunisian suspect Anis Amri allegedly rammed a truck into a crowded Christmas market, killing 12, it swiftly emerged that the asylum seeker had slipped through the net of security services.
Amri, 24, who was days later rubbed out by Italian police, had been under surveillance since March, but German police dropped their watch in September thinking he was a small-time drug pusher.
The failed asylum seeker should also have been deported months ago but Tunisia did not provide the necessary paperwork until after the attack.
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(Reuters) They wait for nightfall before attempting the perilous escape across bombed-out bridges and front lines between Islamic State militants and Iraqi forces.
Some cross the Tigris River by boat, after the U.S.-led coalition bombed the five bridges connecting the city’s two halves to restrict Islamic State movements. Others scale what remains of the bridges using a rope.
Most of the 116,000 civilians who have fled Mosul since Iraqi forces launched their campaign to recapture Islamic State’s biggest stronghold came from the eastern half of the city, where government troops have gradually gained ground.
But as the biggest battle in Iraq since 2003 enters its 12th week, a growing number of people are escaping from the besieged west bank of the Tigris, a half of the city that is still fully under the militants’ control.
“Only the lucky ones get out,” said Jamal, who crossed the river using a rope to climb over the remnants of one bridge and is now at a camp for civilians displaced from Mosul with his wife and three children.
“If they opened a route for a quarter of an hour, not a single person would remain on the western side.”
Although there is no fighting yet in the west, food is scarcer than ever since government-backed Shi’ite militias advanced through desert terrain southwest of Mosul in November, sealing Islamic State’s only access route to the city.
Civilians who fled the west in recent days said the militants had announced they would soon distribute food and break the siege in an attempt to placate their increasingly desperate subjects and convince them to stay.
“HAVE TO EXECUTE THE WHOLE OF MOSUL”
In the run-up to the campaign, aid agencies were preparing for a mass exodus from Mosul. So far most of the city’s residents — numbering as many as 1.5 million — either have chosen to stay or have been unable to escape.
That has worked in Islamic State’s favor, slowing the progress of Iraqi forces seeking to avoid civilian casualties.
Twenty year old Abu Mohsen, whose was ferried across the Tigris by his friend, a fisherman, said when the operation began, most people in the west had planned to wait it out. But as advances slowed last month, their calculations were changing.
“When the operations stopped people said the army will not reach us. They said it will take a year or two,” he said.
Iraqi forces renewed their push to retake the city last week, making progress in several eastern districts.
Until recently, the militants punished anyone caught fleeing their self-styled caliphate with execution, but recent arrivals at the camp said the sheer volume of people trying to escape had forced them to lessen the penalty.
“They would have to execute the whole of Mosul, so they started to flog people and send them back home instead,” said 22 year old Abu Abd, who crossed the river three days ago when Islamic State militants were distracted.
Some of the bridges can still be crossed on foot, but Islamic State forbids passage to those they suspect of fleeing to the government side, especially those with women and children.
Most of the boats crossing the Tigris are controlled by Islamic State. Those who make it across the river must then find a way through the frontline between the militants and Iraqi forces, who are fighting street to street.
“When we saw the army it was as though we were dreaming. We couldn’t believe our own eyes,” said Abu Abdullah, who fled from the 17 Tomuz neighbourhood in the west.
The camp is safer, but brings a new kind of hardship. The displaced are not allowed out for security reasons and have no work. For some, it proves too much. Camp workers and displaced people said a displaced man had cut his own throat in a bathroom cubicle on Sunday.
Kirkuk (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State militants have begun to impose a US$600 dollar toll on civilians eager to leave the group-held towns south of Kirkuk, Kurdish-owned Rudaw agency reported, quoting military and civilian sources.
Hiwa Anwar, a colonel at the Kurdish army forces, Peshmerga, told the agency that hundreds of civilians escaping IS-controlled region on a daily basis have told the forces that no one was spared the payment.
Amira Hassan, one resident of the village of l-Ramla at the town of Hawija, an IS stronghold, said the group only tolerates those who pay upon their departure. “We are a seven-persons family, and we had paid US$4.200 so as to be able to get out,” said Hassan, who added they had to trudge through bumpy, mine-riddled roads on their way out from the province.
IS have been in control over the southern Kirkuk regions of Hawija, al-Zab and al-Riyadh since 2014, when the group emerged to proclaim the establishment of a so-called “Islamic Caliphate” at various Iraqi cities.
IS’s hardline, bloody governance, coupled with minimal subsistence and ongoing battles between the group and Iraqi government forces, have forced hundreds of thousands to flee regions occupied by the group to refugee camps, with the numbers of refugees standing at at least 150.000, according to a latest count by the government.
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Turkish parliament on Tuesday voted to support the government bill to extend the state of emergency prompted by the failed coup attempt for another three months, Daily Sabah reported. The state of emergency has been extended for the third time, effective from January 19.
On July 15, 2016, a military coup attempt took place in Turkey. It was suppressed the following day. Over 240 people were killed during the coup attempt and an estimated 2,000 were wounded. Thousands of people, including military officers, high-ranking civil servants and teachers have been detained or sacked in the country since the attempted overthrow of the Turkish government.
On December 27, 2016, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said Turkish authorities could lift the state of emergency in January 2017.
They could but they won't...
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[DeutscheWelle] German police raided a refugee home and a flat in Berlin on Tuesday in connection with its investigation into Anis Amri, the man suspected of killing 12 people in a deadly attack on a Berlin Christmas market last month.
Investigators searched a refugee home, where a 26-year-old Tunisian man they believe knew Amri is living. Police suspect the man had known Amri since at least 2015 and was in contact with him shortly before the day of the attack on December 19. The federal prosecutor's office said there is a "suspicion that the suspect knew of the attack plans and possibly helped Anis Amri."
Investigators also raided the apartment of Amri's former flatmate, who they also suspect was in contact with Amri and may have even been a possible accomplice in the attack.
The so-called "Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... " (IS) jihadist group has grabbed credit for the attack, in which Amri plowed a truck through a Christmas market in Berlin's Breitscheidplatz, killing 12 and injuring around 50 people. After a four-day long manhunt that stretched across Europe, Amri was rubbed out by Italian police in Milan on December 23.
The prosecutor's office said Tuesday's searches focused on gleaning new information into Amri's behavior before and after the attack.
It did not confirm whether the two suspects had been taken into custody, but said it plans to provide an update on the investigation on Wednesday.
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#1
Was anybody at home when they kicked in the doors? Or had they already returned to their third-world $hith0les?
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01/04/2017 10:45
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[Ynet] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's interior minister says authorities have thwarted a total of 339 possible attacks in 2016, most of them by Kurdish bully boys.
Suleyman Soylu told parliament Tuesday that the foiled attacks include 313 planned attempts by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and 22 by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
The minister said authorities seized 247 bombs, 23 boom-mobiles and detained 23 would-be jacket wallahs last year.
Speaking a day after the IS grabbed credit for the deadly attack at a popular Istanbul nightclub, Soylu said some 80 of the attacks were thwarted in the past three months.
More than 3,506 IS suspects were detained in 2016, including 1,531 foreign nationals, the minister said.
Soylu said authorities had stepped up security on public transportation such as trams and buses as well as airports and at train and bus terminals.
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] A Yemeni source reported that the national army and the popular committees confronted a major Saudi advance towards al-Shabaka military site in Najran, inflicting heavy losses upon the KSA soldiers.
The sources added that two Saudi military vehicles were destroyed and that even the air force failed to enable the infantry troops to carry out a successful operation.
Al-Qaeda and ISIShard boyz also supported the Saudi army in its attack, but they suffered grave losses as well, according to the same source.
The Yemeni forces also killed scores of the Saudi-led mercenaries after ambushing them in Boqa’a desert off Najran.
The Yemeni army and popular committees crushed dozens of the Saudi aggression troops while confronting their attack on al-Saq sites in Shabwa province.
Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... has been since March 26, 2015 under brutal aggression by Saudi-led coalition. Thousands have been martyred and injured in the attack, with the vast majority of them are civilians.
Riyadh launched the attack on Yemen in a bid to restore power to runaway ex-president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is a close ally to 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...
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[Hurriyet Daily News] An elderly Australian man serving time for killing his wife and two grandchildren was charged on Jan. 3 with the murder of a fellow inmate after an apparent attack with a sandwich toaster.
John Walsh, 77, is alleged to have beaten Frank Townsend in their shared cell at a correctional facility for aged prisoners near Sydney. Local reports said he used a sandwich toaster.
A guard was alerted to the injured inmate late on Jan. 2 after hearing noises coming from their cell.
"The officer switched the cell light on and saw the 71-year-old had been assaulted," a spokeswoman from New South Wales Corrective Services said, adding that Townsend was rushed to hospital but later died.
In 2008, Walsh was sentenced to life in jail for the gruesome murder of his wife and young grandchildren.
He beat his wife and seven-year-old grandson to death and drowned his five-year-old granddaughter in the bath, while attempting to kill his daughter with an axe.
