[Breaking News]
3:41pm Cleared for Publication: 2 IDF soldiers killed and 3 wounded.
Early this morning at the entrance to an IDF outpost on Mt. Hermon in the Northern Golan Heights, an explosion killed 2 IDF soldiers and wounded 3 when a grenade exploded.
The killed IDF soldiers are:
Srgnt. Shlomo Rindenow (spelling unsure) -- lone soldier from NJ.
First Srgnt. Husan Tafash
An IDF investigation is underway.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2016
14:50 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
Thank you to SAT2014. The mods will stay on this story. We're posting under "non-WoT" for now until we get more information. Remember: the MSM frequently gets it all wrong, particularly in the first 48 hours.
In the meantime: prayers for the officers and their families, and get the rat bastards who did this.
In a city already tense following a high-profile police shooting of an African-American man, three Baton Rouge police officers were killed and three others wounded Sunday. Officials think the attack on the officers is the work of multiple gunmen.
Police received a call of a "suspicious person walking down with an assault rifle," a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. When police arrived, the shooting began.
One of the suspects is dead. Authorities believe two others may be at large.
"If they are wearing army fatigues; if they are wearing all black; if they are wearing a mask; if they are wearing anything that's out there, please, give us a call," said Baton Rouge Police Cpl. L.J. McKneely.
Domestic terror. 7 injured. Ambush shooting. Any guesses who? Keep it clean
Police have closed streets between Baton Rouge Police Headquarters and I-12 where law enforcement officers have been shot.
Sources say two Baton Rouge Police officers and one East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office deputy are dead following the shooting. Another officer was critically injured. EBRSO confirmed multiple officers from both BRPD and EBRSO sustained injuries in the shooting and were taken to area hospitals. There is no word yet on the extent of all of the injuries.
A witness told WBRZ News 2, a man was dressed in black with his face covered shooting indiscriminately when he walked out between a convenience store and car wash across from Hammond Air Plaza. Shots were fired around 9 a.m. Sunday. The exact location of the business where the shooting took place has yet to be released.
A very large manhunt began immediately with officers hurrying to contain the scene.
Both lanes of Airline Highway were shut down from Goodwood to Old Hammond and from Old Hammond to Drusilla Drive. LA DOTD confirmed the closures were related to police presence in the area. Our race-baiting pols, Soros and pals, academics, and media have brought this on.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2016
12:22 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[19 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
double post - you can delete mine
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2016 13:06
Comments ||
Top||
#2
They are saying three gunmen, one who is dead. It always seems like there are proffered multiple gun persons, but it is rarely so, hope this is no different.
#3
Now report says 4 dead law enforcement. From this report and others sounds like officers were baited. If so, expect slower future responses to gunfire, with overwhelming force.
[9 WAFB News] Officials have confirmed that two law enforcement officers have died and others were injured during an early morning shooting on Airline Highway near Old Hammond Highway in Baton Rouge.
“The scene seems to be contained right now,” said Sgt. Don Coppola, Baton Rouge Police Department. “We’re asking everyone to stay out of the area.”
Multiple agencies responded to the B Quick store on Airline Hwy shortly before 9 a.m. Sunday morning. Officials confirm that several Baton Rouge Police Officers were struck during gunfire.
"I do not have the extent of the injuries," Sgt. Coppola explained. “We’re hearing that it may also include some deputies [with the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office], but that’s preliminary information and I’m waiting on confirmation.”
The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development reported Airline North and South is closed between Goodwood Boulevard and I-12.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2016 13:06
Comments ||
Top||
#8
That's certainly ok Frank. Better to have more input than less as situations develop. I've got to attend to some Sunday afternoon chores. See you later.
#11
You recall all those up-armored Hummers and mine resistant vehicles that were given the police departments, with much suspect by the community. I suspect they'll replace the old commercial vehicles soon in some metro areas as response vehicles. Might as well give them to the EMTs too while you're at it. However, Cities should have to earn these rather than just hand them out. Helps identifying where to stay on the Interstate.
Almost 6,000 people have been arrested after Friday night's attempted coup and there are fears over how they could be treated
A disturbing picture shows dozens of Turkish soldiers bound together after being stripped of their uniforms following their arrest. Dozens of soldiers lie naked and handcuffed after being arrested following Friday night's coup attempt in Turkey.
The picture shows how the soldiers were stripped after being arrested in Sirnak, eastern Turkey. They were then made to lie next to each other. It comes after a Turkish soldier was reportedly beheaded on Istanbul's Bosphorus Bridge by a pro-government mob yesterday.
Turkey today announced it had arrested more than 6,000 people involved in the attempted coup as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asserted his authority.
Today, France’s foreign minister said that the failed coup in Turkey did not give President Tayyip Erdogan a “blank cheque” to bypass democratic principles.
“We want the rule of law to work fully in Turkey,” Jean-Marc Ayrault told France 3 television. “(The coup) is not a blank cheque for Mr Erdogan. There cannot be purges, the rule of law must work.”
He said European ministers would reiterate on Monday when they meet in Brussels that Turkey must conform to Europe’s democratic principles.
Good luck with that...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/17/2016
10:54 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
bet Hillary is looking to for a way to justify a similar but more ambitious purge of civil service, military and judicial personnel thought to be disloyal to her
Posted by: lord garth ||
07/17/2016 11:09
Comments ||
Top||
[Reuters] Armed men seized a police station and hostages in Armenia's capital Yerevan on Sunday, demanding Armenians take to the streets to press their demands for the release of opposition politicians they said had been jailed unfairly.
One of their main demands was to free Jirair Sefilian, an opposition politician whom the authorities have accused of plotting civil unrest. Sefilian was jailed in June over allegations of illegally possessing weapons.
Armenia's security service said one policeman had been killed and two wounded in the violence, but that negotiations were now underway to resolve the standoff peacefully.
Two hostages had been freed, it said. Armenian news agencies cited police sources as saying seven or eight hostages remained. Photographs from the scene show the area ringed with white armored vehicles.
Though far smaller in scale, suggestions by one opposition politician that an armed uprising was underway stoked speculation that the hostage takers had drawn inspiration from an unsuccessful coup attempt in neighboring Turkey.
#2
As Francis Fukuyama, Huntington’s former student and protege, wrote last month: “The intellectual challenge is to see whether it is possible to back away from globalization without cratering both the national and the global economy.
Fukuyama nails it. It's not the politics or ideology that eventually kills, it's the dependency. The oligarchy have long recognized this.
#3
For many elites, these concerns are secondary to participating in the global economy, supporting international trade and migration, strengthening international institutions,promoting American values abroad , and encouraging minority identities and cultures at home.
Here we have the oxymoronic elite philosophy.
How can you possibly promote American values when your whole philosophy is based on denying them?
This states that elites are all about international values and economics with a side of and minority culture NOT about anything that can be called American.
This is the basis of the Obola ilks fundamental transformation.
Police thwarted a potential terrorist attack in central Jerusalem on Sunday morning when they arrested a Palestinian man found to be carrying explosive devices near the capital's busy light rail.
The suspect was attempting to board the Jerusalem light rail on Jaffa Street when he was detained.
İncirlik Air Base to resume operations after being shortly sealed off following coup attempt
The United States is working with Turkish officials to resume air operations at Incirlik Air Base "as soon as possible" after the Turkish government closed its airspace to military aircraft after a coup attempt, the Pentagon said on Saturday.
"In the meantime, U.S. Central Command is adjusting flight operations in the counter-ISIL campaign to minimize any effects on the campaign," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement, using a different acronym for the Daesh terrorist group.
"U.S. facilities at Incirlik are operating on internal power sources and a loss of commercial power to the base has not affected base operations," he said.
Later Saturday FM Çavuşoğlu announced that Turkey will resume its fight against Daesh with the US-led coalition from Incirlik Air Base once the anti-coup operations come to an end as some soldiers from the base were involved in the failed coup attempt.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[13 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
USAF better get the B61s out of country.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/17/2016 0:48
Comments ||
Top||
#2
If we were to use them in-theater, we could save on shipping.
#4
The alleged "coup" bears looking into at some depth. It might also be prudent to examine current western relationships and alliances with the Erdogan government.
#7
Three years ago when the US wanted to use Incirlik as a drone base Turkey said no. Only when its relationship with Europe deteriorated and its support for Islamists became obvious did Erdogan OK its use (and no one has yet to say what Uncle Sugar is paying for the privilege).
#8
And the US was burned by Turkish govt in OIF who jacked us around for 2 weeks and then denied us transit rights across Turkey for 4ID. They are not trustworthy. Out of Incirlik AB before we get burned some more. Now the US and Russia have something in common: both been burned by Turkey.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/17/2016 12:57
Comments ||
Top||
(IraqiNews.com) NINEVEH – Official journalists with the Ministry of Defense announced foiling an attempt of targeting the floating bridge over Tigris River south of Mosul.
The journalists in a statement issued to the media, said, “The international coalition aircraft carried out an air strike that targeted a large boat carrying more than two tons of explosives near Haj Ali village,” adding, “The boat was en-route to attack the floating bridge that was established by the Iraqi troops connecting Makhmur with Qayyarah south of Mosul. The boat was destroyed completely.”
It may be mentioned here that yesterday, official journalists with the Ministry of defense announced that the Iraqi army had established a floating bridge linking Qayyarah with Makhmur south of Mosul.
The Somali government announced Saturday that it is suspending a school linked to the group behind the attempted coup Friday in Turkey, giving its staff one week to leave the country.
In a statement, the Somali government said Nile Academy, the terrorist FETÖ/PDY-linked school in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, was suspended as requested by Turkish government. The Somali government also stated that a new administrative board will be designated in cooperation with Turkey to resume the school's educational activities.
Somalia also joined a chorus of nations worldwide in condemning the failed coup, expressing solidarity with the Turkish government and the Turkish people during their democratic resistance.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A massive fire has swept through a key diplomatic area of Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... city earlier tonight with the exact location yet to be confirmed.
Numerous footage and pictures of the incident have appeared online which purportedly shows the incident has taken place in Shash Darak area of the city.
The area is home to numerous diplomatic and foreign missions including the US Embassy and a military base used by the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... -led Resolute Support mission.
Preliminary reports suggest an under construction hotel building has caught fire near the embassy compound in Masood Square.
The security sources have not commented regarding the incident so far.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[12 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Trump needed the location for his 5 star hotel and championship golf course.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] An explosion took place in the outskirts of Kabul earlier this morning with preliminary reports suggesting at least three policemen have suffered casualties.
The administrative chief of Bagram Ahmad Shafi said the incident took place after a magnetic bomb was detonated in a police vehicle.
