[Daily Beast] TAMPA, Florida -- She worked on and off for five years identifying targets for the U.S. military's Central Command.
And then, when, some believe, she spoke up about cherry-picked intelligence in the ISIS war, she was drummed out of her job--allegedly for cursing twice in the span of the year.
Those were just some of the surreal allegations thrown around last week in a Tampa law office conference room turned into a quasi-courtroom.
Had the case not involved the third-highest ranking person at the Defense Intelligence Agency, a two-star general, a military judge, and hours of testimony--all at a cost of thousands of dollars--it would have been hard to take seriously. Even with those high-ranking officials, at times it was hard not to do a double-take about what was happening.
After all, if cursing were really a fireable offense in the military, every soldier, sailor, Marine, and Defense Department civilian would have to be sent home.
The case suggested that, at CENTCOM, there are two wars being waged: one against ISIS and a separate internal fight between whistleblowers and commanders. This all came to the fore during a rare public hearing last Wednesday before the government appeals board, brought by a subordinate of Gregory Ryckman, the top-ranking civilian at CENTCOM's Joint Intelligence office, known as the J2.
#1
Perhaps the Central Command Inspector General could use some outside assistance. Please make a few SES parking spots, desks. secure phones, and NIPR/SIPR laptops available sometime in the Jan-Feb time frame. Badges and access to the Mole Hole as well please. Nothing left to chance. Three to six months is all that should be necessary. Yes, weekly reporting to the CG, new DnI and Attorney General.
No Inter-Agency transfers or PCS's, retirements, or terminations of anyone above the rank or equivalent pay grade of 03 until this is fully concluded. Please everyone, just stick around for a bit if you would.
When the 'assistance team' is finished in Tampa, they'll be moving on to Washington D.C. and IRS headquarters. Following that, possibly Foggy Bottom and the VA. The list appears to be endless.
#2
Lousy reporting. One must go more than a dozen paragraphs down before discovering the 'who' that governs the proceeding:
"Stewart is appealing that decision to the United States Merit System Protection Board, a quasi-judicial agency in which federal employees suspended more than 14 days can appeal their cases."
As for the hearing itself, we can guess the outcome:
"The board is supposed to be independent, but the statistics suggest otherwise. It has found in favor of the Defense Department in 99.7 percent of cases put before it, according to the latest statistics."
Posted by: Albemarle Prince of the Chinese7177 ||
05/09/2016 9:23 Comments ||
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#3
"The board is supposed to be independent, but the statistics suggest otherwise."
Ever hear of the saying "live by the documentation, die by the documentation"?
A number of military experts believe President Ashraf Ghani's order to suppress militants is not being properly implemented.
They said that the president is "messing with people's minds" by giving the order but not implementing it on the battlefields.
"Unfortunately, what the president has announced is not put into practice. Currently security forces in Deh Rawud district are under siege and the president is playing with the public's minds," said Jawed Kohestani, a military expert.
It has been 13 days since the president has ordered the security forces to suppress militants, but any tangible change on the battlefields is not being seen.
Security forces in Helmand, Uruzgan and Zabul provinces are on the defensive, while in Baghlan province more forces are needed to eliminate militants.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) meanwhile assured the public of an increase in operations against insurgents.
"The fighting is very serious, a strong resolve has taken shape and we have a 15 percent rise in operations and we will launch a large-scale operation in 30 districts in the next six months," said Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the MoI.
A number of experts however are optimistic about the implementation of the order.
"I think that the president has defined a new prospective about the war and we will soon see the results on the battleground," said Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, former deputy minister of interior.
A number of security officials believe that war is the only solution for Afghanistan's dilemma.
"War is the only solution. They (militants) don't even care about their mothers and fathers," said Abdul Rahman Sarjang.
The experts believe that the president's order has heralded new hopes that militants will be eliminated. They stressed that if the order is not implemented, public trust in the president will dwindle.
"Multiple dead kops". You know what that means, kids. ISIS is on their way
There is confusion over claims that there have been a spate of organized assassinations of police and army officers in Tripoli over the last few days.
The media, and especially social media, have been full of claims and counter claims that there have been eight assassinations in the capital over four days. These social media claims have also included a list of people allegedly assassinated during a four-day period. The list includes the name of a female officer.
The head of Tripoli Security Directorate, Salah Alsumouy, however, has refuted the claims.
It has been pointed out that at least two of the names on the list circulating on social media are fake names, whilst other names on the list were assassinated at other times and outside the capital.