There were no known problems between Walsh and Townsend, NSW Corrective Services said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#10
There's better uses for rope in Aussieland than hanging. I'm sure the prisoner would serve better as an experimental subject for learning more about spider bites. For instance, how many bites does it take before the antivenom stops working?
Large increases in the price of gas in Mexico has people up in arms and concerns are growing that shifting fuel prices will increase the cost of everything else.
Deregulation of gas prices in Mexico has many concerned and, on the first day of the year, drove some to stockpile gas and join protests as prices jumped by as much as 20 percent in some parts of the country.
The Mexican government ended some gas subsidies and raised the maximum price of fuel across the board, allowing regular gas to increase by as much as 14 percent, premium to increase by 20 percent and diesel went up by 17 percent.
The deregulation of gas prices is one of a set of reforms pitched as part of changes to energy laws in 2013, with the start of a gradual end to price controls one of the more visible efforts. The Mexican government has controlled gas prices since 1992, as a method of controlling inflation.
Relaxing controls on gas prices is part of a larger energy program Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto's energy program to open the country up outside oil investment for the first time since 1938, when the Mexican government took control of the country's oil industry and kicked out foreign companies.
Government officials say that despite the annoyance of price increases to many -- some gas stations were blocked as protesters aired their grievances -- but that long term relaxing controls on the industry would make prices more manageable, and potentially help spur a shift to renewable resources in the country as it will now be affected by global oil controls.
The officials say initial jumps in price were to be expected as the government capped its own ability to increase prices at the end of 2016 and private companies reacted to the ability to charge more per gallon. As new gas companies show up in the country, however, officials say new import terminals, pipelines and suppliers will spur competition that will theoretically be good for consumers.
"We didn''t consider it good public policy to maintain an artificially low price for fuels," said Deputy Finance Minister Miguel Messmacher. "These things always generate annoyance. We're quite clear that it's an unpopular measure."
On Dec. 31, a gallon of standard-grade unleaded fuel cost roughly $2.60. On New Year’s Day, as a new policy took effect, it jumped more than 14% to about $2.95. The price of premium fuel rose by as much as 20%.
#4
The price the oil company can get for its product has dropped, so they can't afford to subsidize domestic consumption like they used to.
Interestingly, according to AAA, today the retail gasoline price per gallon in Texas averages in the $2.12 - 2.20 range. A second reason for the Mexicans to be annoyed.
[Hurriyet Daily News] Turkey and Russia, as the guarantors of a ceasefire deal between the Syrian regime and opposition groups, will establish checkpoints in Syria in order to monitor the truce and possible violations.
The Hürriyet Daily News has obtained the ceasefire document, which provides details of a mechanism for monitoring the ceasefire and a schedule for the planned peace negotiations.
In order to record violations to the ceasefire, “the guarantors will establish checkpoints in residential areas in the vicinity of the actual line of contact among the parties in order to guarantee compliance with the ceasefire by the parties,” read the agreement dated on Dec. 29.
A Turkish official also confirmed to the Daily News that Turkish and Russian officials will be located in different regions of Syria for truce monitoring activities.
Turkey and Russia will establish joint monitoring centers to closely follow the implementation of a ceasefire between the Syrian regime and the opposition groups, another Turkish official earlier told the Daily News, adding that the former will use its Eskişehir Main Air Base and the latter its Hmeimim Air Base in Syria to this end.
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[IsraelTimes] Syed Mustufa H. allegedly received money to follow former head of society that promotes warm ties between Berlin and Jerusalem.
German prosecutors have indicted a Pak man accused of spying on a group that promotes German-Israeli relations for an Iranian intelligence agency.
Federal prosecutors said Monday that the 31-year-old, identified only as Syed Mustufa H.
...arrested in July in Bremen...
due to German privacy rules, was in contact with the unnamed spy agency since 2011.
In a statement, prosecutors said the man began spying on the former head of the German-Israeli Society, and handed over information to Iran in October.
He is alleged to have received money in return for passing on information obtained about the society
The ex-head of the Society, former politician Reinhold Robbe, told the Bild newspaper in 2016 that he wasn’t surprised by the alleged espionage and vowed he "will not be intimidated."
The suspect faces up to five years imprisonment if convicted of espionage.
At least two policemen were killed in a clash with gunmen in northern Parwan province on Monday afternoon, local officials said. In addition, another policeman was injured.
The clash took place in Charikar city, the capital of the province, Provincial Police Chief Mohammad Zaman Mamuzai said.
In the meantime, an eyewitness said that two policemen were killed in the clash and four others were injured.
But a source told TOLOnews that the clash happened between Afghan National Police members and public order police and that three policemen were killed and three others were injured. No further details have been released.
[ARA News] Raqqa – The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Wednesday made new gains in the fight for Raqqa, pushing further to the Islamic State’s (ISIS) de facto capital.
Backed by US-led coalition’s airstrikes, SDF troops were able to expel ISIS from four villages and some seven farms in the western countryside of Raqqa.
“Subsequent to clashes with ISIS militants, our forces today secured the villages of Erbo, Dehlan, Arir and Henhud, beside seven surrounding farms, west of Raqqa,” an SDF spokesman told ARA News.
The official stressed the role of the coalition’s air cover in facilitating their progress on the ground.
At least 22 ISIS fighters were killed in the clashes, whereas the SDF confirmed the death of six of their soldiers and the injury and several others.
“Today’s progress was a step further in the fight for Raqqa, in the battle to destroy the ISIS’ alleged caliphate,” the SDF spokesman said.
On Sunday, the SDF reported the liberation of 110 villages in the western countryside of Raqqa Governorate since the launch of the second phase of the battle for Raqqa last month.
“Our forces have so far liberated 110 villages in western Raqqa since the launch of the second phase of Euphrates Wrath Operation on December 10,” the SDF leadership said in a statement.
The US-backed forces also reported the death of 277 ISIS jihadists in three weeks of military operations.
“We have also taken 13 ISIS terrorists as captives during the recent clashes,” an SDF officer told ARA News, adding that one ISIS fighter surrendered to the SDF along with his family after deserting the Islamic State in Raqqa.
Supported by an air cover from the US-led coalition, the SDF has so far captured more than 1500 km² in western Raqqa within the second phase of the Euphrates Wrath Operation, that started on December 10. During the first phase of Euphrates Wrath, that was launched on November 6, the SDF captured roughly 560 km² of land in northern Raqqa.
The SDF launched the second phase of the Euphrates Wrath Operation with the objective of securing Raqqa’s western countryside and Tabqa Dam, which bridges the Euphrates River. The long-term objective of Euphrates Wrath is the elimination of the Islamic State in its de facto capital, Raqqa city.
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[IsraelTimes] Officers in light-to-moderate condition after riders try to ram through a temporary roadblock north of Jenin.
Two Border Police officers were maimed early Tuesday evening in the northern West Bank, when several cycle of violences attempted to ram through a temporary roadblock set up by security forces.
A female officer was said to be in light-to-moderate condition, while a male officer suffered light injuries. They were treated by Magen David Adom medics and helicopters were dispatched to take them to hospital.
The temporary roadblock had been set up north of the town of Jenin, and just south of the Gilboa Crossing between the northern West Bank and Israel.
A police spokesperson said officers had flagged down four cycle of violences as they approached the roadblock. The four then attempted to swerve to bypass the checkpoint, with three succeeding and one -- carrying two riders -- hitting the officers.
The two riders were also hurt in the crash. A police spokeswoman said the two, also in their twenties, were apparently in moderate-to-serious condition. They were being taken to a hospital in the nearby Israeli town of Afula.
On Friday security forces shot and maimed a Paleostinian woman at the Qalandiya checkpoint in the West Bank as she tried to carry out a stabbing attack, police said.
[IsraelTimes] Weapons, ammunition and cash uncovered in refugee camps; Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, activists detained.
Israel’s security forces placed in durance vile Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! 34 Paleostinian terror suspects early Tuesday, including 12 people described by the IDF as Hamas activists.
The joint operation between Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet Security Agency and Border Police uncovered weapons, ammunition and large sums of money.
According to Paleostinian media reports, 10 people were arrested in the West Bank refugee camp of Balata in Nablus, nine in Beit Fajjar south of Bethlehem, five in Ramallah, four in Qalqilya, one in Jenin, north of Nablus, and five near Hebron.
An M-16-style gun and ammunition were uncovered in Balata. In Qalqilya thousands of shekels were discovered, which police suspect were intended to be used for terror activities.
In addition to the 12 suspected Hamas activists, the other 24 people arrested are suspected of involvement with terror activities, rioting and violence.
In a video from December 30, 2016, CNN used footage from Fallout’s hacking mini-game to show how “Russians” hack the United States.
This fact has been first spotted by by Reddit user “Poofylicious”, who put together the explainer:
US President Barack Obama’s decision to implement additional sanctions against Russia over unproven allegations about Moscow’s hacking efforts during the US Presidential Election has been already widely criticized. However, this has not stopped CNN using footage of a Fallout 4 computer to contribute to Obama’s effort to complicate the expected warming-up between Moscow and Washington as soon as Donald Trump officially enters the office.
Meanwhile, users already noted that it will be pretty hard for the Russians to hack the United States using the computers in Fallout 4. Computers in the video game are not connected to the internet: in this alternative history, the United States never makes it that far into the future.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
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#1
LOL. Epic Fail.