He said an investigation is underway regarding the incident but did not say anything regarding the casualties.
However, another official in Bagrami district said a policeman has lost his life and two others were wounded in the explosion.
No group including the Taliban militants has so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.
This comes as at least 33 people lost their lives and 80 others were wounded in a coordinated suicide attack in the outskirt of Kabul late last month.
The incident took place in Company area of the city after a suicide bomber targeted the vehicle convoy of the Afghan police cadets followed by another suicide attack.
The Taliban group claimed responsibility behind the incident which was the second largest attack carried out by the group since they announced their spring offensive.
Earlier, at least 64 people were killed and 347 others were wounded after the militants attacked the VIP protection unity in the city in April.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
(IraqiNews.com) ANBAR- President of Khalidiya Council in Anbar province, Ali Dawood announced on Saturday that dozens of terrorists were killed in shelling at Khalidiya island, east of Ramadi.
Dawood, in a press statement, said, “The military aircraft of the international coalition and Air Force along with the artillery of the Iraqi army bombed locations belonging to ISIS in Khalidiya Island (23 km east of Ramadi), resulting in its destruction.”
Dawood added, “The bombing also resulted in the killing of dozens of terrorists in these headquarters,” adding, “The shelling comes in preparation for the liberation of Khalidiya Island from ISIS control.”
[ARA News] ALEPPO – Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) were engaged in heavy clashes with Syrian Islamist rebels in the northern Aleppo province on Saturday.
The clashes centred in the vicinity of the Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud district, where the YPG attacked strongholds of the Islamist rebels of the Aleppo Conquest.
At least seven fighters from the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham [Aleppo Conquest member] were killed and more than 15 others were injured in the clashes. On the other hand, four YPG fighters were reportedly injured while trying to push back the Islamist rebels from the borders of the Sheikh Maqsoud district, military sources reported on Saturday.
Speaking to ARA News in Aleppo, YPG officer Lukman Hamo said that the Kurdish forces have bombed two checkpoints for the Aleppo Conquest rebel factions near Sheikh Maqsoud, and seized several weapons and ammunitions from the rebels.
“The positions we targeted today have been for long used by those radical Islamists as bases for attacking civilians in Sheikh Maqsoud district,” the Kurdish officer said.
Last week, militants of the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, supported by Islamist rebels of the Ahrar al-Sham Movement, launched an offensive on the Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsoud in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo, using mortar shells, amid attempts to infiltrate into the district, activists and military sources told ARA News. The Islamists targeted populated areas in the Sheikh Maqsoud district with mortar fire, killing at least four people and wounding a dozen more.
The Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsoud has been under siege by Syrian Islamist rebels for years, and violence has recently intensified in the district as the Kurdish YPG forces have been trying to push back Islamist fighters of the Nusra Front (al-Qaeda branch in Syria) and the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham.
Amnesty International has recently issued a report in regard with the developments in the Kurdish-populated district, saying: “Armed groups surrounding the Sheikh Maqsoud district of Aleppo city have repeatedly carried out indiscriminate attacks that have struck civilian homes, streets, markets and mosques, killing and injuring civilians and displaying a shameful disregard for human life.”
Speaking to ARA News, Luqman Ismail, one of the stranded citizens in Sheikh Maqsoud, said that electricity outage continues for nearly three years because of the barbaric bombardment led by Islamist rebels on the main network of power outside the district. “These groups are apparently punishing the people of Sheikh Maqsoud for their support to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), who are engaged in fighting with Islamist rebels around the city of Aleppo,” he said in an earlier interview.
ISTANBUL – Turkish soldiers and airmen are furious after being called in this weekend to overthrow their elected government, sources report.
“President Erdogan has been an asshole for years,” Capt. Mehmet Ahmet told Duffel Blog via Skype from an F-16 cockpit. “But these jerks pick the weekend of my sister’s bridal shower to finally knock him out? It’s bullshit.”
Senior officials in the Turkish military have been quick to defend their actions, however.
“We took our motto from the U.S. Army National Guard: ‘Always Ready, Always There,’” Gen. Alpaslan posted online.
“We’re trying to live up to that saying and embrace the Turkish warrior ethos. Besides, as General Dempsey once told me, it’s not possible to overstress your troops.”
Junior soldiers have mixed feelings on their command’s decision.
“We spent all day Friday cleaning and maintaining our tanks since our sergeant told us we’d get off early if they were sparkling clean,” Pvt. Emre Adem said. “He lied. But at least our tanks actually work for once.”
“I don’t get the rush though,” he added, “America’s just going to make awkward press releases and watch us take power anyways.”
ST. PETERSBURG, July 17. /TASS/. The night service in commemoration of the last Russian emperor St. Tsar-Martyr Nicolas II and his Family started at midnight in Feodorovsky Imperial Cathedral.
"The worship service on the anniversary of execution of Emperor Nicolas II and his family with faithful servants - the tragic event occurred in Yekaterinburg in 1918, takes place annually in Feodorovsky Imperial Cathedral," the parish told TASS on Sunday.
"The cathedral of the Feodorovskaya Ikon of the Holy Mother built in commemoration of 300th anniversary of the House of Romanovs was popularly called the Romanov [Cathedral]. The southern aisle of the temple is dedicated to the Tsar Family," the parish said.
The royal pew is particularly decorated for the night liturgy in the cathedral. The liturgy is taking place before the icon of the Holy Passion-Bearers.
Feodorovsky Imperial; Cathedral is the only church in St. Petersburg built according to architectural models of early XVII century in Russia. The lower church is dedicated to St. Prince Alexander Nevsky. The upper church is dedicated to the Feodorovskaya Ikon of the Holy Mother, the patrimony icon of the House of Romanovs.
" a student radical during the Black Panthers era, Hillary Clinton gravitated to the company of anti-cop activists. At Yale, she helped edit a law journal that depicted police officers as racist pigs and ran numerous articles in defense of cop-killers.
During her law school stint, she spent free moments offering assistance to the lawyers for Black Panthers who had killed a federal agent. She "monitored" the Bobby Seale trial in New Haven, hoping to catch the prosecutors out in mistakes that could later trigger an appeal.
She also hobnobbed with the "Radical Chic" social set, going to cocktail parties with the lawyers for the Black Panthers. Through one of those events, she met Robert Treuhaft and Jessica Mitford, two Stalinists from California whom historians have established collaborated with the Soviet Union as members of the American Communist Party. Robert Treuhaft ran a law firm in California, and Hillary spent one of her summers doing a legal internship at his firm in Oakland. Treuhaft thought that she might object to his Red ties. But at the time she didn’t care. In her autobiography, however, she was embarrassed enough about the association to try and minimize her work there: "I spent most of my time working for Mal Burnstein researching, writing legal motions and briefs for a child custody case."
Treuhaft’s firm was notorious not only for its Red associations but also its unapologetic defense of cop-killers. That Hillary would devote a summer to working for such creepy subversives reveals the depth of her radical instincts. It is not hard to imagine her signing off on cartoons in the Yale Review caricaturing cops as pigs conjuring up the foulest racist thoughts as they walked the streets."
#5
"H" will do anything or say anything and then change again tomorrow if the bid is high enough. It will be hard to scrub the brain of the Hilda image above.
#6
I have read that Hillary then worked for the Goldwater campaign. Was she trying to subvert that campaign from within, or did she suffer a temporary conversion to sanity?
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Syrian regime artillery killed 8 people in the western countryside of Homs as army presses to capture two Turkmen-dominated villages, local reporter said Saturday. Regime forces backed by allied militia launched an attack on Thursday to seize villages of Kazhel and Om al-Qasab, 5 km west of al-Waer neighborhood.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Al Ahram] Four men were sentenced to death by a Cairo criminal court on Saturday, in connection wtih a case known in the Egyptian media as the "Tanta terrorist cell."
The sentence is preliminary and will be confirmed after the grand mufti, Egypt's highest Moslemholy man, has given his recommendation. The final verdict is due on 4 September.
The high state security prosecution accused the defendants of forming an illegal group that aimed to obstruct the constitution and law and to attack personal freedoms and public rights.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Afghanistan's Caped President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. has ordered the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) to launch a major offensive against the loyalists of Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province.
President Ghani was speaking to the Afghan forces during a visit to Nangarhar province on Friady and said the main purpose of the operation would be to eliminate the loyalists of the terror group from Nangarhar.
He said the main focus of the annual Shafaq military operation, which is currently being conducted across the country, would be Nangarhar province from next week.
Qestioning the presence and participation of the loyalists of the terror group with the Afghan people, President Ghani ordered the 201st Silab Corps of the Afghan National Army to completely root out the bandidosturbans from Nangarhar.
President Ghani further added that the difficult days in the country have gone but he cautioned that the enemies of Afghanistan are still plotting destructive activities.
He also visited the residents of Kot district and hailed for their resistance and fight against the loyalists of ISIS terrorist group.
The remarks by President Ghani comes as ISIS loyalists have been attempting to expand foothold in the country, an attempt that has forced the Afghan and US forces to step up strikes against them.
The US forces are regularly conducting drone strikes against the loyalists of the terror group in the restive parts of Nangarhar besides the Afghan forces conduct air and ground raids.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[FOXNEWS] Friday night’s failed coup was The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s last hope to stop the Islamization of its government and the degradation of its society. Reflexively, Western leaders rushed to condemn a coup attempt they refused to understand. Their reward will be a toxic Islamist regime at the gates of Europe.
Our leaders no longer do their basic homework.The media relies on experts-by-Wikipedia. Except for PC platitudes, our schools ignore the world beyond our shores. Deluged with unreliable information, citizens succumb to the new superstitions of the digital age.
So a great country is destroyed by Islamist hardliners before our eyes--and our president praises its "democracy."
That tragically failed coup was a forlorn hope, not an attempt to take over a country. Turkey is not a banana republic in which the military grasps the reins for its own profit. For almost a century, the Turkish armed forces have been the guardians of the country’s secular constitution. Most recently, coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980 (with "non-coup" pressure in 1997) saw the military intervene to prevent the country’s collapse.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
Yemen’s al-Qaeda wing has claimed responsibility for a bomb attack that targeted the governor of the southern city of Aden, according to US monitoring group SITE.
Security officials said on Friday that a car packed with explosives blew up when the convoy of governor, Aidaroos al-Zubaidi, passed by in the Inma area of Aden. One soldier was wounded in the attack but Zubaidi was unhurt. SITE cited a brief statement by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) on its Telegram channel on Friday saying it had detonated a bomb in a parked vehicle.
It said both Zubaidi and Aden police chief, Shallal Shayei, were in the vehicle, but gave no further details. Zubaidi was appointed governor of Aden after his predecessor was killed in a car bombing on Dec. 6 claimed by ISIS, AQAP’s main rival in Yemen. Attackers have tried several times before to kill him in car bomb blasts.