Residents in Tripoli have pointed out that the dead are usually accompanied by funeral and burial rites pretty promptly in a Muslim society – which have not been reported in the capital. They see these as politically motivated, trumped up allegations to discredit the capital’s security situation.
Alsumouy’s rebuttal of the assassinations, on the other hand, have been dismissed as an attempted cover-up. Critics and enemies of the Presidency Council (PC) and Government of National Accord (GNA) are pointing to the alleged assassinations and likening Tripoli to Benghazi in the pre Hafter period.
This is the period when there were assassinations in Benghazi of security personnel on an almost day basis. They are using the allegations to show the weakness and ineffectiveness of the PC/GNA in imposing security in Tripoli.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Yemeni peace talks have been postponed indefinitely after representatives of the Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... militias failed to attend a meeting on Sunday, sources told Al Arabiya News Channel.
This took place after the UN special envoy to 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... held talks Sunday with the country’s warring parties in a bid to break an impasse, a day after the government pulled out of direct negotiations.
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed held separate morning talks in Kuwait City with delegates, and plenary or committees’ meetings were planned in the afternoon, front man for the UN envoy Charbel Raji said.
Yemen’s government on Saturday pulled out of direct negotiations with the Houthis after there were no signs of any progress.
A source close to the government delegation said the talks had reached a delicate stage after "the rebels backtracked to the starting point."
"That has complicated the situation" the source told AFP, requesting anonymity.
The Houthis and their allies have demanded the formation of a consensus transitional government before forging ahead with other issues that require them to surrender arms and withdraw from territories they occupied in 2014.
They have also demanded the withdrawal of a small US force operating in the south of the country against Al-Qaeda Death Eaters.
On Thursday, Ould Cheikh Ahmed said the foes had begun discussing major political and security issues in face-to-face negotiations aimed at bringing an end to 13 months of devastating war.
The working groups exchanged views on resolving political and security issues and the release of prisoners and detainees, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2216.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016 00:00 ||
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[AlAhram] Sadiq Khan was sworn in as London mayor Saturday after being elected the first Muslim leader of a major Western capital, as the Conservatives defended attempts to link him to extremism during the campaign.
The opposition Labour politician, the son of a Pak bus driver, broke from convention by taking his oath of office in a multi-faith ceremony at Southwark Cathedral.
"My name is Sadiq Khan and I'm the mayor of London," the 45-year-old said to cheers from supporters, who had earlier given him a standing ovation as he walked in.
He added: "I'm determined to lead the most transparent, engaged and accessible administration London has ever seen, and to represent every single community, and every single part of our city, as mayor for all Londoners."
Experience shows that opening gambit leads to the exact opposite.
Khan won 57 percent of the vote in Thursday's mayoral election, securing 1.3 million votes to see off multimillionaire Conservative Zac Goldsmith and make history as the city's first Muslim mayor.
How many voted for him to demonstrate how open minded and unprejudiced they are?
In his victory speech in the early hours of Saturday morning, Khan had referenced the negative campaign against him by saying London had chosen "unity over division".
Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... had led the attacks against Khan for sharing platforms with radical Muslims at public events, and Goldsmith said he was "radical and divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled...
There was criticism from across the political spectrum on Saturday at the tone of the Tory campaign, but Defence Secretary Michael Fallon insisted it was legitimate.
"Both candidates were asked questions about their backgrounds, their personalities, their judgment, the people they associate with," he told BBC radio. "That's the nature of our democracy and the rough-and-tumble of politics."
A list of those tut-tutting the telling of truths follows, of interest only in terms of the breadth of the critics, who include a Pakistani-Brit Tory and the sister of the Tory mayoral candidate in question, who once upon a time was married to Imran Khan, famed former Pakistani cricketeer and omnipresent failed politician.
Khan has broken the eight-year hold of the Conservatives on City Hall, succeeding the charismatic Boris Johnson in a prestigious post that has responsibility for transport, housing, policing and promoting economic development.
His success was a boost for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran socialist who has been battling a row over anti-Semitism and growing criticism from the moderate wing of his party since his election in September.
But Labour fared less well in other regional elections on Thursday.
Possibly voters were uncomfortable with the many censured by the party in recent weeks for antisemitism, but more likely it has to do with the EU and the "migrant" invasion.
The party was beaten into third place in Scotland, once a Labour stronghold, as the Conservatives became the official opposition to the Scottish National Party (SNP), which won a third term in office. Labour maintained control of the Welsh assembly and lost only a handful of local council seats in England. But critics warned it should have done better against a government that has lost support over welfare reforms and is deeply divided ahead of the referendum on Britannia's membership of the EU on June 23.