The 'hacking terminal' in Fallout 4 (and 3) are more a guessing game than anything else.
As shown in the article you are given 6-8 or more words interspread with special characters and you get set number of 'tries' to select the 'password' After each failed selection it will tell you how many characters in the selected word are correct and in the correct position. So if you think about it you can almost always figure out which is the right word. And even if you dont' and use up all your attempts, it resets itself and you can try again in 30 wecond wiht a new puzzle and password.
Almost as easy to crack as Hillary's email server.
There was even an android app which would figure it out for you.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Britannia’s ambassador to the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , Ivan Rogers, has resigned less than three months before the UK is due to trigger the process to leave the bloc, a source told AFP.
The BBC reported last month that Rogers had told UK ministers that EU countries believe a trade deal with Britannia might take 10 years to achieve -- a report rejected by Prime Minister Theresa May’s front man.
Rogers had been in his post since November 2013, having been prime minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... ’s Europe adviser.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Clearly they need a soon to be available Community Organizer.
Recorded Links Between Charities and Terrorists Treble, Reach All Time High
1 Jan 2017
[Breitbart] The Charity Commission for England and Wales, the government watchdog and regulator has reported a significant increase in the number of charities with suspected links to terrorist organisations. Speaking in an interview as he called for a new levy on
[Ynet] An Æthiopian court has sentenced 20 Moslems to prison after they were found guilty of trying to establish a state ruled by Sharia law and inciting violence.
They were charged under Æthiopia's controversial anti-terrorism law and convicted last month. All but one received prison terms of five and a half years. Two were journalists working for a Moslem radio station.
The state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate, citing the court ruling, said Tuesday that the 20 defendants also were found to be "participating in a movement to secure the release of another Moslem group that was under detention."
Moslems have long felt marginalized in Æthiopia and have carried out a number of protests since 2011. Some were met with force, and many protest leaders were enjugged Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) One soldier was killed and a civilian was wounded when an Islamic State suicide bomber blew himself up near a security checkpoint west of Ramadi, Anbar.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior, Saad Maan, said in a statement that the attack targeted a checkpoint at the “7th Kilometer” area.
Islamic State militants, maintaining control over some towns west of Anbar, have waged occasional attacks on civilians and security in the province, and Iraqi and US-led fighter jets respond with airstrikes on the extremist group’s hideouts at that area.
IS is apparently escalating its attacks at other areas outside Mosul, its last major stronghold in Iraq where it has been losing influence and ground since government and popular forces launched a campaign to retake the city last October. Observers believe attacks outside Mosul are designed to lessen security forces pressure there ad divert attention from defeats IS has been sustaining at the city.
The bombing in Anbar comes after a bloody Monday which saw similar attacks that killed dozens of civilians and security personnel in Baghdad and Salahuddin.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said Monday violence in Iraq left 19000 casualties in 2016, but said the count excludes deaths in Anbar during three months of that year.
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[Hurriyet Daily News] The first breaking point in Turkey’s policy against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was the raid on the Turkish Consulate General in Mosul, Iraq on June 11, 2014.
Up until then Ankara underestimated the ISIL threat, perhaps mixing this newly emerged (January 2013) Salafi-Jihadi group with earlier ones, including the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra. When the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) government in summer 2011 decided that there was no way they could convince the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus to come into terms with the Arab Spring-inspired rebels, it started to take a radical position to help the latter (mostly Muslim Brotherhood-based Islamist groups at the time), despite warnings from the opposition parties in Turkey about interfering in the politics of a neighboring country.
With the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt in a military coup in 2013, the Brotherhood-based spine of the Syria opposition was broken and quickly disintegrated, ultimately joining smaller but more armed and effective jihadi groups. Until the end of 2014 the jihadi groups took advantage of this situation, as well as Turkey’s lax border security policy and its training of “rebel forces” possibly infiltrated by more radical elements than Ankara realized. This all caused a huge “foreign fighters” problem.
Continued on Page 49
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[Hurriyet Daily News] On the afternoon of Jan. 1 a group of young men and women staged a brief public demonstration in a teahouse in Okmeydani, a working-class neighborhood of Istanbul, declaring that they would struggle to keep The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s secular system alive and not let the propagandists 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 the Levant (ISIS) or similar jihadist organizations recruit people in their area.
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[AyPee] United Nations observers are in hot water in Colombia over a video showing them dancing with leftist rebels while deployed to watch over the guerrillas as part of a peace deal.
The short video was shot by Spanish news agency EFE from inside a jungle camp in northern Colombia during a New Year's Eve party. It shows two men wearing blue vests with U.N. insignia dancing hip-to-hip with female guerrillas.
The images, dismissed by some as a folkish display of Colombians' love for revelry in even the most adverse circumstances, drew sharp rebuke from opponents of the peace deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
The U.N. mission in a statement late Monday said it would take appropriate measures.
"This behavior is inappropriate and doesn't reflect the values of professionalism and impartiality of the mission," it said without identifying the officials by name or nationality.
In New York, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday, "They're not happy with what they've seen and corrective action has been taken." He did not elaborate.
As part of a peace deal ratified last month hundreds of U.N.-sponsored observers, mostly from Latin American nations, are being deployed across Colombia. The U.N. mission is charged with receiving the weapons and providing periodic reports on the two sides' adherence to the peace deal that seeks to bring to an end decades of bloody fighting.
Aden, Jeddah- The Yemeni Popular Resistance seized on Monday a truck loaded with thermal rockets and RPG missiles on their way from Aden to Houthi rebels in the capital Sana’a.
The seizure of the weapons led to a controversy, after the man who transferred them said he had an official permit to carry out his mission.
Ibrahim Al-Halimi, commander of the military area where the arms were confiscated, said the truck contained anti-armored thermal missiles, several RPGs in addition to mortar rockets. The commander asserted that the truck was transferred to a safe area, refusing to give any details about the identities of the driver and his assistant.
The office of Yemeni Interior Minister Major General Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Qawsi denied on Monday the ministry had issued a permit for the truck to cross the checkpoints without being searched.
The ministry formed an investigating committee to look into the case of the loaded truck and to examine whether it actually carried arms, the party that facilitated its exit from Aden, in addition to the party that sent it.
Monday’s truck operation shed the light on the issue of arms smuggling in Yemen, especially that it involved areas controlled by the legitimate government.
The Commander of the Fourth Military Region, Major General Fadel Hassan, told Asharq Al-Awsat on Monday that Iran was still violating international laws and meddling in Yemen’s sovereignty through its repeated attempts to smuggle arms.
Hassan added that the Yemeni army was coordinating with the Arab Coalition to trace any smuggling attempt before arms enter the country.
He said Iran was benefiting from some militia-controlled ports, including al-Hudaydah port to smuggle arms and transfer them to frontlines with an attempt to strengthen the rebels’ military powers.
Jeddah- Operation Commander in Yemen Brigadier General Fadel Hassan stated that Iran continues to breach international laws and violate the Yemeni sovereignty through repetitive endeavors to smuggle loads of arms to Houthis and their ally, ousted Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Brigadier-General told Asharq al-Awsat that “the national army, in coordination with the Saudi-led Arab Coalition, is stopping these operations before they get into the country.” He added that Iran is using some ports to smuggle arms in a pursuit to reinforce military potentials of Houthis and their allies.
Operations of arms monitoring come under the military plan imposed by the army on entry points to cut supply to Houthis and Saleh as well as warfronts.
Hassan stressed that these weapons will have no influence on the pace of battles, especially that Houthis are suffering military weakness due to huge human losses during the recent battles.
“Government forces have seen, in a number of battlefronts, a considerable number of Africans fighting with the Houthis,” he added. “The army is coordinating with relevant authorities to put an end to exploitation of Africans through getting them involved in the war,” Hassan continued.
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces on Tuesday pressed new advances in the northern countryside of Raqqa city, taking three villages from ISIS after fierce fighting, the U.S. backed group said.
The coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters took villages of al-Dahlan, Arir and Hanhood north and west of al-Raqqa city, the de facto capital of the myrmidon group's self-declared caliphate.
The new advance will push SDF further to encircle Raqqa city as the northern and western countryside is almost taken from ISIS.
The YPG-led forces have been on the offensive in Raqqa province since early November, advancing with the aid of U.S.-led Arclight airstrikes. The operation is aimed at encircling and eventually retaking Raqqa.
The city is home to nearly 200,000 mostly Sunni Arabs and an estimated 5,000 ISIS fighters.
SDF fighters, with the support of U.S., French and British special forces, have driven ISIS from dozens of villages and farms in recent days and are now about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Euphrates dam.
The capture of the dam, which controls the flow of water to parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq, would deal a major blow to the myrmidon group, which has held the facility for more than two years. Behind the dam lies Lake Assad, which at 640 square kilometers (247 square miles), is Syria's largest reservoir.
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[Hurriyet Daily News] Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has accused the government of being responsible for the rise in jihadist terror in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and called on it to resign, after 39 people were killed in an attack in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Eve.
