EXPLOSION IN KABUL KILLS 3 TALIBAN SECURITY PERSONNEL – A blast occurred along the Darul Aman Road in Kabul yesterday, in the house of a Taliban security force member. An apartment on the 9th floor of the Kefayat Center, given to the Taliban member, exploded and claimed the lives of 3 security forces personnel. Initial reports claimed it may have been a terror incident, but follow-on reports now suggest it was due to a propane gas cylinder that had ignited in the room.
REPORTS CONTINUE OF PAKISTANI - AFGHAN TALIBAN DIALOGUE OVER THE TTP PROBLEM – After a recent National Security Council meeting in Islamabad had concluded, it is said that Pakistani authorities asked the Afghan Taliban to fulfill obligations under the Doha Agreement and help to neutralize the TTP threat in Pakistan. Reputedly, the Taliban pushed back against the suggestion and recommended dialogue with the TTP should begin between Pakistan and the TTP directly. The situation looks to remain in a stalemate and many regional analysts believe it is only a matter of time before Pakistan is forced to conduct strikes on suspected TTP hideouts in Afghanistan. Most agree, that strikes would likely take place if a major terrorism incident occurs in Pakistan that can be attributed to the TTP.
SAVE THE CHILDREN ACTIVITIES APPEAR TO BE SANCTIONED – The Ministry of the Economy confirmed yesterday the international NGO, Save the Children, had resumed some operations in Afghanistan. The Ministry’s spokesman was careful to emphasize the NGO had agreed to several stipulations under the new Sharia framework of governance in Afghanistan. A long-time observer said the activities that resumed were never banned in the past and were allowed under the regime in the 1990s. International aid experts are cautioning against reading too much into the announcement and do not believe a repeal of the ban on women aid workers is likely under the current political climate. CARE, another well-regarded international NGO announced late yesterday that they would be resuming some of their operations with both male and female staff. CARE will restart health and nutrition programs with assurances from the Taliban’s Ministry of Public Health.
RAHMATULLAH NABIL, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE AFGHAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE, ANNOUNCES FORMATION OF POLITICAL PARTY – The Afghanistan National Liberty Party has been stood up by the former intelligence chief. Nabil released several statements on his social media accounts and provided a copy of his party’s charter. In essence, the ANLP will advocate for the return of a republic style of governance with a heavy emphasis on decentralized power. It is not clear how much support the ANLP has in the country but Nabil’s well-publicized break with the former President and his long-standing criticism of Pakistan’s interference in Afghan affairs will likely resonate with many who oppose the Taliban regime.
DEATH TOLL FROM THE COLD FRONT NOW STANDS AT 16 – However, many more are thought to have perished in rural areas and a news outlet opined this morning that many deaths have gone unreported among beggars and drug addicts in an effort to save the regime some embarrassment.
CORRECTION - RUMORED SHUTDOWN OF GIRLS EDUCATION IN KHOST PROVINCE, 16 JAN 2023 – In yesterday’s brief, we reported that a girls’ school in Khost had potentially been forced to close by the Taliban. This was incorrect. The school depicted in the video was a Madrassa supported by a local Mosque and the incident depicted involved the arrest of the Mullah for unknown reasons. We do not believe the policy is directed at any other schools at this time.
NEXT 24 HOURS
POSSIBLE RESHUFFLING AT THE TOP OF THE CENTRAL BANK – After blowback from controversial posts made on Social Media, the Taliban are considering removing some officials from their roles at the Central Bank.
PASSPORT PROCESS STARTING AGAIN – There has been confirmation that the Passport Directorate, in conjunction with local Police, intends to reopen the issuance process across the country. According to sources, the program will ‘roll out’ to Provinces in a somewhat scheduled manner. The order of reopenings is not known but at-risk Afghans are encouraged to reach out to their local offices to find out when the process may be restarted.
[FreeMovement] The fall of Kabul in August 2021 prompted an emergency evacuation of around 15,000 people eligible for repatriation or relocation in the UK. Within weeks, amid intense criticism of the UK government’s mishandling of the situation and leadership failures surrounding the Afghanistan evacuation, Operation Warm Welcome was launched, to ensure support for Afghan arrivals to rebuild their lives in the UK. More than a year after the fall of Kabul, over 9,000 Afghans remain in temporary bridging accommodation.
Bridging accommodation is a key function in the government’s Warm Welcome strategy. It refers to the use of temporary hotels and serviced accommodation procured by the Home Office to house those arriving in the UK. Nearly all Afghans arriving in the UK have been or continue to be placed in temporary bridging accommodation before more permanent accommodation has been found.