This Jerusalem Post editorial lists the new mayor's pro-Islamist indiscretions before segueing into hopeful pieties useful only as protective virtue signalling.
#2
Didnt they have Red Ken a communist before this? Paks are becoming a majority in some parts and it shows as much a bloc as are the black votes in the US.
[ARMYTIMES] The Army’s latest headcount shows that nearly 2,600 soldiers departed active service in March without being replaced, an action that plunges manning to its lowest level since before World War II.
During the past year the size of the active force has been reduced by 16,548 soldiers, the rough equivalent of three brigades.
Endstrength for March was 479,172 soldiers, which is 154 fewer troopers than were on active duty when the Army halted the post-Cold War drawdown in 1999 with 479,424 soldiers, the smallest force since 1940, when the active component numbered 269,023 soldiers.
Barring unexpected delays, the Army is well-positioned to achieve, or exceed, its budgeted end-strength of 475,000 soldiers by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2016.
Without congressional or Defense Department intervention, the drawdown will continue for two more years, with endstrength hitting 460,000 soldiers in 2017, and 450,000 in 2018.
The latest official demographics from the Defense Manpower Data Center shows that in addition to the 479,172 soldiers who were on active duty April 1, the Army’s reserve forces totaled 548,024 soldiers, for a total force of 1,027,196 soldiers.
The drawdown master plan calls for a Total Army of 980,000 soldiers on Sept. 30, 2018.
DMDC statistics show that 348,463 soldiers were in service with the Army National Guard on April 1, and 199,561 with the Army Reserve.
The active component total for the end of March includes 4,321 West Point cadets, which is 32 fewer than in February and 45 fewer than in January.
The number of women serving on active duty April 1 stood at 69,171, a total that includes 15,654 officers, 52,698 enlisted soldiers and 819 West Point cadets.
The female population of the Regular Army was reduced by 340 members in March.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016 00:00 ||
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#3
...The headline is slightly misleading - still almost twice the number of soldiers as pre-WWII - but bad enough. Worse when you remember that the 'tooth-to-tail' ratio (shooters vice support) was 1:3 in 2008; it's gotta be at 1:4 or worse now...which means that out of that 450,000 we'll have in 2018, 112,500 or so will be real shooters.
It ain't enough.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/09/2016 5:43 Comments ||
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#4
Well it sure is a good thing we aren't involved in wars all over the globe and being the peacekeeper of the planet then!
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] ISIS in Iraq has trapped around 2,000 families in two villages south of a city in the western province of Anbar, and is using them as human shields, local media reported the head of a police department as saying on Saturday.
"The terrorist organization ISIS has trapped around 2,000 families, most of the people are women, children and elderly in Albu Hawa and Hasi in the northern al-Amiriya district south of Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperity or a really nice place to raise your kids... " Lieutenant Colonel Arif al-Janabi, the head of the police district, told the local Anbar News outlet.
ISIS also enjugged Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! dozens of young men from the two villages, Janabi added.
"ISIS is using people of the two villages as human shields and not allowing them to leave," Janabi added, describing "the security forces and tribal fighters" as being "ready to liberate these two villages and break the siege."
The city of Fallujah was seized by ISIS in January 2014. With an estimated population of 90,000, it is the Lion of Islam group’s stronghold in Sunni-dominated Anbar.
Last month, the Iraqi government approved aid to be delivered to people in Fallujah after a long siege.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday Israel will not be deterred in its bid to destroy Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,’ tunnels after the worst flare-up of violence with Gazoo’s rulers in two years.
"Israel will continue to act as necessary to detect and prevent the threat of tunnels in the south," he told news hounds at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.
"We are not seeking escalation, but will not be deterred from doing what it required to maintain security," he said.
The frontier was reported to be quiet on Sunday morning after four days of border duels - the heaviest exchanges of fire between the two sides since the 2014 Gazoo war that killed 2,251 Paleostinians and 73 Israelis.
Israeli warplanes hit two Hamas targets in Gazoo on Saturday in response to Paleostinian rocket fire, but neither the strikes nor the rockets caused casualties.
The exchanges have raised concerns for the future of an informal truce that has held since the 2014 conflict ended.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"reconnaissance by artillery"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/09/2016 15:06 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] The Shin Bet security agency foiled 77 terror attacks since the beginning of 2016, including five suicide kabooms and 10 other bombings, seven kidnappings and 34 shooting attacks, according to figures released on Sunday.
Over 300 Jewish suspects have also been indicted on terror charges since 2013, the report said.