"You [the government] are a government that aids and abets terrorist organizations," Kilicdaroglu said on Dec. 3, speaking to CHP officials in the party’s weekly parliamentary group meeting.
Following the terrorist attack at the Reina nightclub on New Year’s Eve, the CHP leader slammed government for a lack of accountability and failing to prevent terrorist attacks.
"No one takes any responsibility. Nothing is clear. And the prime minister comes forward and says ’These kinds of terrorist attacks will continue.’ He does not even say they will prevent them," Kilicdaroglu said.
"Is this the way to rule a state? You should resign and admit that you cannot do it, admit that you cannot prevent terror," he added.
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A wheelchair-bound Algerian terrorist suspect with alleged links to Osama Bin Laden has won a 21-year legal battle to stay in the UK. The judge ruled that the threat of deportation had been bad for his mental health.
The government has repeatedly tried to expel the man, known only as ‘G’ for legal reasons, accusing him of helping send young British Muslims abroad to train as jihadists. However, Justice Collins said that living under the threat of deportation for so long has affected him mentally, quashing the Home Office’s refusal to give him indefinite leave to remain in Britain, according to the Telegraph.
That's just plain stupid...
The judge also removed government restrictions that had forced him to stay at his home address and report to a police station once a month. He will now be allowed to study Algebraic Thinking at the Open University.
And when he kills a bunch of folks, will the government then be allowed to restrain him?
G claimed asylum in the UK in August of 1995 using a fake French passport. The Home Office tried to deport him in 2001, saying he was a threat to national security. Officials claimed that he had supported an Algerian terror organization called the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, which is believed to have links to Bin Laden’s network.
The government said: “Your activities on behalf of the group and of extremist fighters in Chechnya include sponsoring young Muslims in the UK to go to Afghanistan to train for Jihad.”
The man had lost two previous appeals against deportation, but human rights laws prevented the government from returning him to Algeria.
However, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission has now found that the man no longer poses a risk to national security.
Will they take him home with them?
The ruling is another blow for Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who lost a series of court cases involving the deportation of suspected terrorists last year.
A Home Office spokesperson told the Telegraph that the government is now considering its options.
#9
Don't Europe's poor bureaucrats know
That Muslims do not read Rousseau?
That rescued from drowning
And gowned, they'll squat, frowning,
Austere Boudus sauvé des eaux?
[RT] A woman was beaten at a marketplace in India by men who allegedly attempted to molest her. The victim of the assault has reportedly threatened to shoot herself if her attackers are not brought to justice.
Video of the incident, which took place in Uttar Pradesh in India’s Mainpuri district, shows the woman in a brawl with a group of men when another man approaches with a large stick and proceeds to strike her with it.
The woman reportedly asked men at the market for directions before they attempted to grope her and remove her dupatta (head covering). When she resisted, she was beaten with a stick and the men shouted abusive language at her.
The woman’s husband was also struck, according to the reports, while her daughter witnessed the incident.
In the video, the woman can be seen bleeding and is reported to have sustained head injuries. She registered a complaint with police and reportedly threatened to shoot herself if the culprits were not placed in durance vile Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! Three people are being sought by police in relation to the incident, an official told The Indian Express. One of the suspects, Anand Yadav, was arrested Wednesday morning.
[Daily Caller] The NAACP’s Alabama chapter stormed the Mobile office of Republican Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions Tuesday demanding he withdraw as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee.
NAACP President Cornell Brooks stated the organization has no plans to leave the senator’s office until Sessions "withdraws as AG nominee or we’re arrested."
Arrest and be damned to you. Have you not been paying attention to the many Black Democratic politicians and other eminent African-Americans who have stood up to speak about their positive interactions with the gentleman in question, and how they're ashamed they didn't speak up when the Democrats smeared him so successfully last time?
Brooks released a statement following the tweet of their sit-in protest at Sessions’ office saying in part: "Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is among the worst people who could serve as our nation’s Attorney General." Doing what they do best. Sitting on their indolent arses and doing nothing.
#1
the NAACP certainly knows that many Blacks in Alabama have testimonials saying that Sessions is an honorable and decent person. Those people who have made these testimonials are probably getting intimidating letters and emails from the NAACP and various leftist thugs.
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#2
Proving to many people that they did the right thing in voting for trump.
#3
Ironically the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) hasn't been for the actual Advancement of Colored People for a number of decades.
Like the Congressional Black Caucus and the KKK its just another racist Democrat Party Organization.
#8
They got the publicity they wanted and further smeared one of the few men in Alabama who stepped up and fought for their rights. Bugwits.
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#9
...I dealt with the NAACP once, in 1991, when I was an Air Force recruiter. The USAF was panicking about not having enough AA recruits, so we were told to drum up some business. Among other things, I contacted the NAACP and the Urban League to see if I might speak to them as what we called 'Centers of Influence'.
The UL never did call me back. The president of the local NAACP chapter called me back (while my flight supervisor, who was black) was in the office, and proceeded to rip me a new one. He could never recommend to young AA men and women that they join an organization that not only treated them disrespectfully but would also send them to their deaths so white kids could go to college.
The boss - who had been giving me grief about dealing with these organizations and how much help they would be to us - never said another word.
So you can imagine my attitude towards this particular group of Useful Idiots.
Mike
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Humanitarian partners working in Somalia are seeking 864 million U.S. dollars to reach 3.9 million people with urgent life-saving assistance by the end of 2017.
Also, the local UN people need funding for dinner, housemaids, and white Toyota Land Cruisers...
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) revealed that on Monday through a newly-developed Humanitarian Response Plan for Somalia for 2017.
“The plan has been developed in consideration of and in complementarity with ongoing and planned development programming,” the OCHA said in its latest report.
Developed within the framework of a three-year humanitarian strategy for Somalia for 2016-2018, the response plan for 2017 aims to save lives, ensure the protection of the most vulnerable, strengthen resilience, support the provision of basic services and enable durable solutions, according to the OCHA.
Five million Somalis, or more than 40 percent of the country’s population, do not have sufficient food, according to a UN-backed assessment report issued earlier this year. The report reveals the number includes over 300,000 children under five who are acutely malnourished, among them over 50,000 children who are severely malnourished.
Ask the Euros...
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
Ask the Euros...
I would say "ask the Paleos", since they seem to be running the UN nowadays.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The Lebanese Army Intelligence Directorate indicated, in a communiqué on Tuesday, that it had referred to the judiciary court a terror ring jugged Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... and linked to Shadi Mawlaw, a commander from al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front who is still on the lam inside the Paleostinian refugee camp of Ain-el-Hilwe.
The ring, which inlcudes 11 members, was planning to dispatch booby-trapped cars to the southern suburbs of Beirut (Dahiyeh), in addition to killing civilians and military officers, at the behest of Mawlawi.
Following interrogations, the army raided several places in Tripoli and seized bombs and belts, and munitions.
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Moroccan authorities thwarted an illegal immigration attempt by nearly 1000 Sub-Saharan nationals who tried to jump the six-meter barbed wire fence of the city of Ceuta. The operation led by Moroccan authorities succeeded in foiling this mass attempt to storm the Spanish occupied enclave and resulted in the injury of 50 members of the Moroccan security forces, of whom 10 are severely wounded, the interior ministry said in a statement.
“From now on those making such attempts will be presented before the competent judicial authorities who will decree their expulsion from the kingdom (of Morocco) or heavier penalties, according to the gravity of the act,” added the statement.
Spanish authorities, for their part, said that two would-be migrants were allowed into Ceuta to be taken care of at a local hospital while the rest were returned to Morocco.
Spanish sources also said that five Spanish policemen were wounded as Sub-Saharans used rocks and metal bars in order to break through the gates of the fence.
On December 9, more than 400 migrants attempted to break through the fence and on January 1, 52 would-be migrants were rescued off shore Malaga.
Ceuta has been under Spanish occupation since the 16th century. Morocco claims the city along with the other Spanish occupied enclave of Mellilia as an integral part of its national territory.
Hand them over, Spain, and you have two fewer problems...
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ADEN, Yemen: Sixteen Yemeni pro-government fighters were killed on Tuesday in separate clashes with Houthi and Al-Qaeda rebels in the south of the war-torn country, military sources and officials said.
Forces supporting Yemen’s President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, are fighting both the Houthi rebels who control parts of the country including the capital Sanaa and jihadists in the south.
Al-Qaeda fighters on Tuesday ambushed an army unit on its way to conduct an operation against a jihadist position east of the coastal town of Shaqra in the southern province of Abyan, security sources said.
Local officials said 11 soldiers and 15 Al-Qaeda fighters were killed in the attack.
Al-Qaeda fighters seized two military vehicles and weapons, security sources said.
Meanwhile, in the neighboring province of Shabwa, five pro-Hadi fighters including an officer were killed along with nine Houthi rebels near the town of Baihan, loyalist military sources said.
Baihan is held by the Shiite Houthis and their allies, supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Al-Qaeda and the rival Daesh group have taken advantage of chaos in Yemen to reinforce their presence in the Arabian Peninsula country.
Yemen’s war has killed more than 7,000 people since March 2015, according to the United Nations.