Within weeks of temporary bridging hotels beginning to be used, a 5-year-old Afghan boy died falling from a window of a hotel in Sheffield. Following his death, it emerged that the Home Office did not carry out any safety checks on the hotel, which was the subject of a fire enforcement action at the time the Home Office placed families there.
Continued on Page 49
The major opposition parties in #Turkiye established a coalition, but with less than four months till election day, they haven't named a presidential candidate yet.https://t.co/e0Jv6Tdy83
[JustTheNews] Bureau of Prisons won't reveal reason for absence.
A notable former ISIS leader serving a life sentence in the U.S. is no longer listed as being in Bureau of Prisons custody, with the bureau itself refusing to reveal where the man is located.
Alexanda Kotey
...more fully Alexanda Amon Kotey, half-Ghanaian, half-Greek Cypriot, all former British citizen, Alex was known in the press as ‘Ringo’. He recruited at least 25 of his peers in the area west of London, and gleefully beheaded captives for ISIS in Syria. His confession makes his little group sound like a bunch of Big Turbans...
was sentenced to life in prison in April of last year in connection with the killing of multiple U.S. and British hostages.
Kotey—whose particular ISIS group was known as the "Beatles" due to the British accents shared by the men in it—is normally held at the Bureau of Prison's high-security USP Canaan facility in Pennsylvania. Yet the terrorist this week was found to be listed on the bureau's website as "Not in BOP custody" as of Thursday, with his release date as "unknown."
A BOP front man told Fox News that the bureau did not disclose specific reasons for prisoners being out of custody but that the explanation could include "court hearings, medical treatment or for other reasons."
Bethany Haines, the daughter of one of Kotey's victims British aid worker Scot David Haines, told the Scottish Daily Record that she "was assured by U.S. Justice sources that Kotey is still detained in the U.S.," according to Fox News.
A BOP front man confirmed that Kotey "is not currently in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons" but said there could be "several" explanations for his recent disappearance.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Randilee Giamusso said, "Inmates who were previously in BOP custody and who have not completed their sentence may be outside BOP custody for a period of time for court hearings, medical treatment or for other reasons."
The federal prison system does not disclose specific details relating to an inmate due to safety, security or privacy issues, the front man added.
Some reports suggested the notorious ISIS member could also be assisting with investigations into another case, though Fox News Digital could not independently verify this.
"In the past he has been traceable, as we have access to data via the U.S. victim notification scheme, and we at least had the reassurance that he was in a high security facility," Bethany Haines, 24 added, noting his disappearance wasn’t fair to the families of the victims "left to wonder where he is."
[IsraelTimes] Pair, from central region of the country, suspected of ’deliberate vandalism’ with a racist motive at Protestant Mount Zion Cemetery, where 28 tombstones were damaged
Charges are to be brought against two teenagers suspected of vandalizing dozens of graves at a historic Christian cemetery in Jerusalem earlier this month, Israel Police said in a statement Monday.
An investigation found that 28 tombstones were vandalized at the Protestant Mount Zion Cemetery.
The two suspects, aged 18 and 14, are from the central region of the country, police said, without giving any further details of their identities.
Security camera footage of the attack showed two young men wearing a Jewish skullcap and tzitzit, the knotted ritual fringes worn by observant Jews, knocking over crosses, breaking tombstones and throwing debris over the graves.
During questioning, police discovered that the "deliberate vandalism" was done for racist reasons, the statement said. The suspects were arrested days after the vandalism was reported, and their remand extended until they were eventually released to house arrest.
The graves of Christian figures at the cemetery were found pushed over and pulled from their foundations, unsettling the city’s Christian minority and drawing worldwide condemnation. The cemetery is more than 170 years old and houses prominent members of the armed forces and clergy in the holy city.
The Anglican Church in Jerusalem denounced the desecration at the time as the latest hate crime targeting the Christian community in Jerusalem amid the decades-long Israeli-Paleostinian conflict.
Among the destroyed tombs was one containing a 19th-century bust of Samuel Gobat, the second Protestant bishop in Jerusalem who died in 1879, the Episcopal diocese said. The graves of three coppers, British citizens serving in the police force of what was then British-ruled Paleostine, were also vandalized.
The diocese cautioned that the desecration of the cemetery should be seen as an ominous warning about "hatred against Christians."
"Many stone crosses were the targets of the vandals, clearly indicating that these criminal acts were motivated by religious bigotry," it said.
The vandalism drew widespread international condemnation.