Last Update: Saturday, 16 July 2016 KSA 14:08 - GMT 11:08
[WASHINGTONTIMES] Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and the man who led Britannia to the exits, is the new government’s foreign secretary, as our cousins call what we call the secretary of State. He slipped a subtle but sharp needle into Barack Obama We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us... , who had warned Britannia that if it voted to leave the EU it must expect to go to the "end of the queue," by inviting Mr. Obama and the United States to resume their place at "the head of the queue" in London.
If Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Liberatress of Libya and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Richelieu ... prevails in November, Mr. Johnson can look forward to an interesting meeting with the woman he once called, as a columnist for the London Daily Telegraph, a woman "with dyed blonde hair and pouty lips and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital."
He once accused Barack Obama of "an ancestral dislike of the British Empire because he’s part-Kenyan." He taunted the president of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... with a bawdy limerick: "There was a young fellow from Ankara/Who was a terrific wankera/’til he sowed his wild oats/With the help of a goat/But he didn’t even stop to thankara."
He once silenced a television interviewer who scolded him for ethnic disrespect. "I’m down with ethnics," he told his interlocutor. "You can’t out-ethnic me. My children are a quarter-Indian, so put that in your pipe and smoke it." But he still might have awkward moments in certain foreign ministries. He wrote in 2002, in the Daily Telegraph, that "the queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies."
This amply demonstrates the risks of appointing a newspaper columnist, particularly an entertaining one, to responsible office. But Mr. Johnson’s quick wit and sharp tongue -- Donald Trump with an Oxford education, you might say -- are often employed in saying what everybody thinks and few are courageous enough to say. Islam, he wrote in the Spectator magazine, "is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness toward unbelievers."
The Gaffe Patrol couldn’t miss, shooting at such a target, but unlike Mrs. Ginsburg, Mr. Johnson and their like, the Gaffe Patrol shoots mostly blanks. But fire away, laddies.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
JQC, didn't you get the memo? WE don't use that kind of language around here, not enough safe places for that kind of micro-aggression. (wags finger) NO! NO! Must not say that again!
[Al Ahram] Armed men rubbed out a senior policeman and injured two others in Egypt’s Fayoum governorate on Saturday, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.
The police officer, aged 35, was head of the investigations unit in the Tamya district of the governorate. He was getting into his vehicle along with two lower-ranking coppers when they were shot at.
It was not immediately clear if the attack had criminal or political motivations, and the assailants have yet to be identified.
The barber who tends to French President François Hollande’s hair earns a monthly net income of €9,895, a French newspaper revealed Wednesday, adding that the hairdresser is also committed to secrecy and needs to be available 24/7.
Identified only as Olivier B., the president’s hairdresser started on his five-year contract when Hollande took office in 2012. The contract also includes perks including financial aid with housing “and other family-related advantages”, weekly satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchainé said, citing his lawyer Sarah Levy.
But the job requires full commitment, the lawyer said in the article published on Wednesday, meaning the hairdresser needs to be “available for the president 24/7”, and is sworn to secrecy regarding any information he may learn while on the job.
“He missed the birth of his children,” the lawyer said, adding he had to sell off his own salon at a discounted price because of his busy schedule.
According to the newspaper, the Elysée palace has “fully” confirmed the information, saying the hairdresser looks after Hollande’s hair “every morning and as many times as is necessary, [and] ahead of every speech”. He also travels with the French leader on most trips that last longer than a day.
The news of the hairdresser’s salary and working conditions quickly caused a buzz in French media and on social networks, poking fun at the president’s hair under the hashtag #coiffeurgate (hairdressergate).
In March, Vanity Fair made a similar revelation, reporting that former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s makeup artist earned a net income of around €8,000 a month.
#2
...under capitalism, the rich become powerful, under socialism the powerful become rich.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm
#3
Yes, a dreadful optique, but please give poor Oliver a break. Hollande’s excesses can't even approach the waste, fraud, and abuse of our globetrotting vacationer in chief.
#4
I don't begrudge our vacationer in chief his vacations - it keeps him from doing his perceived job of destroying America. Much cheaper then having him devise things like ObumbleCare.
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] As attention is drawn to the ongoing battles north of Aleppo city which opposition factions promised to break the blockade enforced on the eastern part of the city for the fourth day in a row, the Control and Inspection Office subordinate to Aleppo Local Council launched a campaign on the monopolists and traders in the city, according to the council official Facebook page.
The council released two days ago a price list and promised violator of the list interrogation and confiscation of products, but local sources confirmed the prices had a rocket increase amid monopoly and storing of products by traders.
The Control and Inspection Office said they confiscated 26 Diesel barrels stored illegally in one of the warehouses in the city and it was recorded. The barrels will be sold to hospitals and bakeries in the liberated part of the city according to the official pricing released by the council, according to the council’s statement.
The photos published of field tours show the office implementation of the pricing list on traders to prevent monopoly under pretext of blockade on the eastern side of Aleppo city where half a million civilians live amid regime and Russian bombings and deprivation of basic products from the market or rocket prices of these products.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[16 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[BBC] Five people believed to be linked to the man who killed 84 people in Nice are in police custody, the Gay Paree prosecutor's office says.
Three arrests were made on Saturday and two on Friday, including the man's estranged wife, Le Monde reported.
Mohammed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a lorry into crowds marking Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais on Thursday before he was rubbed out by police.
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.... claimed one of its followers carried out the attack.
A news agency linked to the group, Amaq Agency, said: "He did the attack in response to calls to target the citizens of the coalition that is fighting the Islamic State."
'Extreme difficulty'
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Lahouaiej-Bouhlel seemed to have been "radicalised very quickly".
He said the "new type of attack... showed the extreme difficulty of the fight against terrorism".
Prosecutors said Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian, drove the lorry 2km (1.2 miles) along the promenade targeting people.
Of the 84 who died, 10 were children. A total of 303 people had been taken into hospital following the attacks, the French health department confirmed on Saturday. Of those, 121 remain in hospital, 30 of whom are children, and 26 people are still in intensive care - including five children.
Stephanie Simpson, from the Lenval children's hospital in Nice, said one was in a "very bad" condition, three were on artificial respiration, one had been stabilised and one eight-year-old child remained unidentified.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ATIMES] The Kurdish demographic problem has led Erdogan into a political swamp from which he may not emerge. He won last year’s presidential election by stirring up national ardor against the Kurdish minority, and has kept the Kurdish southeast of the country in a low-level civil war since then. The leader of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party warned last March that Erdogan had brought The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... to the brink of an ethnic war.
To prevent the Syrian Kurds from controlling the northern border of their country and linking up with their Iraqi compatriots, Erdogan covertly supported Sunni terrorists, including ISIS, as Michael Rubin explained last March in Newsweek. Erdogan’s back channel to ISIS blew up in Turkey’s face‐literally‐when ISIS jacket wallahs killed 42 people and injured hundreds at the Istanbul Airport June 29.
Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the foundation of the modern state, Turkey’s army acted as the guarantor of the country’s secular state. The Islamist Erdogan attempted to reverse that, jailing hundreds of military officers on a spurious charge of plotting a coup in 2012. Most were released in 2014. Erdogan could not do without the military, however; his failed foreign policy made him dependent on the Turkish army, which reasserted its influence this year. Erdogan proudly called himself a "black Turk," that is, a devout Moslem from the Anatolian hinterland, in contrast to the "White Turks," the Europeanized secular party who came to power under Kemal Ataturk and ruled the country until the 2000s.
Turkey’s political crisis stems from profound economic weaknesses, demographic imbalances and confessional, social and ethnic fractures. Whatever emerges from the coup attempt, it will take a great deal more than a change at the top to cure the sick man of Europe.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Three Al-Qaeda suspects were killed in a drone strike in Yemen’s south on Saturday, security officials said.
The raid struck a vehicle carrying the suspected murderous Moslems in Shabwa province killing all those on board, the officials said.
The United States is the only country known to be operating drones in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... and has vowed no let-up in its war against murderous Moslems there who have exploited the power vacuum created by a conflict between the government and the rebels to expand their presence in the south and southeast.
Washington considers the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000... to be the network’s deadliest franchise and similar strikes have taken out a number of senior AQAP commanders in Yemen over the past year.
Drone strike kills 3 Qaeda suspects in Yemen
In March this year, a Saudi-led coalition backing the Yemeni government also turned its sights on the jihadists after a year of focusing its firepower on the Iran-backed Houthis and their allies.
Al-Qaeda claimed a suicide boom-mobileing that struck the convoy of the governor of Yemen’s main southern city Aden on Friday.
Aidarus al-Zubaidi had escaped unharmed after the attack but three of his lover companions were maimed, the official said.
Aden, the temporary base of Yemen’s Saudi-backed government, has seen a wave of bombings and shootings targeting officials and security forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[22 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
[WASHINGTONTIMES] An MSNBC tweet on late Thursday that framed La Belle France’s latest terror attack as a "truck crash" elicited a stinging response from readers.
"Follow our live blog for the latest from Nice after a truck crash leaves at least 70 dead," the network tweeted at 8:49 p.m. EST., well after even President B.O. and French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... called the event an act of terrorism.
Mohammed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, killed at least 84 people during Bastille Day ceremonies by plowing a giant truck through crowds along the Promenade des Anglais.
"We cannot deny that it was a terror attack," Mr. Hollande told the country during a nationally televised address.
"We stand in solidarity and partnership with La Belle France, our oldest ally, as they respond to and recover from this attack," added Mr. Obama in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[15 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
IS/Arab/Iranian terror apologists - they're on the other side
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2016 15:27
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Must be frustrating for the jihadis. "Dude, we kill or injure nearly 300 people in a major infidel city and they're calling it a car wreck? It's JIHAD, dammit! Death to the infidel. Aloha, Snackbar."
[DAWN] MULTAN: Police on Saturday registered a First Information Report (FIR) against two persons in Qandeel Baloch murder case, it has been learnt.
The FIR, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, was launched on the complaint of Qandeel's father Azeem, who nominated his two sons Aslam Shaheen and Waseem as main suspects in the case.[DAWN]
Police registered the case under Sections 302 and 109 of the Pakistain Penal Code which deal with "punishment for willful murder".
It states that Aslam allegedly provoked Waseem to kill Qandeel as she reportedly "brought disrepute to the family". Aslam is currently serving in the army as a Naib Subedar, reads the FIR.
The complainant further said that his sons killed Qandeel for her money.
Qandeel's brother had been reportedly threatening her to stop posting photos and videos on Facebook, police said, adding that her brother expeditiously departed at a goodly pace after killing Qandeel.