Let the neo-Ottomans enjoy being arrogant for a few more weeks.
[ARA News] Qamishli – The new US Administration should stop supporting Syrian Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said on Tuesday.
The Turkish PM also said that only Turkey is fighting ISIS, while the US and its allies “do nothing”.
“The world talks about Daesh [ISIS] but it does not fight it. It is only Turkey that fights against Daesh. The United States and others do nothing. They just supply the [Syrian Kurds] with weapons,” said Yildirim on 3 January, in a weekly parliamentary address to his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) members.
Backed by the US-led coalition, Kurdish YPG fighters and allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have expelled Islamic State’s (ISIS) militants from major areas in northern Syria, including Hasakah, Kobane and Manbij. Currently, the same forces are combatting ISIS in Raqqa–the Caliphate’s de facto capital– as part of the US-backed Euphrates Wrath Operation.
“The Kurds proved to be one of the strongest forces fighting ISIS and other Islamist groups. The United States is aware of that, and that’s why the US support for the Kurdish forces cannot stop as long as ISIS exists in Syria and Iraq,” political analyst Shiyar Serdar told ARA News.
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[Hurriyet Daily News] The Turkish Chess Federation (TSF) stated on Jan. 3 that it has launched legal proceedings against a Turkish televangelist who recently claimed that playing chess is more sinful than gambling.
“The remarks of the person in question on chess in a video are unacceptable and have drawn a reaction from our community. Legal proceedings have been launched into the baseless comments and evaluations that affect thousands of our players and families, at a time when we most need the unity, peace and the philosophy of chess,” the TSF said in a written statement.
It also pointed to the history of chess in Turkey by giving examples of support from a number of statesmen.
“Chess is a sport that has been played by many statesmen and leaders on this soil throughout history. Our precious statesmen have provided the biggest support to make Turkey a chess country, and they continue to contribute to spread this love with their words, the chess sets they deliver, and the events they attend,” it added.
The statement came in response to Ahmet Mahmut Ünlü, popularly known as “Cübbeli Ahmet Hoca” (Robbed Ahmet Hoca), who recently raised eyebrows by claiming that chess players were “cursed” and that “most people who played chess are liars.”
“Playing chess is worse than gambling and eating pork ... People who play chess are more prone to lying than others. People who play chess may not say the shahada [declaration of Islamic belief] while they are dying,” Ünlü said.
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#1
Just call the 'evangelist' a Gulenist - he'll be dead within a week.
CAIRO: A report alleging human rights violations in Yemen by Houthi rebels has recorded 949 cases of damaged public property and 2,673 instances of private property damage, the Saudi Embassy here reported on Tuesday.
The damage varied between complete and partial by bombardment from Houthi militants and loyalists of deposed President Abdullah Saleh against civilian homes and government and private facilities, according to a statement released on Tuesday by the embassy.
The statement also said that Houthi rebels attacked and looted facilities. They also occupied some civilian buildings to be used as military barracks.
The report recorded 3,027 cases in which Houthi militias and Saleh loyalists allegedly undermined the powers of the state — which included financial, administrative imbalances, intervention in the tasks, issuance of appointments outside the framework of law, exclusion of some civil servants from their jobs and their positions, creating private prisons and checkpoints — and other acts of looting and tampering with public money during the first half of 2016.
The statement said the Houthis and Saleh militias are using heavy weapons against populated areas. As a result, more than 1,529 people were killed, including 102 women and 221 children in the governorate of Taiz.
Saudi Arabia and coalition forces are keen to use targeted, sophisticated and high-cost smart weapons to avoid civilian loss of life.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said on Sept. 7 during a speech at Chatham House Institute: “There is a lot of criticism to our (military) operations in Yemen, but the matter that is not understood by many people is that we run it with the utmost care and caution.”
He pointed out: “We have a highly professional air force and high-precision weapons. We try as much as possible to avoid causing any civilian casualties, and when accidents occur or questions arise, we do the necessary investigation and then work on changing the mechanisms we follow in order to avoid repetition. But the same criticisms do not address the Houthis and Saleh rebels who recruit children aged 9, 10, 11 and 12. They indiscriminately shell towns and villages, imposing blockades on them. They are starving people and stealing the humanitarian aid to use it as a bargaining tool in order to make political progress.”
He added: “We are working under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations Security Council Resolution (2216), which condemned the Houthis for their role in the seizure of the government and calls on them to withdraw from the territories they occupied and requires them to hand over their weapons. But they flagrantly violated all these demands, and yes I do not see any criticism to them.”
The embassy’s statement stressed that the achievements of “Restoring Hope” and “Decisive Storm” operations could not be ignored. The coalition has succeeded in liberating more than 80 percent of the land of Yemen and handed it over to the legitimate government.
The “Decisive Storm” managed to destroy the Houthi air force and more than 95 percent of ballistic missiles captured by the militias, in addition to destroying 98 percent of tanks and armored vehicles seized by them.
The Arab coalition has also secured the international shipping lines across Bab Al-Mandab Strait, which led to the elimination of alleged Iranian influence in Yemen and the end of the threat posed by the Houthi militias against the Kingdom.
Have we mentioned that war is hell? Thank goodness they are going thirsty in winter, instead of the blazing Syrian summer.
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Residents of Damascus are scrambling for clean water after the government attacked rebels holding the city's main source in a nearby valley, leading to an accidental outage that has stretched on for nearly two weeks.
The cut-off is a major challenge to the government's effort throughout the nearly 6-year-old civil war to keep the capital as insulated as possible from the effects of the conflict tearing apart much of the country.
"I have stopped cleaning the house, washing dishes or clothes. We no longer take showers," said Mona Maqssoud, a 50-year-old resident of Damascus. She said residents have relied on water tankers that come by occasionally and give 20 liters (5 gallons) of water to each house, but that hasn't been enough.
"We begged the drivers (to return) to our neighborhood, but they refused."
The cut-off, since Dec. 22, is the longest Damascus has seen, say residents, who are accustomed to intermittent outages.
The opposition has long controlled Wadi Barada, the valley northwest of Damascus through which the river of the same name flows to the capital. The Barada River and its source, the Ain al-Fijeh spring, supply 70 percent of the water for Damascus and its environs.
The government and the opposition had previously had an understanding to keep water services running. But that modus vivendi ended when forces of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... and his allies Hezbollah attacked the valley, home to some 100,000 people.
The two sides blame each other for the cut-off.
An activist-run media collective in the Barada Valley said government and Russian aircraft had bombed the Ain el-Fijeh water processing facility, puncturing its fuel depots and contaminating the water stream. The collective said the plant's electrical control systems had been destroyed as well. Images showed the roof of the facility collapsed into its main water basin. An activist with the group, Abu Mohammed al-Bardawi, said it would take at least two months to get the facilities working again.
Damascus officials said they were forced to shut off the water after opposition forces poured gasoline into the river. The government denied attacking the water processing facility, saying it would not set out to harm its own population. Still, it would not be the first time it strikes its own facilities: government strikes hit pumping stations in the northern city of Aleppo in April, September, and November.
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[Hurriyet Daily News] An Indian minister faced a severe backlash on Jan. 3 after he criticized women for dressing "like westerners" at a New Year’s eve celebration where a mob allegedly carried out a series of sex assaults.
Although police have yet to charge anyone in connection with the violence on Dec. 31 night in Bangalore, local media have carried testimony and photos of victims cowering from their attackers or fleeing for safety.
Police say they are now trawling through CCTV footage to see if they can identify any of the attackers.
But a minister with responsibility for policing in the southern state of Karnataka, whose largest city is Bangalore, said the "unfortunate" attacks were a consequence of women wearing western clothing.
"A large number of youngsters gathered -- youngsters who are almost like westerners," Karnataka’s Home Minister G Parameshwara told The Times Now television network, speaking in English.
"They try to copy westerners not only in mindset, but even the dressing, so some disturbance, some girls are harassed, these kind of things do happen."
Parameshwara, who later claimed to have been misquoted, was widely condemned for his televised comments, with the central government’s junior home minister Kiren Rijiju describing them as "irresponsible."
"We can’t allow the shameful act of #MassMolestation go unpunished," he said on Twitter, adding that women’s safety is a "must in a civilized society."
Lalitha Kumaramangalam, who heads India’s National Commission for Women, said Parameshwara should resign over his comments.
"I want to ask this minister: are Indian men so pathetic and weak that when they see a woman in western clothes on a day of revelry, they get out of control?
"When will the Indian men learn to respect women? The minister should apologize to the women of the country and resign," Kumaramangalam told the Press Trust of India news agency.
India has been shamed by shocking levels of sexual assault against women, which came into sharp focus in December 2012 when a student was gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi and later died of her injuries, leading to the official cancellation of that year’s New Year celebrations.
Some of the country’s most senior politicians have been accused of casual misogyny, with the leader of one political party widely condemned for brushing off the December 2012 attack by saying "boys will be boys."
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[RUDAW.NET] What is the plan of Iraq’s Sunnis for after ISIS?