The report detailing the agency’s activities in the past five years came as outgoing director Yoram Cohen stepped down, and was replaced by Nadav Argaman.
In 2015, the security agency foiled some 239 attacks overall, among them 12 suicide kabooms, 19 kidnappings, 41 bombings and 120 shootings. In 2014, some 217 attacks were prevented by the security agency, up from 187 in 2013, 112 in 2012 and 88 in 2011.
During the past three years, 302 indictments have been filed against suspected Jewish terrorists, the report said. The number of indictments peaked in 2014 at 116. Some 82 indictments were lodged in 2015, and 70 in 2013.
Since January, 34 Jewish suspects have been indicted on terror charges. The tally includes indictments against the two main suspects in the Duma arson attack, in which three members of the Dawabsha family were killed in the West Bank in July 2015.
[Ynet] Diplomats say upcoming Quartet report, expected to be endorsed by Washington, will focus on Jewish construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but also chastise Paleostinian leaders for failing to rein in violence.
The United States will endorse a tougher tone with Israel in an upcoming international report that takes the Jewish state to task over settlements, demolitions and property seizures on land the Paleostinians claim for a future state, diplomats told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
One wonders who authorized those diplomats to talk, however namelessly, with an AyPee reporter...
The US and its fellow Mideast mediators also will chastise Paleostinian leaders for failing to rein in anti-Israeli violence. But the diplomats involved in drafting the document said its primary focus will be a surge of construction in Jewish housing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
"Nice country ya got there. Be a shame if something happened and you had no friends to send more bullets..."
The US approval of the harsh language marks a subtle shift.
It's only subtle if you're the head of a a longshoremen's union pondering kneecaps, a.k.a. a community activist.
Washington has traditionally tempered statements by the so-called "Quartet ... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy.... " of mediators with careful diplomatic language, but the diplomats said the US in this case will align itself closer to the positions of the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , Russia and the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... , who emphasize Israel's role in the Mideast impasse.
The report's release is sure to infuriate Israel,
...intentionally. Hence the pre-release leak.
where officials are already bracing for expected criticism. And on the other side, although the mediators will endorse some long-standing Paleostinian complaints, the Paleostinians are likely to complain the report does not go far enough.
Pro forma. They're getting the world leaning on Israel to surrender territory, which is all they care about.
Diplomats acknowledge the report, which could come out in late May or June, will be largely symbolic, requiring no action. It could be unveiled at the UN and possibly sent to the Security Council for an endorsement, according to the diplomats, who included three US officials.
Establishing the precedent for the next steps undertaken by various organizations, governments, etc, raising the temperature another few degrees of the water in which the frog still swims.
The Paleostinians recently put off their push for a new UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity, in part because of the coming report, the diplomats said. And with anti-Israel sentiment growing in Europe, La Belle France may delay a planned May 30 meeting of foreign ministers on the situation.
The French also are talking about hosting a Mideast peace conference this summer. US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... is expected to discuss the French initiative with Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault while on a trip to Gay Paree next week.
[Jpost] Egypt's religious authority issued a fatwa stating that ripping out human organs from a live captive to transplant them in another body is prohibited, whether or not it endangers someone's life.
Dar al-Ifta, Egypt's official religious institution tasked with drafting edicts, issued a fatwa according to which human organ harvesting is "a violation of Sharia," the London-based daily Arab newspaper a-Sharq al-Awasat reported on Sunday.
According to the edict, issued on Saturday, ripping out human organs from a live captive to transplant them in another body is prohibited, whether or not it endangers someone's life.
While ISIS has long argued that Sharia permit harvesting organs of "apostate captives" to save Muslims' lives, even if doing so would lead to captives' death, an Egyptian holy man told a-Sharq al-Awasat: "It is only allowed to harvest organs from a dead body, since a live person is better than a dead one."
"Threatening to attack them with weapons, ISIS rips out parts of its hostages' bodies in order to use them for organ trafficking, and not in order to plant them in Muslims' bodies, as the organization claims."
The fatwa states that: "Harvesting someone's organs, whether he is a Muslim or not, amounts to his humiliation. Committing organ transplantation in a way that leads to the death of the body from which the organs were ripped contradicts the Sharia, even if the person killed deserves to die and even if the one who killed him is a righteous person."
"How could it be if the person killed was held as a hostage by ISIS, the Khawarij (deviants)?" Egyptian holy mans wonder.
A document issued by ISIS Religious Authority that was obtained by Rooters in December revealed the terrorist group endorsed the harvesting of organs from live prisoners in order to save the lives of Muslims.