The popular social media celebrity's murder is the latest in the spate of "honour killings" that has plague the country.
Police added that Qandeel was in Multan for one week and the forensic experts are examining her corpse to find whether she was poisoned or not.
The initial post-mortem reports, however, confirm that Qandeel was strangled to death. No marks of torture were found on her body.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[13 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] Famous Pak model and internet sensation Qandeel Balch was rubbed out in Multan city of Pakisstan earlier today.
According to the local media reports, citing initial reports, the actor cum model was rubbed out by her brother. "Baloch was killed by her brother over honour in Muzaffarabad’s Green Town area," the area’s RPO told The Express Tribune.
Baloch had not disclosed her location due to security threats, the official added. "Qandeel’s brothers had asked her to quit modelling," family sources said.
She became an internet sensation following her recent social media videos, including a video promising to strip naked if Pakistain defeats India in ICC World T20 and her last video with the Mufti Qavi.
According to the Express, Qandeel had earlier claimed she was receiving death threats and had sought security.
"I know I will not be provided security and I am not feeling secured here so have decided to move abroad with my parents after Eidul Fitr," she had told the paper.
Baloch was 25-year-old model and belonged to the tribal area of Shah Sadar Din of District Dera Ghazi Khan in south Punjab.
She started her career as a bus hostess and her real name is Fouzia Azeem but chose Qandeel Baloch as her pseudonym after stepping into modelling.
Qandeel eloped with her boyfriend in 2004 while still in school, and claims to have visited South Africa, Middle East and other western countries.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[14 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
shot dead, strangled AND poisoned?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2016 11:44
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Suspenders and a belt...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/17/2016 17:48
Comments ||
Top||
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Rebel factions operating under the Northern Homs Operation Room have captured several regime checkpoints on Friday near Kharbet al-Suda west of al-Waer neighborhood and have cut Homs-Misyaf road for few hours, local sources reported.
Zaman al-Wasl’s news hound in Homs said the northern countryside rebels in support for local besieged population in Qazhal and Um Qasab villages launched on Friday a violent attack on many regime and National Defense Militia checkpoints located between Kharbet al-Suda and train station near Qazhal.
He added, "at the time where regime checkpoints in northern Homs countryside were shooting in celebration of the coup attempt in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , rebels were liberating checkpoints on Homs-Misyaf road which is one of the most important roads controlled by the regime in the middle area. The road connects the southern region and Homs with the Syrian coast."
Local sources in west Homs reported that violent festivities took place between rebels and regime army on the road lasting for 8 hours. The regime recaptured the road on Saturday.
The regime loss in the battle is not known yet; however, the battle was one of the biggest of the rebels in Homs northern countryside.
Also, regime bombed on Friday Qazhal and Um Qasab villages with heavy artillery and closed al-Dar al-Kabira cross point after a month from opening the road for employees from northern Homs countryside who work in regime-controlled areas.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[20 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
(IraqiNews.com) KIRKUK – Journalists with the Ministry of Defense announced that ISIS Wali of Hawija and ISIS Wali of Kirkuk were killed in an air strike carried out by the international coalition southeast of Kirkuk.
In a statement issued to the media outlets it was stated, “The international coalition carried out an airstrike in Kirkuk after receiving information from the Military Intelligence Directorate. In the aerial raid, two top-notch ISIS leaders-Teleb Hameed alias Abu Saeed alias Wali of Hawija and Mohamed Khalaf Mohamed Saleh alias Abu Seif al-Jubouri alias Wali of Kirkuk- were killed.”
(IraqiNews.com) KIRKUK – A source in Kirkuk Province informed that international coalition has intensified its airstrikes on ISIS headquarters towards the west of the province.
According to information shared by the source, it was stated, “The international coalition aviation and Iraqi Air Force today carried out airstrikes west of Kirkuk targeting ISIS headquarters. Ten airstrikes were carried out and this included six strikes on ISIS’ six different headquarters at Hawija district.”
“The aerial bombing destroyed four other targets at Arisha village near Zab-95 km west of Kirkuk- near Tigris River,” the source added.
(IraqiNews.com) DIYALA – Diyala Police Command stated that security forces arrested a prominent ISIS leader in a military operation east of Baqubah.
The Diyala police spokesperson Colonel Ghalib al-Attiyah in a press statement said, “A force of Diyala police at noon today carried out a raid and search operation at al-Hamed located near Mandli some 80 km east of Baqubah. And in the operation, a top ISIS leader was arrested by the forces.”
Attiyah added, “The operation was carried out based on accurate intelligence information.”
(IraqiNews.com) DIYALA – Muqdadiyah District Council announced that one al-Hashd al-Ashaeri leader was killed in a blast that was targeted at his vehicle northeast of Baqubah.
The Head of the security committee in Muqdadiyah Ali al-Madi in a statement issued to the media said, “An improvised explosive device exploded at noon today. The blast was carried out targeting the vehicle of Sami al-Hassan- a leader of al-Hashd al-Ashaeri- while it was passing through al-Jazeera in northern Muqdadiyah, 35 km northeast of Baqubah. Hassan was killed on the spot.”
“Security forces rushed to the blast area and transferred the dead body to the forensic department in al-Zahraa General Hospital in Muqdadiyah and initiated a probe of the incident.”
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh- A local source in Nineveh province revealed on Friday that ISIS burnt five civilians alive after caging them in iron cages. They were arrested on charges of espionage and violation of ISIS instructions. The incident took place southwest of the province.
Informing in details about the incident, the source said, “Today, ISIS members burned five civilians, after the Sharia court pronounced death sentences against them at a village near Tel Abtha- 40 km south-west of Nineveh. The five dead civilians were charged with charges of cooperating and communicating with the security forces. ”
Adding further the source said, “The civilians were burned after caged in an iron cage.”
[ARA News] KOBANE – Militants of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Saturday infiltrated into the countryside of Kobane in Syria’s northern Aleppo province and slaughtered dozens of civilians, activists and eyewitnesses reported.
A group of ISIS extremists stormed the Kurdish village of Saikol near the Sarrin town in the southern countryside of Kobane, and broke into civilians houses.
“The terrorists infiltrated into the village of Saikol, avoiding security checkpoints of the People’s Protection Units (YPG). They slaughtered dozens of civilians, mostly children and women,” local rights activist Cheleng Hassan told ARA News.
“Clashes broke out between the YPG and a group of ISIS extremists in the village, where at least six ISIS militants were killed and a number of others were arrested. However, after the clashes, we were shocked by seeing dead bodies of dozens of villages inside the residential neighbourhoods. They were all slaughtered by knives,” an eyewitness told ARA News, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Kurdish YPG officer in Kobane Habun Osman said that most of the victims were children and women.
“Those terrorists have infiltrated into the village while dressing as civilians. They took advantage of the fragile security situation in the village, as most of the YPG fighters in Kobane countryside are now participating in the ongoing clashes with ISIS in Manbij. Those barbarians committed a horrible massacre against innocent civilians as a revenge against the Kurdish forces after their victories over the group in different parts of northern Syria,” the officer told ARA News.
The southern countryside of Kobane has been exposed to several attacks by ISIS militants since the Kurdish YPG forces liberated the area from ISIS over a year ago.
[Al Ahram] Police have placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! 15 people after an arson attack on houses belonging to Coptic Christians in an Upper Egyptian village on Saturday, a security source said.
The defendants are accused of torching five houses in Abou Yacoub village in Minya governorate on Saturday, after rumours spread that a church was being constructed in the area.
They were arrested hours later, Al-Ahram's Arabic site reported.
The incident came 20 days after similar events had taken place in Samalout, also in Minya, when locals set on fire an under-construction building out of belief that it was a church.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[15 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[NATION.PK] What was predicted long ago, has now started to unfold at a comparatively significant pace, as compared to the past. It was "obvious" and had been anticipated by the intelligentsia from all ends of the globe. But the question at the moment is regarding its realisation, that whatever is happening, was "obvious" while considering it an improbable and inconceivable scenario, is an oversight rather than a blooper. Whether the La Belle France together with United States goes for, a massive military escalation against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, or radical actions inside its own country to ensure homeland security from acts of terrorism; one thing is for sure, 14th July terror attack in the city of Nice, which lies in the southern part of La Belle France, would now result in more polarisation throughout world politics.
The current segment of crisis basically originated with the US War Against Terror and its assault on Afghanistan and Iraq. What was the situation when US launched a war against Afghanistan and Iraq? What are the outcomes of that entire mass escalation? The conflict from Iraq has now expanded all through the Middle Eastern region and has got deep roots across Indonesia, Somalia, Nigeria, Sahel and Horn of Africa. Whereas the conflict in Afghanistan has reached to a point of lethal civil war and the intrusion of regional powers might end up in a deadly proxy war between them, over the Afghan soil.
The growth of ISIS in international politics is a major development in the current conflict scenario. The splinter group of Al-Qaeda is a much radical and organised version of its parent Lion of Islam organization and has now created a new wave of extremism throughout the planet. The group started their activities in the Western world in 2014 after gaining the control of significant portion of land in Iraq and Syria, however, the Gay Paree attack in November 2015 provided a real breakthrough to them, in this regard.
The tide of terror attacks in Europe and US is generating a great deal of anti-Islam and anti-Moslem sentiments within the people of the west, which is being masterly exploited by their rightist political entities. This is a serious alarm for the Global Peace and Security. Already Al-Qaeda and other Islamist insurgencies are the fallouts of the suppressive policies by the western powers against the Moslem world. It’s an established phenomenon that insurgencies are always cultivated in an environment of oppression. When the oppression in Middle East increased, simultaneously, the intensity of the insurgency also got increased and the result was "obvious" i.e. ISIS.
This phenomenon is quite explicit into the African War Theater. Al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... and Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... are much more cruel and crude in nature as compared to the previous Death Eater groups of Africa.
The terrorist attack in Nice on the celebrations of Bastille Day should undoubtedly be condemned and is being condemned from all corners of the world, but just condemnation could not solve the fruits of the crisis let alone its roots. What so ever is being done by the Western forces in Iraq and Syria, Islam does not at all allow an ordinary individual to take the law into its hands, at any extent, not to mention the shooting and attacking the innocent people.
However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... what West needs to understand is the present demographics of global politics. We are living in an age of globalisation. The societies are immensely diverse, multi-cultural and integrated. In developed countries, especially within the Western countries people from almost all religions, races, cultures and ethnic communities are living together. It’s not a colonial era where imperial powers can colonise a country or even a post-colonial period where wars in Vietnam etc. can be launched and one could easily get away with it, without having any severe consequences into their own homelands.