Osama al-Nujaifi: ISIS was certainly a big test for the Iraqis and crashed almost all past ideas and notions especially about relations between the country’s different communities. I believe we will have to have something new and not return to what it was like before 2014. A situation that will give everyone a chance to participate in and have a say in governance of economy and security but under the umbrella of one Iraq and one constitution. Our only option for this is to regionalize the provinces not a region for Sunnis, and we hope the southern provinces also take the same path so that is going to be a federal Iraq which will be a cornerstone of stability.
What if it is not possible to form a region?
We certainly want to abide by and honor the constitution on the condition that everyone else would do so. But if it is violated by one party then there will be no meaning left for mutual relations on an equal basis and will force us to take another path. But the current constitution gives much room to freedoms and local powers, one is for the prime minister as commander in chief of all armed forces to give similar authority to the provinces.
There is talk of a Sunni-Shiite list for the coming elections.
That idea has been touched on, but we are working on forming a large umbrella for all the important Sunni groups with one charter which will then be able to represent the Sunnis and could form alliances with Kurds and Shiites. This will lead to stability and true alliances in the country but will we be really able to reach that level at this time?
What will happen to the initiative of the Shiite national alliance to normalize relations with the Sunnis?
That initiative is unrealistic and was suggested at the wrong time. It does not have the full consensus of all Shiites either. Shiite leaders do not see it a national project for all and see it as something of the Supreme Islamic Council only. In the meantime there is no trust lost between us as we have signed many agreements with them in the past that have all been violated. Seven agreements were reached in total in the past and this one will become another one of them. The Shiites are now fully running the country by themselves and this initiative of reconciliation is doomed to fail from the start. And I guess it can be done only once other domestic issues have been resolved.
Two Sunni leaders, Rafe al-Esawi and Atheel al-Nujaifi visited the United States and later said that the US was supporting a Sunni region in Iraq. Is that a possibility?
That issue was not raised and what has been discussed, including in a meeting of my own with the US president in 2012 and 2014 was regionalizing the provinces. They agreed at first as long as it did not conflict with the constitution and then they were concerned over the distribution of resources and wealth. To be honest the current administration made many errors with regards to Iraq and we hope the new administration has a better understanding and keep in mind the rights of all Iraqis.
Will it be all right by the Sunnis if they have guarantees from the US and Iran?
That will not happen. Now, we are asking for an international convention for regional countries such as The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , Iran, 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 Jordan as well as world superpowers as the US and Russia. And a meeting of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders could become a stepping stone for such a convention, but the issue is that internal agreements and deals are more easily ignored and violated.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Via Boris Rozhin:
[WashingtonPost] Video games are everywhere. Forty percent of U.S. adults own game consoles; many more play on their mobiles. According to some reports, most gamers are women. Digital games now rake in more annual revenues than movie box-office ticket sales.
So are games affecting the way humans think about the world and about each other?
Researchers have shown that entertainment media, like movies, can shift public opinion and shape behaviors. But there is much less research on the impact of video games. There’s some political science research on the link between the military and the entertainment industry, dubbed the “military-entertainment complex.” There’s also work on game play during the 2014 Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But our knowledge of how digital games influence public opinion, public policy or political culture is limited. So we investigated.
The first step in answering this question is to look at the enemies that players encounter in digital games. To use a more precise term, we look at how enemies are “framed” — how games package information that resonates with audiences. In an article (currently ungated) published in International Studies Review, we turn to a popular genre, First Person Shooters (FPS), in which a player armed with a weapon seeks to destroy an enemy. FPS players experience conflict and violence firsthand, albeit simulated. But representations of the bad guys in video games could shape players’ perceptions of who is a threat. More at the link
#2
They use Russians, who are white and often blond, because they dare not use jihadis. In a simiilar vein, a recent PJ Media piece suggests Muslim money is blocking Hollywood interest in acquiring Daniel Silva's best selling Gideon Allon thrillers from reaching the screen. If so, the continued low price of oil may soon make such thought-control efforts unaffordable.
#3
All true comments, but on the other hand even saying "God bless you" in Russian sounds evil, so of course the game producers jump on board... that and the Russians are the only worthy opponents out there.
[Ynet] Fear of Islamist attacks kept foreign tourists away from Paris and the Riviera last year, costing French hoteliers an estimated 650 million euros ($675 million) in lost revenue, the head of hotel research firm MKG told Reuters on Tuesday.
Activity picked up slightly in the last quarter as hotels, notably in Paris, slashed prices during the year-end festivities and a stronger dollar brought back U.S. tourists.
Trade fairs such as Le Bourget air show, held every other year and next due in June, should help hotel room demand this year though a wait-and-see approach before the spring presidential elections could weigh on business.
"2017 can only be better than 2016 though we are unlikely to return to 2014's levels," MKG's Georges Panayotis said by phone.
[Ynet] A Bulgarian court has ordered a Dutch terror suspect who was arrested on a Bulgarian-Turkey border crossing to be extradited to the Netherlands. Police arrested Helena Soontjens as she crossed into Bulgaria on Dec. 21 at the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint at the border with Turkey. She was detained on a European arrest warrant issued by Dutch authorities. On Tuesday, the 33-year-old Dutch national made no statement before the district court in the southern town of Haskovo.
Bulgaria's state-run news agency BTA said she was investigated in the Netherlands for terrorism after a letter she wrote and left in her room said that she was on her way to Syria to join the Islamic State group.
This is the same protest where the rioters set part of the center on fire, according to the Daily Mail, below.
[Ynet] Italian police early Tuesday quelled a protest by occupants of a migrant center near Venice that left fearful workers at the center barricaded inside offices. Carabinieri paramilitary police in Chioggia, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) east of the Cona migrant center, said the protest ended peacefully after a few hours. Some migrants told Italian television they were protesting the alleged delay in medical assistance Monday for an ill 25-year-old woman from Ivory Coast. She died shortly after an ambulance arrived. The Italian news agency ANSA quoted Venice Prosecutor Lucia D'Alessandro as saying an autopsy indicated a pulmonary blood clot caused the woman's death.
Matteo Salvini: Europe ‘Soft’, Islam is Incompatible with Our Values
3 Jan 2017
“If you want to live in peace, you have to prepare for war” Lega Nord leader Matteo Salvini has said, stating that Europe must rethink its migration policies following the terror attack at a Christmas market in Berlin.
More Asylum Requests in Germany than Rest of EU Combined, Bundestag VP Says Germany’s Migrant Crisis Is ‘Not Over’
3 Jan 2017
Germany received more asylum requests in 2016 than the rest of the European Union (EU) combined. In response to the report, the Bundestag vice-president warned Germany’s migrant crisis was not over.
‘Next Pope’ Says Trump Could Be Like ‘Best President’ Reagan
3 Jan 2017
The Archbishop of Vienna, who is tipped to be the next Pope, has implied the election of Donald Trump is a good thing as Ronald Reagan turned out to be “certainly one of the best presidents the U.S. ever had”.
Young Migrants Wreak New Year’s Eve Havoc in Bavarian City
3 Jan 2017
While much of Germany was at relative peace on New Year’s Eve
...peace being defined as migrant crimes ignored and unrecorded, or prevented by overwhelming and expensive police presence...
the Bavarian city of Augsburg was not, as migrants carried out random acts of violence and sexual assault. Police in Augsburg say that migrants were responsible for several incidents
Sex Attacks Plague Austria’s New Year’s Eve Celebrations
3 Jan 2017
Emergency services were inundated Saturday night across Austria as multiple reports of sex assaults have emerged and many were committed by young men described as having a foreign appearance.
‘Insecurity’ Drives Soaring Number of Belgians to Apply for Gun Licenses
3 Jan 2017
The number of Belgians applying for firearms permits has skyrocketed, with applications in one major province more than doubling in just five years, according to the authorities.
France Claims ‘No Incident’ After 1,000 Cars Torched on New Year’s Eve
3 Jan 2017
French authorities have been accused of a cover-up after claiming New Year’s Eve “went off without any major incident” despite more than 1,000 cars being torched in arson attacks.
Revealed: 1,000-Man Mob Attack Police, Set Germany’s Oldest Church Alight on New Year’s Eve
3 Jan 2017
At New Year’s Eve celebrations in Dortmund, a mob of more than 1,000 men chanted ‘Allahu Akhbar’, launched fireworks at police and set fire to an historic church.
Migrants Setting Blood, Faeces ‘Traps’ for Prison Staff
2 Jan 2017
Language classes and the recruiting of ‘Islam scientists’ are among measures announced by North Rhine-Westphalia’s (NRW) justice ministry to combat the rising number of ‘disgust attacks’ in prisons by Maghreb migrants.
Italian refugee centre set ablaze and 25 staff barricaded inside a building after the death of a young Ivory Coast woman at cramped base designed for 15 migrants which holds 1,500
03/01/17
Migrants barricaded camp staff members inside a reception and set part of their camp on fire in the Cona, Italy in a protest over living conditions. Photo shows the Cona camp near Venice.
This is the same protest that "ended peacefully after a few hours", according to Ynet, above.
'I was so afraid. I thought today was the end': Footage shows terrified children among 112 migrants rescued from an overcrowded rubber dinghy in rough sea off the Libyan coast
03/01/17
The rescue crew on board a former fishing trawler intercepted the migrants on board a highly overcrowded rubber dingy as it attempted to cross the Mediterranean from Libya.