According to ISIS, "the apostate's life and organs don’t have to be respected and may be taken with impunity."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/09/2016 00:00 ||
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[Malay Mail] The kindergarten at the center of online fury over photographs showing plastic gun-toting kids in military fatigues has been on the police radar since last year.
Bukit Aman Special Branch director Datuk Seri Fuzi Harun said, "We have already been investigating the school from last year. If we find enough evidence that suggest such (militant) ideologies are being taught, we will move in on them," after the photographs shared by lawyer Siti Kassim were widely circulated on social media.
Fuzi said police were monitoring kindergartens across Malaysia to ensure they were not being used as training centers for child soldiers.
Checks revealed that several kindergarten teachers, one of whom works in the school implicated in the photographs, had uploaded the images onto Instagram. In her Facebook post, Siti, who is also an activist, alleged that the teachers were from a college in Terengganu, which she claimed was tied to Jemaah Islamiyah.
Apart from the picture of kids carrying toy guns, another photograph in the collection showed children dressed in full headscarves and holding the Palestinian flag.
In January, Fuzi had said that police managed to foil an attempt by Daesh to set up a child terrorist training center. He added that there were cases as far back as 2012, where parents brought their children to child terrorist training centers in Syria and Iraq.
[Daily Caller] Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri pushed for unity among the various terrorist groups operating in Syria Sunday in a video posted online, his first public address since January.
The video was an apparent attempt by the Osama bin Laden successor to counter the ongoing presence of Islamic State as the premier Sunni terrorist group, as well praise the rise of the Nusra front, an al-Qaida affiliate, which has seen massive gains in Syria filling the void left by ISIS as it continues to lose territory.
"We have to want the unity of the Mujahideen in Sham (Syria) so it will be liberated from the Russians and Western crusaders," said al-Zawahiri in his video address. "My brothers ... the matter of unity is a matter of life or death for you."
Al-Zawahiri condemns ISIS as "extremists," reinforcing al-Qaida’s well-known disdain for the rival group. Though ISIS originated from al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), the group splintered in 2013 to form its own independent terrorist organization. The two organizations share a similar radical Islamic ideology, however, they vehemently disagree on tactics and strategy.
#2
"But remember that only I can wear the Curly Toed Slippers™!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/09/2016 12:10 Comments ||
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#3
No worries. With the world hunting ISIS but ignoring Al Qaeda/Al Nusra, unity will occur when there aren't enough ISIS memebers to maintaino a separate organization. And then we will all go back to hunting Al Qaeda"s various branches.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged rival faceless myrmidons in Syria to unite or risk death but again decried fellow Sunni Muslim faceless myrmidons ISIS as "extremists" in an audio recording posted online on Sunday.
As successor to the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones... , Zawahri has the allegiance of al-Qaeda branches in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. But the group’s dominance is being challenged by ISIS, which controls territory in Syria and Iraq and followings in Libya and Yemen.
In Syria, al-Qaeda offshoot Nusra Front and ISIS are the two most powerful groups fighting government forces. Once a single group, they split in 2013, largely due to a power struggle among leaders.
"We have to want the unity of the Mujahideen in Sham (Syria) so it will be liberated from the Russians and Western crusaders. My brothers ... the matter of unity is a matter of life or death for you," Zawahri said.
The authenticity of the recording, the first since January, could not be immediately verified, but it had the hallmarks of previous Zawahri tapes. In January, the Egyptian former doctor called for Dire Revenge after 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... executed dozens of myrmidons.
He is believed to be hiding in a border area between Afghanistan and Pakistain.
On the recording, Zawahri lambasted a UN-backed political process to find a solution in Syria, and praised Nusra Front, which controls most of Idlib province.
Nusra is also part of an alliance of Islamist brigades known as Jaish al Fateh, which is leading battles against Syrian government forces and its Russian- and Iranian-backed allies in the southern Aleppo countryside.
In January, Nusra Front tried unsuccessfully to convince rival Islamist factions to merge into one unit, including the powerful Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... Zawahri also emphasized once again the ideological divide between al-Qaeda and ISIS, which is fighting a Western-led coalition and Russian forces while also clashing with Western-backed rebels and the Syrian army.
He described them as "holy warriors and renegades" whose followers would eventually disavow their beliefs and methods.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2016 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
David Cameron
Quartet
[Malay Mail] The kindergarten at the center of online fury over photographs showing plastic gun-toting kids in military fatigues has been on the police radar since last year.