History is evident that insurgencies, emerged as a result of oppression from the Imperial Powers, have always had considerable popularity, regardless of their methodology which is generally based on savagery and inhumanity. West must understand the phenomenon which is deep-rooted beneath the Islamist Lion of Islam organizations. Therefore at first they have to discriminate between bandidosDeath Eaters and Islamists. They have to revise their interpretation of political Islam.
Moreover, reportedly people from nearly 80 different nationalities are fighting under the banners of ISIS and Al-Nusra Front. Most importantly, there is a large number of highly educated students from top Universities of the World and professionals from leading organizations, who have joined the Lion of Islam groups in the Middle Eastern War field. This should be a paramount point of concern for US and its European allies. This is so "obvious" that there ideology has a strong appeal which is motivating the people living in the West.
Additionally, the enormous displacement of people from Middle East and Africa, in a scenario in which the conflicts are getting endlessly intense and convoluted, is going to be a tremendous disaster for collective peace and security. The key to these crises lies in the political settlement of these conflicts.
International community must play a substantial role to deal with these crises, as the augmenting anarchy in the international political landscape is overturning the existing global order, which at the moment is on the verge of collapse. Furthermore, the International Power brokers have adopted new formations over the political chessboard and in the current multi-polar world politics, this could provide an opportunity to the transnational players, who have absolute potential to disrupt the entire chessboard instead of their opponent.
Finally, on top of everything, the western community has to accept a harsh reality that incase if there is bloodshed in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, then its, unfortunately, obvious that there would be no peace in their own lands also.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[15 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
... the...crisis basically originated with the US War Against Terror
ARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!
Jeez Louise this $4it twists my knickers.
What about the attacks on the WTC, Pentagon, etc.??? You think that maybe THAT is what kicked off this "segment"?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2016 11:14
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Jihadis and similar folk thrive when they perceive weakness in the West. The first big example was our reneging on our promises to provide air support to South Vietnam when it was invaded by the North Vietnamese Army.
Carter's pathetic response to outrages by the Iranian revolutionaries was another. Failure to respond to the Lebanese barracks bombing was the next. Passive response to the first Trade Center attack was another. Withdrawal from Iraq another. Bootlicking Iran another. Passive response to more outrages still more. All of these things have energized the Jihadis.
They think not of the past but of the future. They see the possibility of wiping you out, while you dither and blame others for resisting them.
“Ghostbusters” is a horror from start to finish, and that’s not me saying it’s legitimately scary.
More like I was horrified by what was transpiring onscreen.
How could so many talented, well-meaning artists, who clearly loved and respected the original, produce such a raggedy-looking, thuddingly unfunny, utterly unnecessary reboot?
For months, controversy has swirled around the new “Ghostbusters” movie. The trailer was reportedly the most hated in YouTube history, for what that’s worth (or not worth), which led to some pundits saying some of that hate was rooted in sexism.
Others said the fact the Leslie Jones character wasn’t a scientist and seemed to have a role that called for her to play into stereotypes smacked of racism.
Of course, people were voicing these opinions without having seen the entire movie. Well, I have seen it — and while I believe the concerns about racial stereotypes were overblown, “Ghostbusters” is one of the worst movies of the year for multiple other reasons, including:
Bad acting.
Uninspired directing, editing, cinematography and music.
Cheesy special effects.
A forgettable villain.
A terrible script.
Let’s go ahead and issue the obligatory SPOILER ALERT. Later in this review, I WILL be discussing the nature of the cameos by some of the cast members from the original “Ghostbusters.” You’ve been warned.
The 2016 edition of “Ghostbusters” is not a sequel or a remake per se. While there are multiple visual and musical nods to the 1984 classic (to the point of distraction), this is a stand-alone disaster. (One indication this story takes place in the same universe occupied by the original Ghostbusters: We catch a glimpse of a bust of the late great Harold Ramis’ Egon Spengler character.)
In present-day New York City, Kristen Wiig’s Erin is an uptight academic trying to distance herself from her college days when she and her best friend Abby (Melissa McCarthy) published a book claiming ghosts were real. Erin and Abby are estranged — but they’re reunited via plot device when honest-to-ghostness apparitions surface in New York, creating all sorts of evil mischief.
Wiig and McCarthy co-starred in “Bridesmaids” (directed by the usually terrific Paul Feig, who is at the helm here) and they’re enormously charismatic and versatile screen actors — which makes it all the more disappointing to see them flounder separately and together here. They’re both surprisingly muted and flat.
Then again, better understated than insanely over-the-top, which is what we get from Kate McKinnon as Holtzmann, the “wacky” scientist of the bunch. McKinnon is so good on “Saturday Night Live,” but she absolutely butchers her performance in this film — mugging for the camera, bouncing around in an exaggerated manner as if she’s in a “Three Stooges” short, and drawing attention to herself even when a scene calls for her to react and not engage in wholesale attention-getting thievery.
Jones is loud and unsubtle as an MTA worker named Patty who becomes the fourth Ghostbuster, but I’m not sure there’s a way to deliver lines such as, “Aw, hell naw!” without going big.
There’s very little chemistry between any combination of the four Ghostbusters, who spend a lot of time strategizing about their next move and then saying “Woohoo!” when they hit the streets.
Chris Hemsworth further drags down the proceedings as their receptionist, Kevin, who’s monumentally stupid — but also narcissistic and annoying. Hemsworth tries too hard to be funny, instead of creating a legitimately funny character. (It doesn’t help matters that Wiig’s Erin is so smitten with this dope she can barely think straight around him.)
As for those wildly hyped cameos by original “Ghostbusters” cast members Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Annie Potts — and once again, SPOILER ALERT! They don’t play older versions of their characters. They’re just wedged into the story as irrelevant, plot-stopping cameos. Dan Aykroyd saying “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts” isn’t a clever homage to the original; it’s a self-conscious and cloying wink that serves no real purpose.
The special effects in “Ghostbusters” are so mediocre I’m wondering if they’re a nod to the relatively crude effects of 1984. (Or maybe they’re just not very good.) The ghosts aren’t frightening and they’re not funny and they have almost no backstory; they’re just hissing, hateful, murderous creatures storming through the city.
Neil Casey plays the movie’s main villain, a creepy hotel janitor named Rowan. He’s one of the most forgettable villains of any movie I’ve ever seen. I’m already forgetting his name as I finish this paragraph.
Andy Garcia does what he can with this role as the mayor of New York, who is in deep denial about the whole ghost thing. (It’s a pale imitation of William Atherton’s fantastic work as Walter Peck, the EPA official who tried to shut down the Ghostbusters in the 1984 film.)
From multiple visual references to the iconic logo to a new take on the catchy Ray Parker Jr. (by way of Huey Lewis) theme song to the appearance of some very familiar ghosts to the aforementioned cameos, “Ghostbusters” keeps telling us: Yes, we know we’re revisiting a classic.
#1
"liberals" always must interject themselves into everything in the world making it un-authentic and idiotic.
The childish utopians used to be harmless hippies but now run everything thinking they may change human nature on top of their stupid plans to gain power by creating all kinds of bingbat problems that existed before... in every powerful Nation that fell into the dustbin of history.
#4
...There's a magnificent book - at turns informative and gossipy but always so fascinating you can't put it down - called Final Cut, about the disaster surrounding the movie Heaven's Gate. I suspect that there's going to be one just like it written about this version of Ghostbusters,and I can't wait to see how a bunch of The Smartest People In The Room managed to frack up a sure-fire hit. Had they gone with a handing-of-the-torch script - and there were a dozen different variants of that which didn't require Bill Murray's cooperation - we'd be having a completely different discussion.
But, what do I know? I'm only the guy who has to come up with the money to watch this crap. And I'm not going to, though I will probably buy a 1/25th model of the new ECTO-1, if anybody makes it. Sony forgot the first and most important rule of moviemaking - "Give the people what they want."
And this ain't it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/17/2016 7:53
Comments ||
Top||
#5
"Give the people what they want."
Ah, but they did. The people they swim with in their urban bubbles spouting SJW nonsense wanted this. While very loud in proximity to them, its a demographic that is small and unsupportable in the larger community, just check the consequence Mizzou is paying for the same financial mistake, ie forgetting who pays the tab.
#12
But what if I like being a misogynist white-privileged asshole? I genuinely don't give a crap about the opinion of most of those on the left, they have managed to end my sense of tolerance for "useful idiots".
#14
I genuinely don't give a crap about the opinion of most of those on the left
“Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.”-Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] On the morning of July 12, 2006 Hezbollah commandos launched a cross-border raid on an Israeli armored patrol, killing two soldiers and taking two hostages.
The act would, over the next few days, escalate into the devastating 34-day conflict between Israel and Leb’s powerful Shiite military-political force.
The 2006 war came at a huge price, especially for Leb. Some 1,200 Lebanese died, the vast majority of them civilians and an estimated one third of them children. It also caused the displacement of a third of the country’s 4.5 million people. Almost every bridge in the country and thousands of buildings, vital infrastructure, transport hubs, and industrial buildings were damaged or destroyed. Indeed, the Lebanese government estimated the bill for reconstruction was $2.8 billion.
43 Israeli civilians died ‐ mostly in indiscriminate rocket fire from Hezbollah ‐and 117 IDF soldiers were killed in the conflict.
Cambanis speculated that the price of another war hasn’t been totally out of Nasrallah’s mind. It was costly in many ways for both sides, which he believes has done a lot to preserve the stability in south Lebanon over the last 10 years.
“They have gingerly kept the peace, and it seems that the horrifyingly disproportionate war crimes described in the Dahiya Doctrine do seem to be effective,” said Cambanis. “Neither side seems interested in conflict.”
However, Goksel is less sure that the stability can be maintained. “With UNIFIL unlike 30 years ago there are no small skirmishes – 10 rounds here, 10 rounds there – but the next war will be big, this is very scary. Israel will go after Lebanon not just Hezbollah, but it will come at an extremely high price.”While both sides declared victory, most observers agree Israel failed in almost all its strategic objectives. Far from destroying or degrading Hezbollah, the 2006 war emboldened Israel’s old foe and entrenched it into the fabric of Leb. On top of this, Israel also failed to retrieve the two kidnapped soldiers alive.
"Israel didn’t achieve what it wanted militarily. Hezbollah stood up to them and didn’t lose," said Timur Goksel, who served as spokesperson and advisor for UNIFIL ‐ the UN peacekeeping force in Leb ‐ for 24 years. "The metric [of victory for Hezbollah] was the end result: Israel didn’t achieve its military ends and they caused friction and debate in Israel. You just can’t use the classic metrics of success."
A victory?