Germany to fast-track deportation of failed asylum seekers after Tunisian, 24, killed 12 people at a Berlin Christmas market despite having no right to stay in the country
03/01/17
Interior minister Thomas de Maizière (pictured) said the government needs 'more powers' to get failed asylum seekers on planes more quickly
Heavy gunfight broke out between Kenyan defense forces (KDF), along with Somali National Army (SNA) and Al shabaab militants in Gedo region, south west of the country on Tuesday.
SNA and KDF forces have engaged with Al shabaab militants in a shoot out in the outskirts of Busar area, 40Km east of the border town of El Wak, leaving 1 soldier and 9 militants dead.
A senior SNA officer told Radio Shabelle the allied troops seized Busar from the Al shabaab militants during the offensive which began early on Tuesday. Al shabaab is yet to release its own statement concerning the Somali military claim.
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The Iraqi troops liberated on Tuesday Ma’ared area and a shopping mall on the eastern coast of Mosul city from ISIL terrorist group. The advance was reported in a statement which added that the Iraqi forces raised the national flags over the area’s buildings.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi Federal Police forces killed at least 50 Islamic State militants in eastern Mosul on Tuesday as operations continue to recapture the extremist group’s last stronghold in Iraq.
A statement by the police service said the militants were killed as the forces stormed the districts of al-Mithaq and al-Shaimaa.
Earlier, Iraqi army forces stormed on the “Industrial district”, also in eastern Mosul.
A statement by the Defense Ministry’s War Medi Cell said the army’s elite Counter-Terrorism Forces are currently engaged in violent fights with IS militants in the district, saying that the area could be fully recaptured within hours.
The developments come as the government forces, backed by a US-led aerial cover, entered Thursday a second phase of operations that launched in October to retake Iraq’s second largest city which fell to IS in 2014.
Iraqi commanders said Sunday they recaptured 60 percent of the city’s eastern section. IS still maintains hideouts in the west close to its strongholds in Syria, but Iraqi generals and allied militia leaders say the group has become isolated from Syria and Iraq.
Security officials estimate the number of remaining IS combatants by 6000. But those are fighting against at least 100.000 government and militia soldiers.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Saturday the battle for Mosul was entering a “decisive” stage, and predicted in December that the operations could realize final victory within two months.
Liberating Mosul, IS last outstanding stronghold in Iraq, could deal a final fatal blow to group’s influence in the country.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi fighter jets destroyed Islamic State warfare utilities in eastern Mosul on Tuesday as operations continue to retake the city from the extremist group.
Abdul-Amr Yarallah, commander of Operation We Are Coming Nineveh, said in a statement that airstrikes destroyed IS’s so-called hisbah (Islamic vigilantism) office on the road between eastern Mosul and Tal Afar town in the west. The strikes also destroyed booby-trapping workshops, arms storehouses, an IS-run oil station and booby-trapped cars in nearly five districts in the eastern section, according to the military official.
Earlier on Tuesday, army and police forces stormed three districts and claimed to have killed 50 IS militants.
The developments come as the government forces, backed by a US-led aerial cover, entered Thursday a second phase of operations that launched in October to retake Iraq’s second largest city which fell to IS in 2014.
Iraqi commanders said Sunday they recaptured 60 percent of the city’s eastern section. IS still maintains hideouts in the west close to its strongholds in Syria, but Iraqi generals and allied militia leaders say the group has become isolated from Syria and Iraq.
Security officials estimate the number of remaining IS combatants by 6000. But those are fighting against at least 100.000 government and militia soldiers.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Saturday the battle for Mosul was entering a “decisive” stage, and predicted in December that the operations could realize final victory within two months.
Liberating Mosul, IS last outstanding stronghold in Iraq, could deal a final fatal blow to group’s influence in the country.
The situation in the city forced nearly 150.000 civilians to flee to refugee camps, according to the government.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Federal Police chief, Raed Shaker Jawdat announced on Tuesday, that the Rapid Intervention Forces managed to destruct the headquarters of Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of Caliphate), in addition to destroying explosives factory and drones headquarters, in eastern Mosul.
Jawdat said in a press statement, “Federal Police’s Rapid Intervention Forces managed, at noon today, to destruct the Islamic State’s headquarters of the so-called Jund al-Khilafa of Wilayat Ninewa.”
“Security forces also destroyed an explosives factory and drones headquarters belonging to the Islamic State in al-Mithaq neighborhood, in eastern Mosul,” Jawdat added.
The second phase of the battle to retake Mosul was launched in December 29, 2016, where security forces resumed their joint military operations in all axes, and liberated many villages and areas in the eastern side of Mosul.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Media officials with the Ministry of Defense announced on Tuesday liberating the area of exhibitions and the commercial complex in the eastern side of Mosul.
The officials said in a statement, “Forces from the Counter-Terrorism Service managed to liberate the area of exhibitions and the commercial complex, south of Ta’mim neighborhood, in the eastern side of Mosul.”
“The security forces raised Iraqi flag over the buildings of these areas,” the statement added.
Earlier today, media officials with the Ministry of Defense announced liberating the Industrial area, “Mercedes” company and the flour mill in al-Karama neighborhood, in eastern Mosul.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) A local source in Nineveh Province revealed that the so called media committee’s official of the Islamic state was killed, along with two of his aides, in clashes in al-Karama neighborhood, east of Mosul, Alsumaria News reported on Tuesday.
The source said, “The media committee’s official of the Islamic State was killed in clashes with security forces in al-Karama neighborhood, east of Mosul, along with two of his aides.”
“The Islamic State pushed dozens of his media members in the direct clashes with security forces, in order to prepare pictorial reports for Amaq Agency, the key media arm of the extremist group,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
Earlier today, media officials with the Ministry of Defense announced liberating the Industrial area, Mercedes Company and the flour mill in al-Karama neighborhood, in eastern Mosul.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Media officials with the Ministry of Defense announced on Tuesday, that Rapid Intervention Forces liberated al-Mithaq neighborhood in the eastern side of Mosul, and raised Iraqi flag over its buildings.
The officials said in a statement, “Rapid Intervention Forces managed, at noon today, to liberate al-Mithaq neighborhood in the eastern side of the city of Mosul.”
“Rapid Intervention Forces inflicted heavy human and material losses on the Islamic State, as well as raising Iraqi flag over the buildings of the neighborhood,” the statement added.
The second phase of the battle to retake Mosul was launched in December 29, 2016, where security forces resumed their joint military operations in all axes, and liberated many villages and areas in the eastern side of Mosul.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Iraq doesn't announce their own casualties.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/04/2017 8:13
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#2
Garth - if you want to keep up with the latest rumors and unfiltered press releases from the fight against ISIS in Mosul or Syria - this website is good - isis.liveuamap.com - maps the info as well.
Establishing... what do they call it? Oh yes -- dominance.
[FreeBeacon] A delegation of Republican senators is moving forward with an effort to freeze some funding to the State Department until the U.S. embassy in Israel is formally moved to Jerusalem, according to new legislation.
The legislation comes as the Obama administration continues to face criticism over its behind-the-scenes effort to forward a United Nations resolution condemning Israel. The Obama administration, like previous administrations, does not formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city and has worked to stymie efforts to move the U.S. embassy there.
While Congress first approved legislation to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in 1995, the new bill threatens to cut State Department funding until the relocation is complete.
The effort is being spearheaded by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), and Dean Heller (R., Nev.), all of whom support efforts by the incoming Trump administration to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem after years of debate.
“Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel,” Cruz said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s vendetta against the Jewish state has been so vicious that to even utter this simple truth—let alone the reality that Jerusalem is the appropriate venue for the American embassy in Israel—is shocking in some circles.”
“But it is finally time to cut through the double-speak and broken promises and do what Congress said we should do in 1995: formally move our embassy to the capital of our great ally Israel,” Cruz said.
The legislation orders the White House to identify Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which the Obama administration has refused to do. The bill will freeze a significant portion of the State Department’s funding until it completes the relocation.
In the past, the Obama White House has been caught scrubbing captions on official photographs that labeled Jerusalem as part of Israel. The administration also was entangled in a Supreme Court case when it refused to permit an American family to list its child’s birthplace as “Jerusalem, Israel.”
Heller said the legislation could help repair America’s relationship with Israel, which has become strained under the Obama administration.
“For years, I’ve advocated for America’s need to reaffirm its support for one of our nation’s strongest allies by recognizing Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel,” Heller said in a statement. “It honors an important promise America made more than two decades ago but has yet to fulfill. While administrations come and go, the lasting strength of our partnership with one of our strongest allies in the Middle East continues to endure.”
Rubio also championed the bill in a statement, saying it will finally close loopholes that have permitted the Obama administration to ignore congressional calls to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital.
“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state of Israel, and that’s where America’s embassy belongs,” Rubio said. “It’s time for Congress and the president-elect to eliminate the loophole that has allowed presidents in both parties to ignore U.S. law and delay our embassy’s rightful relocation to Jerusalem for over two decades.”