This idea was echoed by Thanassis Cambanis, a fellow at the Century Foundation and author of a book on Hezbollah, ’A Privilege to Die.’
"Hezbollah had a clear strategy from the beginning to frame the conflict as a victory if they simply survived," he told Al Arabiya English. "This was a very smart strategy, it’s hard to have imagined a situation in which Hezbollah was totally destroyed."
Cambanis also highlighted that Israel’s approach of overwhelming air bombardment ‐ which became known as the Dahiya Doctrine after the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut ‐ also helped bolster support for the ’Party of God’. "At the beginning in Leb there was a feeling that Hezbollah provoked this suffering, but when Israel’s bombing gathered force it silenced any blame," he explained.
On the ground throughout the conflict, Hezbollah’s well-prepared guerrilla campaign against Israel allowed them a decisive advantage to choose where and when to engage. Indeed, many of Hezbollah’s most iconic moments of the conflict played out more like a dramatic action movie than a desperate battle for survival.
On July 15, 2006, during one of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah’s almost nightly television addresses, he referred to an Israeli warship off the Lebanese coast. "Look at the warship that has attacked Beirut, while it burns and sinks before your very eyes," he declared, before the camera cut to a transmission of the ship being struck by a powerful blast.
The ship in question, the INS Hanit, was only partially damaged but on a number of levels it was a master stroke of messaging and projection, a clear propaganda victory for Hezbollah.
It exemplified the group’s victory strategy. They didn’t need to win on the battlefield or drive the IDF out of Leb to claim victory, they simply needed to bleed the Israeli war machine with high propaganda value attacks.
The story of the INS Hanit itself has become almost mythicized for many Lebanese as a symbol of Hezbollah’s ability to project power ‐ both for opponents and supporters of the organization.
"Hezbollah made a lot of PR, only 300-400 Hezbollah fighters were killed and the complete military infrastructure was intact at the end of the conflict. They showed that no matter how much you bomb you cannot crack this established force," explained Cambanis.
Sealing Hezbollah’s dominance However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... on the Lebanese nation the conflict exerted a huge cost. Not just in lives and destruction but also political terms. Cambanis highlighted how the war sealed Hezbollah’s dominance as a political-military force in the county at the expense of the nation on the lam, which was still recovering from 30 years of war and Syrian occupation.
"For Leb, it was a catastrophe. The country already started off diminished as it was recovering from the civil war, but it was dealt a fatal blow. The national unity project had a real possibility that is just impossible today - the chance of economic development, of politics actually taking place," he explained.
However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... Goksel is less sure that the stability can be maintained. "With UNIFIL unlike 30 years ago there are no small skirmishes ‐ 10 rounds here, 10 rounds there ‐ but the next war will be big, this is very scary. Israel will go after Leb not just Hezbollah, but it will come at an extremely high price."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
most observers agree Israel failed in almost all its strategic objectives
They kept killing people and breaking things until the Lebs stopped shooting at them and yet the Lebs call it victory. That's some funny kinda logic.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/17/2016 15:00
Comments ||
Top||
#2
The next war needs to focus on their use of civilian homes, hospitals, and schools as fire bases. The Paleos do the same thing and it never gets enough attention. Our media, like War Slut Christiane Amanpour, won't broadcast it - so go around them on social media
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2016 15:26
Comments ||
Top||
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The United States has called on Pakistain to target all bully boy groups including those targeting the country’s neighbors.
Deputy spokesperson for the State Department, Mark Toner, hailed Pakistain’s efforts regarding the ongoing military operations in the tribal regions of the country.
Admitting the country has suffered greatly from the menace of terrorism, Toner, said "We believe that Pakistain is taking steps to address terrorist violence, particularly focused on groups that threaten Paks’ ‐ Pakistain’s stability."
Toner further added "They have made progress shutting down terrorist safe havens. They’ve restored government control in many parts of Pakistain that have been used as terrorist safe havens for many years. And these are important, and they’re meaningful steps for Pakistain to have made. And they’ve also come at a cost, and that cost is in ‐ certainly in Pak lives."
However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... he said "At the same time ‐ and we’ve made this point before ‐ we’ve been very clear that Pakistain must target all bully boy groups, including those that target Pakistain’s neighbors, and close all safe havens. And so in this regard we certainly welcome comments by General Raheel Sharif ..Pak chief of army staff, meaning he pulls the strings on the Nawaz Sharif puppet to make it dance and sing and not do much at all.... ’s ‐ Sharif, rather, on July 6, when he directed Pak military commanders, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement agencies to take concrete measures to deny any bully boy groups safe haven or the use of Pak soil to launch terrorist attacks in Afghanistan."
The remarks by Toner comes as the Afghan officials believe the leadership councils of the Afghan bully boy groups, including the Taliban group and the notorious Haqqani terrorist network has remained intact despite the ongoing military operations by Pakistain.
The Afghan officials have long been raising concerns regarding the presence of the Taliban group and Haqqani network leadership councils in Pakistain.
They are saying that the two groups are having leadership councils based in both Quetta and Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. cities of Pakistain from where they launch attacks in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[13 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistain Proxies
#1
Sharif on July 6 "directed Pak military commanders, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement agencies to take concrete measures to deny any bully boy groups safe haven or the use of Pak soil to launch terrorist attacks in Afghanistan."
Sharif DID NOT say, however, that the Pakistan ISI would discontinue its support for the Islamist rebels operating in Afghanistan.
[DAWN] So how have these all-encompassing garments come to cover millions of girls and women across the Moslem world? After all, there is nothing in the Holy Book commanding women to conceal themselves from head to toe. While modesty in attire is enjoined for both men and women, the current vogue is relatively new.
In the subcontinent, burqas were worn by well-born ladies in cities when they left their homes to show they did not have to work. This was more a statement of class than of religion. Most Pak women who migrated to the UK from socially backward areas like Mirpur wore dupattas, but seldom burqas. However, you can observe a lot just by watching... many of their daughters and granddaughters, born and brought up in Britannia, wear full burqas as banners proclaiming their Moslem identity.
Nothing provokes the unspoken outrage of the most tolerant Brit than the sight of a totally concealed woman walking down the street. Apart from further separating immigrants colonists from their hosts, the veil also prevents girls from taking part in normal school activities like athletics, swimming and theatre.
In fact, a Moslem girl in Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... was recently denied citizenship as she refused to meet her school requirement of swimming with her male and female classmates. In one Swiss canton, voters in a referendum agreed to impose a 9,200 euro fine on anyone wearing the full niqab or burqa.
Are these signs of growing Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... ? The short answer is yes. Given the increasing number of Moslems migrating to Europe by hook or by crook, and the heightened security concerns caused by terrorism, anti-Moslem sentiments should not surprise us.
So how did these inconvenient and unattractive garments come to cover millions of Moslem women across the world? Traditionally, it was in Afghanistan and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , two of the most socially backward countries in the Moslem world, that women were obliged to cover themselves completely. These tribal garments were given religious legitimacy by local holy mans. They, together with Saudi Arabia’s Lion of Islam version of Islam, were exported to other Moslem states after 1973 when the sharp spike in oil prices filled Saudi coffers.
Apart from these social and religious factors, there is a security aspect to the burqa. When Ali Haider Gilani, the son of Pakistain’s ex-PM was kidnapped, he was apparently dressed in a burqa while being driven to the tribal areas. Thus, the car he was in was not stopped at security checkposts along the way. What cop would risk insulting the husband or brother of a burqa-clad lady by asking her to reveal her face?
And famously, Maulana Abdul Aziz ...nutball holy man who runs the Lal Masjid in the heart of Pakistain's capital. After instigating a rebellion against the state in 2007, he was caught trying to sneak away dressed in a burka. He rejects democracy as un-Islamic, which it probably is... was captured wearing a burqa while trying to flee Islamabad’s Lal Masjid ...literally the Red Mosque, located in Islamabad and frequented by all sorts of high govt officials. The proprietors, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi, unleashed their Islamic storm troopers on the city, shutting down whorehouses and beating people up who weren't devout enough. The Musharraf govt put an end to the nonsense by besieging the place. Abdul Aziz Ghazi was nabbed while he was trying to escape dressed up like a girl. BBC reported that the corpse count at 173, but other claims, usually hysterical, say there were up to 1000 titzup. Among their number was Abdul Rashid Ghazi. Everyone then said tut-tut and what a nice guy he had been... after the shootout that finally ended the siege. In many other crimes and terrorist attacks, burqas have been used to conceal identities and weapons.
But how does a Moslem state legislate to insist that women in veils reveal their faces? Increasingly, however, Western countries are showing they will not risk the safety of citizens by permitting Moslem women to cover themselves from head to toe.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] At least 8 people, including two children, have been killed in regime air strike on the eastern countryside of Idlib province, local activists said on Friday. 5 more people have been wounded in the strike on the town of Abu Duhur near a strategic military air base.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[18 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Iraq Sun] The U.N.'s top diplomat in Iraq is warning that the expected military operation to liberate the city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... from 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.... fighters could become the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.
"OCHA [UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] estimates that the Mosul operation will be the largest and most sensitive humanitarian crisis in the world in 2016," Iraq envoy Jan Kubis told the U.N. Security Council in a briefing on Friday. Mosul is Iraq's second largest city.
He said a U.N. aid appeal for $861 million stands at less than 40 percent funded, and a reallocation of existing resources is urgently required, not just to meet current emergency needs, but for those anticipated for the Mosul liberation campaign.
"The [Mosul] humanitarian effort could cost as much as $1 billion," Kubis warned.
Iraq is already classified as a Level 3 emergency
- the highest crisis category. Currently, the U.N. estimates more than 10 million Iraqis require some form of humanitarian assistance
- including the 3.4 million people who have been displaced since the rise of the self-styled Islamic State began in 2014.
Next week in Washington, a donors conference is planned in support of Iraq.
The U.S. announced Monday it would send 560 more troops to Iraq, many to be positioned near Mosul in an effort to retake the largest city under IS control. Washington has also been training Iraqi forces to carry out the campaign.
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Ali Alhakim told the Security Council that his government and the international coalition have liberated 60 percent of territory held by Islamic State.
"We are also working to prepare for the liberation of Mosul; certain operations have already begun." He said some villages have already been retaken in the initial phase.
Alhakim said that across Iraq some 700,000 residents have returned to areas liberated from IS and other gangs.
Last month, Iraqi troops with international support, liberated the city of Fallujah in Anbar province from more than two years under IS control.
Some 85,000 residents then fled the city, overwhelming camps for the displaced and requiring a massive humanitarian response. Many arrived to safety in terrible condition, after months of food shortages and a lack of clean drinking water and medicines.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
As though war itself isn't a major humanitarian crisis.