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
A delegation of Republican senators is moving forward with an effort to freeze some funding to the State Department
Would be nice if the headline matched the story...
[ISWRESEARCH.BLOGSPOT] 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 al-Sham (ISIS) poses an evolving threat to the U.S., its allies, and its broader interests. Its approach to information warfare has represented a key component of its overall strategy, including during the period it has faced sustained pressure. ISIS has suffered significant setbacks on the ground, yet has demonstrated the ability to adapt.
ISIS will likely maintain the capacity to align its military and information operations (IO) in the coming years. Continuing conflicts and the plodding effort to address the underlying conditions where it has taken root will likely help ISIS retain physical sanctuary and command and control capability in Iraq, Syria, and North Africa, even if it loses control of major cities.
ISIS’s IO campaign has supported multiple objectives, including control over territory, coercion of populations, and recruitment. This campaign has enabled ISIS’s survival and execution of international terror attacks. It may ultimately usher in a "Virtual Caliphate" ‐ a radicalized community organized online ‐ that empowers the global Salafi-jihadi movement and that could operate independently of ISIS.
This "Virtual Caliphate," the emergence of which becomes more likely the longer ISIS’s physical caliphate exists, would represent a unique challenge to American national security. Other hostile actors, beyond ISIS and the global Salafi-jihadi movement, are also adopting elements of a broader IO campaign, highlighting the requirement for the U.S. to formulate a determined response.
The U.S. possesses inherent advantages, including material resources, military strength and convening power, with which to confront this evolving threat. It also has challenges to overcome, including the lack of a government-wide strategy ‐ supported by the necessary resources and proper bureaucratic organization ‐ to counter enemy IO.
The U.S. should continue to counter ISIS and other enemies in this arena by focusing on rolling them back on the ground, degrading their technical capabilities and other means they employ to reach their intended audiences, and helping facilitate the emergence of compelling counter-narratives amenable to American interests.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
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Somali troops backed by African Union forces (AMISOM) have retaken control of a key village, located 30KM away from Hudur, the regional capital of Bakool province on Tuesday. The allied troops entered the area following brief clashes with Al shabaab militants. Sources said several soldiers and militants have been killed in the offensive in Moro-gabey village.
Somali military officers said they will keep up the attacks against Al shabaab, until they secure the recapture of the whole rural areas under the militants.
After which they'll leave and let the Shaboobs have the area once again, just like before...
Al shabaab pushed back from several towns and villages in Bakool region following offensives by joint troops from Somali National Army (SNA) and AU troops (AMISOM) in 2014-2015.
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[GOV] About a year ago the principal route for the migration into Europe was closed off, thanks largely to the efforts and leadership of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Until 2015, the largest flow had been across the Mediterranean from Libya and Tunisia to Lampedusa, Malta, Sicily, and the southern coast of the Italian mainland. Migrants had been prevented from crossing the Aegean from Turkey to the Greek Islands — a very short voyage — by the actions of the Turkish coast guard, which would catch and return the boats. But in 2015 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to change his policy (for reasons that can only be speculated about — we’ve made some informed guesses here), and stopped the interdiction the smugglers’ vessels. The traffickers seized the opportunity, and started carrying hundreds of thousands of migrants from Anatolia to Lesbos and Chios.
The rest of the story is familiar: The Greek government ferried the arrivals to the mainland, where they stayed in camps until they could be picked up by buses and taken to the Macedonian border. From there the process was repeated at each successive border — get out of the bus or off the train, walk across the border for the photographers, and get picked up by the next bus or put on the next train.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s military said on Tuesday that 18 of ISISbully boyz had been killed and 37 maimed in festivities and artillery fire on Monday.
In a round-up of its operations over the past 24 hours, the army said its warplanes destroyed four ISIS targets and Russian aircraft hit forces of Evil in Dayr Kak, 8 km (5 miles) southwest 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.... -controlled town of al-Bab.
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UN-backed Libyan unity government received a major blow Monday as Musa al-Koni, a deputy Prime Minister of the Presidency Council (PC) left the boat citing the council’s inability to address pressing needs of Libyans.
“I announce my resignation due the failure of the Presidency Council, because it holds responsibility for the killing, kidnapping, and rape that happened over the past year,” Koni told a press conference in Tripoli.
“I don’t think we are unaware of what the citizens are suffering, but we are incapable, and I admit that we are failures because we didn’t solve the problems, which are many.”
A Middle East politician with a conscience? What's his angle?
The PC borne in December 2015 along with the Government of National Accord (GNA) arrived in capital Tripoli nearly one year ago. Led by businessman Faiez Serraj, the PC and associate GNA have been unable to address security, power, financial issues of millions of Libyans who have to queue for hours in front of banks to get their money.
The December victory over the Islamic State group (IS) in Sirte which was expected to boost the confidence of the unity government seems to have no effect.
Internal rivalries within the PC have given also reasons to the internationally recognized House of Representatives (HoR) in Tobruk to back away from approving the GNA line-up proposed by Serraj. The HoR twice last year rejected Serraj’s proposed cabinets.
The PC in September lost control of the country’s main oil terminals after Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar aligned with HoR snatched them from pro-GNA forces.
The move further weakened the PC’s financial resources. The UN-backed GNA in need of financial resources, expected to control the oil production which still remains the main source of income of the North African country.
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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.
[NYT] LOS ANGELES -- Girding for four years of potential battles with President-elect Donald J. Trump, Democratic leaders of the California Legislature announced Wednesday that they had hired Eric H. Holder Jr., who was attorney general under President Obama, to represent them in any legal fights against the new Republican White House.
[Bretbart Texas] Halliburton is set to hire 200 oilfield hands in the Permian Basin region. The move follows a recent increase in crude oil prices.
[Breitbart] Fox News reports: Critics who thought the U.S. opened the UN’s anti-Israel floodgates by abstaining on a vote condemning settlements last week say an obscure subsequent move by the world body to establish a "blacklist" of Israeli companies proved them right.
Sometimes the program works, sometimes the cows are milked a bit too long. 
Party? Wymns? You bet I'm coming.
[The Hill] The president-elect insinuated that the meeting was delayed because intelligence agencies don't have enough evidence to prove Russia's involvement.
[WAPO] A day of pageantry to open the 115th Congress and usher in a new period of Republican governance was overtaken Tuesday by an embarrassing reversal on ethics oversight, with the GOP gripped by internal division and many lawmakers seeking to shield themselves from extensive scrutiny.
[Daily Caller] James Woolsey, former CIA director under President Bill Clinton, believes the Russians are "probably" behind some of the hacking of Democratic Party officials, but thinks that more than one country may ultimately be involved.
The Brent benchmark rose from around $57 per barrel to over $58 per barrel in early Tuesday's trading, reaching the highest level since July 2015. WTI crude went past the $54 per barrel and $55 per barrels marks before hovering at just below $55 per barrel after an almost 2.3-percent rally. The North American benchmark also hit the highest levels since July, Sputnik International reported.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] An air strike in Syria on Tuesday killed at least 25 members of Nusra Front including senior figures, a monitor said. Unidentified aircraft "hit a major base of 
[DeutscheWelle] German police raided a refugee home and a flat in Berlin on Tuesday in connection with its investigation into Anis Amri, the man suspected of killing 12 people in a deadly attack on a Berlin Christmas market last month.
[Hurriyet Daily News] An elderly Australian man serving time for killing his wife and two grandchildren was charged on Jan. 3 with the murder of a fellow inmate after an apparent attack with a sandwich toaster.
[ARA News] Raqqa – The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Wednesday made new gains in the fight for Raqqa, pushing further to the Islamic State’s (ISIS) de facto capital.
[IsraelTimes] Officers in light-to-moderate condition after riders try to ram through a temporary roadblock north of Jenin.
[IsraelTimes] Weapons, ammunition and cash uncovered in refugee camps; 
David Cameron
[Hurriyet Daily News] The first breaking point in Turkey’s policy against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was the raid on the Turkish Consulate General in Mosul, Iraq on June 11, 2014.
[Hurriyet Daily News] Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has accused the government of being responsible for the rise in jihadist terror in 
[RT] A woman was beaten at a marketplace in India by men who allegedly attempted to molest her. The victim of the assault has reportedly threatened to shoot herself if her attackers are not brought to justice.
Moroccan authorities thwarted an illegal immigration attempt by nearly 1000 Sub-Saharan nationals who tried to jump the six-meter barbed wire fence of the city of Ceuta. The operation led by Moroccan authorities succeeded in foiling this mass attempt to storm the Spanish occupied enclave and resulted in the injury of 50 members of the Moroccan security forces, of whom 10 are severely wounded, the interior ministry said in a statement.
ADEN, Yemen: Sixteen Yemeni pro-government fighters were killed on Tuesday in separate clashes with Houthi and Al-Qaeda rebels in the south of the war-torn country, military sources and officials said.
[Hurriyet Daily News] The Turkish Chess Federation (TSF) stated on Jan. 3 that it has launched legal proceedings against a Turkish televangelist who recently claimed that playing chess is more sinful than gambling.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[ISWRESEARCH.BLOGSPOT] The 