[DAWN] Classified portions of a Congressional inquiry report, declassified on Friday, allege that some Sept 11, 2001 hijackers had links with Saudi intelligence officers.
The documents also claim that Saudi officials, based in the United States during that period, might have had ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.
"While in the United States, some of the Sept 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government," revealed the documents seen by Dawn.
"There is information, primary from FBI sources, that at least two of these individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers," it added.
The declassified pages refer to the joint inquiry report that Congress completed in 2002 and noted that report "confirmed that the intelligence community also has information, which is yet to be independently verified, indicating that individuals associated with the Saudi government in the United States may have other ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups".
The declassified documents showed that the US Federal Bureau of Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency had "informed the joint inquiry that, since the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, they are treating the Saudi issue seriously, but both still have a limited understanding of the Saudi government’s ties to terrorist elements".
Earlier on Friday, the B.O. regime declassified the so-called Saudi papers.
The FBI and US intelligence agencies had kept the information secret for 13 years, citing national security.
The secret documents were part of a 2002 congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks but were classified on the orders of former president George W. Bush.
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... , a close US ally, reacted angrily when a congressional panel adopted a resolution earlier this year, urging the administration to release the document. The oil-rich kingdom threatened to withdraw hundreds of billions of dollars from the US market if the pages were released.
The 9/11 commission, which prepared this report, had earlier said that "no government other than the Taliban financially supported Al Qaeda before 9/11".
The commission, however, also said that some governments..."may have contained Al Qaeda sympathisers who turned a blind eye to Al Qaeda’s fundraising activities".
It noted that Saudi Arabia "has long been considered the primary source of Al Qaeda funding", but acknowledged finding "no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization". The papers, however, leave some room of redemption for Saudi Arabia as they admit that the alleged Saudi involvement in terrorist activities could not be proved definitively.
"In their testimony, neither FBI nor CIA witnesses were able to identify definitively the extent of Saudi support for terrorist activity globally or within the United States and the extent to which this support, if it exists, is knowing or inadvertent in nature," the document said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
#1
The report also finds that the Saudis refused to cooperate with the US’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden because the Saudis feared retribution.
“[The] Saudis had stopped providing background information or other assistance on Bin Laden because Bin Laden had too much information about official Saudi dealings with Islamic extremists in the 1980s for Riyadh to deliver him into U.S. hands,” says the report, citing a CIA memo.
The "Saudi dealings with Islamic extremists in the 1980s"... a bit wobbly I'd say. After some reluctance and obvious discomfort, perhaps someone decided to simply quit asking questions. My emphasis added.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[12 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
She never said why she would do it.
"You crimp your hair while you shampoo it?"
The current shot through it!
Until she outgrew it,
They called her the Bride of Fred Pruitt.
Oh, jeez. All I know about Fred is the odd snippet picked up here. Haven't even had the decency to read his other stuff (time to fix that, innit). If I've somehow contrived to be offensive, I'm sorry.
[DAWN] TERROR has once again struck La Belle France, a country that has been bludgeoned by a wave of murderous Moslem strikes since December 2014.
The date of the attack -- July 14, the French national day -- suggests a motive to strike at the heart of the identity of modern-day La Belle France.
The location -- a well-known tourist spot, Nice -- and the modus operandi -- driving a 19-tonne truck into crowds of families and tourists -- were meant to inflict maximum damage and sow the widest horror.
The identity of the killer, a French resident from Tunisia, suggests a now all-too-familiar source of violence inside La Belle France and parts of Western Europe.
What is not yet known is whether the suspect acted alone, a so-called lone-wolf attack by a disaffected individual with a petty crimes background, or if he was inspired by or coordinated with the murderous MoslemIslamic 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.
Sadly, though perhaps not unsurprisingly, before the facts have been established, French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... has already vowed "real force and military action in Syria and Iraq". La Belle France, it appears, will continue to suffer violence as its leaders struggle to understand the nature of the threat confronting the country today.
IS, whether or not it is directly responsible for the latest French atrocity, is a global menace. The colossal damage it has inflicted directly on Syria and Iraq and the violence it has sponsored or inspired in far-flung areas of the Moslem world render meaningless the claims in some Western quarters that there is an existential battle between the Western world and turban Islam.
La Belle France has clearly suffered and in open societies the psychological impact of terror can be traumatising in ways perhaps not understood by denizens of countries more familiar with violence in their streets. Yet, it is difficult to understand how a response such as that by the French president can be helpful in the complex fight against IS.
After the horrific November 2015 Gay Paree attacks, President Hollande made a similar vow to take the fight to IS in Syria and Iraq. IS did indeed claim the Gay Paree attacks, but all the perpetrators were from the EU.
Surely, a two-pronged response is needed: domestically, for European countries to examine the causes for their own citizens turning against their countrymen; internationally, for a concerted response, including by the leading Moslem countries, in the fight against IS.
Anything less and the so-called clash of civilisations that the turbans are hoping to trigger may inadvertently become a reality.
For Pakistain, still contending with its own terrorism and insurgency problems, there are no easy lessons from the Nice carnage.
IS has not made its presence felt inside Pakistain in a significant way yet; but as the French attacks demonstrate, there is much chaos that can be caused by even a few individuals. So, counterterrorism operations must continue, but counter-extremism should be taken up with vigour too.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Iraq Sun] Forces aligned with Libya's U.N.-backed government suffered losses from snipers and mines on Friday, July 15 as they battled 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.... to win control of a strategic conference center in the coastal city of Sirte, according to Rooters.
Islamic State is clinging on in the center of Sirte in the face of a two-month campaign by brigades mainly composed of fighters from the western city of Misrata. Their progress has been slowed by resistance from forces of Evil holed up in a 5 km area in central Sirte.
Losing Sirte would represent a major setback for Islamic State, which established its most important base outside Syria and Iraq in the Libyan city.
Sirte had been under the bad boy group's control since last year, and it had extended its presence along about 250 km (155 miles) of coastline.
At least 20 members of the government-backed forces were killed and 120 maimed in fighting in Sirte on Friday, said Aziz Issa, a front man for the central hospital in Misrata, one of the higher tolls in recent weeks of fighting.
A front man for the forces, Ahmed Hadia, said the latest festivities around the Ouagadougou conference hall complex and in the neighborhood of Ghiza Asskariya had been continuing for two days.
"Our forces entered the complex and are fighting (but) they still cannot take the complex," he said.
Militants had tried unsuccessfully to counter attack with three boom-mobiles, Hadia said. "The deaths among our forces on Friday were a result of targeting by snipers and of mines," he said.
The Ouagadougou hall became a key site for Islamic State as it imposed its ultra-hardline rule over Sirte, using the center for meetings and religious instruction.
The bad boy group expanded into Libya amid the political chaos and security vacuum that developed after long-time ruler Muammar Qadaffy ...Proof that a madman with money will be politely received for at least 42 years until his people get tired of him and kill him... was toppled in an uprising in 2011.
The United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... -backed government moved to 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... three months ago in an attempt to unify two rival administrations and various armed factions.
While the new government has so far received support from powerful brigades from Misrata, it has made little progress extending its influence nationally and has continued to face determined opposition from hardliners in eastern Libya.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
(IraqiNews.com) BAGHDAD – A source in the Ministry of Interior informed that a bomb blast in northern Baghdad left at least three dead and six others severely injured.
The source, explaining details about the blast, said, “This morning an improvised explosive device exploded near a popular market at al-Taji district in northern Baghdad, killing three persons and injuring six others.”
“Security forces rushed to the area and shifted the injured to a nearby hospital. The bodies of the deceased were transferred to the forensic department.”
[AMERICANTHINKER] One of the reasons the deceptive liberal narrative about black lives is so doggedly defended and regularly repeated is that the truth about the very real suffering in the American black community runs counter to modern liberal dogma. The biggest reason for the rampant lawlessness and poverty that is so prevalent in the black community is the breakdown of the family.
It has been widely reported for years now that the out-of-wedlock birth rate among American blacks is over 70 percent. Almost always, mothers are left to raise their children alone. In U.S. cities, where the violence and poverty among U.S. blacks is most pronounced, the out-of-wedlock birth rate is even worse. For example, in reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... about 80 percent of black children are born to single mothers. Today, only 17 percent of American black teenagers reach age 17 in a family with their biological parents married to each other. In no state in the U.S does black family intactness exceed 30 percent.
Social science is finally revealing what sound morality and good common sense always told us: Children of single mothers do worse in almost every metric measured: school achievement, poverty, crime, emotional well-being, drug use, delinquency, violent behavior, and so on. These negative outcomes are even worse for black children born to single mothers. Millions of black youths -- because of the frequent absence of fathers -- are growing up poorly disciplined, poorly educated, and poorly churched.
Thus, gangs and crime have become far too common in the black communities of America. Sadly, these broken and vulnerable black families typically live in the most dangerous parts of our nation. From the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, until the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011, there were 4,485 U.S. casualties. The city of Chicago alone had 4,265 murders during the same time period. Perhaps the most shocking statistic of all when it comes to black Americans and violence is that black men in the U.S. are half as likely to die if they are in prison than if they are not.
However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... easily the most dangerous place for a black child in America is the womb. This is horrifically sad when one considers that a mother’s womb should be one of the safest places in the universe. Since the Roe vs. Wade ruling in 1973, abortion has killed more black Americans than crime, accidents, cancer, heart disease, or AIDS. Since 1973, abortion has taken the life of more black Americans than any other single cause of death. Again, in U.S. cities, these numbers are even more staggering. In New York City, in 2012, more black children were aborted than were born.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
In conversation, I always refer to the 1964/65 'Great Society' program as the beginning of the end for American families living in poverty (think 'inner city').
The program initiatives effectively made the presence of a father-figure and/or significant wage earner irrelevant for low income families.
The government therefor became the 'wind and rudder' for the folks that the new laws supposedly were to help.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/17/2016 9:31
Comments ||
Top||
[AlAhram] Cooperation between Turkey's political parties will get a "new start" in the wake of the defeated coup attempt, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Saturday, promising that the usually fractious four main parties could find common ground.
[Zamanalwsl] The attempted coup in Turkey saw 161 people martyred and 1,440 injured, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Saturday. Speaking in the Turkish capital Ankara, Yildirim said 2,839 military personnel involved in the “vile attempt” had been arrested. Some were senior officers, he added. He also said 20 pro-coup soldiers had been killed in Friday night’s attempt to overthrow the government.
According to the Interior Ministry, 1,563 military personnel were arrested across Turkey on Saturday and a number of officers were suspended from duty, including five generals and 29 colonels.
[Zamanalwsl] The final group of pro-coup Turkish military personnel surrendered Saturday afternoon, a security source said. Around 150 plotters, who are suspected of being members of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization, had been holding out at the headquarters of the General Staff and the nearby gendarmerie compound in central Ankara.
Three prosecutors went to the headquarters to receive the surrender of the group, which included 13 high-ranking naval officers, the source said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media. Two buses carried senior officers away while other ranks, many wearing just their underwear, were put on three buses to be taken to a sports hall in Baskent on the western edge of the capital. The source said counter-terrorism officers would make detailed search of the compound, where earlier Saturday around 700 coup troops surrendered to police.
[Zamanalwsl] European leaders greeted the defeat of Turkey's coup on Saturday with relief as it averts chaos and keeps alive a deal that has helped to stem the migration crisis threatening the continent. But while some hope a reminder of resistance to his personal grip on power may prompt President Tayyip Erdogan to heed European pleas for him to respect civil rights, many fear he is far more likely to step up his crackdown on opponents and so complicate European Union efforts to maintain the bargain. The coming weeks, starting when EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Monday, will be crucial to the fate of a plan at the heart of the migrant deal: to have skeptical EU lawmakers approve after the summer an end to visa requirements for Turks.
[ZeroHedge] We don't have to remind readers that when military coups take place in the middle-east, they are i) ruthless, ii) extremely well-organized and planned, and iii) succeed on virtually every occasion. But not this one. The question why is what the media (or at least its fringes) will be pondering over the next few days and weeks.
What there is no question about, however, is Erdogan's response, which as he warned last night, would begin with a quick crackdown against the army. As of this moment, hundreds of soldiers have already been arrested.
However, the real punchline was revealed moments ago when Anadolu said a top body overseeing judges and prosecutors has dismissed 2,745 judges across the country. Anadolu Agency says the emergency meeting of the Judges and Prosecutors High Council was held Saturday, mere hours after Turkish forces quashed an attempted coup, and promptly purged the slate clean of anyone in the judicial branch who was seen as even remotely opposed to Erdogan.
The Anadolu Agency added on Saturday that arrest warrants were issued for 48 administrative court members and 140 members of Turkey's appeals court: as if members of Turkey's judicial system - long on Erdodan's black list - were involved in the army's failed putsch.
As of right now, Erdogan has removed the two last hurdles on his way to absolute, supreme power: holdouts in Turkey's judicial branch and in the army.
[AlAhram] U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday the United States had not received any request to extradite Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, but was willing to assist in legitimate efforts to deal with plotters of Turkey's attempted coup.
[Hurriyet] Any country that would harbor Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the parallel state that is regarded as the mastermind of July 15’s coup attempt would not be Turkey’s friend, the Turkish prime minister has said, obviously urging the United States where the self-exile religious leader lives since late 1990s. Yıldırım indirectly criticized the U.S. for not understanding the concerns Turkey had expressed about Gülen, saying “This caused us to pay a big price.”
Prime Minister said Turkey has already delivered its request of extradition for Gülen.
[DailySabah] The United Nations Security Council failed on Saturday to condemn the coup attempt in Turkey after Egypt objected to a statement that called on all parties to "respect the democratically elected government of Turkey," diplomats said. The U.S.-drafted statement also expressed grave concern over the situation in Turkey, urged the parties to show restraint, avoid any violence or bloodshed, and called for an urgent end to the crisis and return to rule of law. Statements by the 15-member Security council have to be agreed by consensus.
[Hurriyet] A number of high ranking soldiers were detained on July 16 in operations which came after security forces' quashing of a coup attempt in the country. The commander of the 2nd Army Gen. Adem Huduti and its executive officer and Malatya Garrison Commander Avni Angun and the commander of the 3rd Army Gen. Erdal Öztürk were detained in the operations. Meanwhile, another 10 soldiers, including two high-ranking generals, were also detained. Akın Öztürk, the former Chief of Air Staff, was also detained as a part of the operations.
Four top commanders and the Chief of General Gen. Staff Hulusi Akar were saved after they held hostage by the Gülenist coup attempters. Turkey’s top soldier Gen. Hulusi Akar, who was taken hostage by the coup attempters at the General Staff headquarters in Ankara with other leading commanders, was freed at the Akıncılar Air Base through an operation. The air force’s command, the gendarmerie command and some units from the armored forces took part in the coup attempt, he said, adding that it was quashed.
A lengthy article with plenty of other details reported, including that Erdogan's hotel, the prime minster's office and the parliament building were bombed.
[Hurriyet] Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said Ankara has demanded return of eight coup attempter soldiers , who landed on Alexandroupolis in Greece and that Athens accepted the former's request. The Black Hawk helicopter landed after sending a distress signal to authorities at the airport in Alexandroupolis in the country's north. Seven of those on board were in military uniform and all are believed to have been involved in the coup bid, ERT TV said.
[Hurriyet] A total of 2,839 soldiers have been detained over the charges of coup attempt, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said July 16 in a press briefing. There are high-ranking officers among the detained. Broadcaster CNNTürk said four of them were generals and 29 of them were colonels.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ had informed that state prosecutors in all 81 provinces have already launched investigations on the coup attempt, saying “Detentions are mostly taken place in Ankara and Istanbul but there are other detentions in many other places of Turkey.”
[DailySabah] Leaders of Turkey's religious communities have released a joint statement condemning the failed coup attempt orchestrated by agents of the Gülenist Terror Organization (FETÖ). The statement from representatives of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities declared "our great sorrow over the terrorist attacks that disturb the peace of our great nation and of the world."
[Sunday Express]Today Fetullah Gulen claimed the attempted overthrow may have been staged, and he urged the Turkish people not to view military intervention in a positive light. Speaking from Pennsylvania he said: "There is a slight chance, there is a possibility that it could be a staged coup. "It could be meant for court accusations and associations." Gulen said democracy cannot be achieved through military action. He criticised the President Tayyip Erdogan's government. He said: "It appears that they have no tolerance for any movement, any group, any organisation that is not under their total control."
[Ynet] Georgia has ordered its border with Turkey closed amid the instability from a military coup attempt. Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said the country's security council on Saturday discussed "threats that might arise to Georgia" from the situation and said both land and air borders had been closed. The former Soviet republic shares a 152 mile border with Turkey.
[Breitbart] Fox News Strategic Analyst Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (Ret.) praised the coup in Turkey, arguing that those staging it were who the US should be supporting, not Turkey’s “Islamist fundamentalist authoritarian president.”
#1
The air force’s command, the gendarmerie command and some units from the armored forces took part in the coup attempt, he said, adding that it was quashed.
Wait, the air force and gendarmerie command were in on it? Now I know this was false flag operation, because there just isn't any reasonable way the would fail with that kind of power and backing.
Posted by: Charles ||
07/17/2016 10:56
Comments ||
Top||
#3
European leaders greeted the defeat of Turkey's coup on Saturday with relief as it averts chaos and keeps alive a deal that has helped to stem the migration crisis threatening the continent.
If they had enough concertina wire and machine guns they wouldn't need Erdogan to stem the migration crisis.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/17/2016 15:06
Comments ||
Top||
[FREEBEACON] CNN contributor Buck Sexton had a heated exchange with a professor on CNN Thursday after the latter said 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.... terrorist organization wasn’t "coming after us" and kept insisting that Sexton didn’t believe the majority of ISIS victims were Moslems.
Mia Bloom, a Georgia State professor, said attacks like the one in Nice, La Belle France, Thursday night were demonstrative of its efforts to stay relevant while its caliphate was slipping away. She remarked the horrific truck attack also increased the "degree of right-wing politics" and "Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... " before going into an attack on Sexton.
"I do disagree with Mr. Sexton, because the fact is, and I’ll say this to you, Buck, directly, the vast majority of ISIS’ victims are Moslem," she said angrily. "Not us. Not the West."
"I’m fully aware of that," Sexton said. "No one disputes that."
An animated Bloom took exception to Sexton earlier saying "they’re coming after us," saying, "They’re not coming after us more than they’re coming after each other."
"I was referring to the Islamic State, which very clearly through its external operations arm ... along with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000... which until recently was considered the most virulent and deadly of the jihadist terrorist organizations for this kind of external plotting, they’re continuing to do this," he said. "Of course they’re killing Moslems."
He said he’d seen their "handiwork" in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. After CNN host Don Lemon cut in to make a nonsensical point about the killers being Moslem, Sexton said he was confused that Bloom was accusing him of saying Moslems didn’t make up the majority of the victims from these terrorists.
"Because you said they’re coming after us," Bloom said. "They’re not just coming after us."
"Yes, they are in fact coming after us!" Sexton shouted. "Do you want me to sit here and talk to you about all the terrorist--"
"But they’re mostly going after each other," she shot back.
"When I say us, I’m referring to America and Europe and the West and all peaceful Moslems and everyone around the world who doesn’t believe that strapping a boom jacket on because you’re disaffected, because you have some belief that somehow this will take you to a place of paradise and virgins, whatever the case may be, everybody who isn’t on that team is on my team," Sexton said. "This notion you have in your head that when I say us, I’m referring to what? Republican Americans?"
"No, you’re saying us as Americans," Bloom said.
Sexton, a former CIA analyst, said her implication was "preposterous." He added there was a "knee-jerk reaction" from leftists to center discussions around "bad rhetoric" from people trying to speak honestly about terrorism.
"We’re just trying to empower the moderates from within Moslem societies, we’re trying to empower our allies in countries that we do work with in the Moslem world and outside the Moslem world, to stop people from getting mowed down at a celebration of a national holiday. That’s it!" Sexton said.
Bloom bizarrely said again, "Which include other Moslems."
"I’ve said that four or five times already," Sexton said.
Lemon tried to cut in repeatedly to stop Sexton’s remarks at the end, and he ended the discussion there.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2016
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[14 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
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.
The alleged "coup" bears looking into at some depth. It might also be prudent to examine current western relationships and alliances with the Erdogan government. 
" a student radical during the Black Panthers era, Hillary Clinton gravitated to the company of anti-cop activists. At Yale, she helped edit a law journal that depicted police officers as racist pigs and ran numerous articles in defense of cop-killers.
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
Hillary Clinton
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] On the morning of July 12, 2006 Hezbollah commandos launched a cross-border raid on an Israeli armored patrol, killing two soldiers and taking two hostages.
43 Israeli civilians died ‐ mostly in indiscriminate rocket fire from Hezbollah ‐and 117 IDF soldiers were killed in the conflict.
On the ground throughout the conflict, Hezbollah’s well-prepared guerrilla campaign against Israel allowed them a decisive advantage to choose where and when to engage. Indeed, many of Hezbollah’s most iconic moments of the conflict played out more like a dramatic action movie than a desperate battle for survival.