The Protestant Cemetery on the venerated Mount Zion just outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls was established in 1848 and was part of territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War. The cemetery houses the graves of dozens of Paleostinian coppers killed during the First and Second World Wars as well as Christian leaders who died in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Mount Zion, associated in Christian tradition with the site of the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples the night before his crucifixion, is also sacred to Jews and Moslems and has been at the center of competing religious claims.
Jewish faceless myrmidons have defaced church property on Mount Zion in the past years. Jews consider Mount Zion the traditional burial place of the biblical King David and some ultra-Orthodox and nationalist activist muppets have opposed Christian prayer rights at the site. A Jewish seminary known as the Diaspora Yeshiva is located in many buildings in the Mount Zion compound.
Some 16,000 Christians live in Jerusalem, the majority of whom are Paleostinian. Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, while Paleostinians want East Jerusalem as the capital for their hoped-for independent state.
In December 2021, Christian leaders in the Holy Land warned that their communities were under threat of being driven from the region by bad boy Israeli radical groups, and called for dialogue on preserving their presence.
Patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem issued a joint statement similarly warning of the danger posed by radical groups they said were aiming at "diminishing the Christian presence."
Extremist Jewish activist muppets have for years carried out vandalism against Christian sites in Jerusalem and other areas of Israel, including hate graffiti and arson. The faceless myrmidons also target Paleostinians.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] With advent of the new Israeli military chief of staff Herzi Halevi after the end of Aviv Kochavi’s term, al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",) Military Media published a video that shows the Israeli captured soldier Avera Mengistu.
Mengistu, who was arrested by Hamas Resistance® Movement in Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... in 2014, asked the Zionist authorities to do all what is possible to liberate him and his three comrades.
Al-Manar English Website inserted the English subtitles to the original video.
Hamas Paleostinian Resistance® group, which had stressed in 2021 that the Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip will only be exchanged for the release of Paleostinian prisoners at Israeli jails, reiterated its stance and indicated that Kochavi’s failure will overburden Halevi.
Hamas is holding three other Israelis captives in Gaza strip, including two occupation soldiers, since 2017.
[Rudaw] An American national imprisoned in Iran ...The nation is noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence... on Monday addressed US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S., who gives the term geriatric a bad name. He blames Afghans for losing Afghanistan.... , announcing he will go on a week-long hunger strike, a day for every year spent in Iran’s infamous Evin prison.
"All I want sir, is one minute of your days’ time for the next seven days devoted to thinking about the tribulations of the U.S. hostages in Iran. Just a single minute of your time for each year of my life that I lost in Evin prison after the USG could have saved me but didn’t," Iranian-American national Siamak Namazi said in a strongly worded message to Biden released by the detainee’s lawyer.
The 51-year-old Namazi has been in Iranian prisons since October 2015. In February 2016, Namazi’s father Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF official, was arrested when he traveled to Iran to urge the release of his son. Both men were sentenced to ten years on espionage charges, however Baquer Namazi was released last year on medical leave, while his son remained in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison.
"Alas, given I am in this cage all I have to offer you in return is my additional suffering. Therefore, I will deny myself food for the same seven days, in the hope that by doing so you won’t deny me this small request," Namazi concluded in his letter, urging the US government to take immediate action.
Namazi’s message comes seven years after the release of five other Americans when Tehran and Washington agreed on the nuclear deal, a prisoner swap Namazi was excluded from.
There are a number of dual and foreign nationals being held in Iranian prisons on charges of spying for foreign governments with rights groups accusing Tehran of using them as bargaining chips to gain concessions from world powers.
Iran on Saturday announced that they had carried out the death sentence ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead... of Iranian-British national Alireza Akbari on charges of spying for the UK’s intelligence agency and threatening Tehran’s national security.
In its annual world report on global rights conditions published on Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) slammed Iran for conducting unfair trials and obtaining confessions under duress, as well as for charges brought against dual nationals.
"Iranian courts, and particularly revolutionary courts, regularly fall far short of providing fair trials and use confessions likely obtained under torture as evidence in court," the report read.
"The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Intelligence Organization continued to arrest Iranian dual and foreign nationals on vague charges such as "cooperating with a hostile state," it added.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... expects to take delivery of a number of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia early next Iranian year, which starts in March, a politician said.
Speaking to Tasnim, member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Shahriar Heidari said the Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets that Iran has ordered from Russia are going to arrive in early 1402 (begins on March 21).
The politician noted that Iran has also ordered a series of other military equipment from Russia, including air defense systems, missile systems and helicopters, most of which will be received soon.
Media reports suggested earlier that Iran will receive 24 of the fourth-generation twin-engine, super-maneuverable fighter jets that are primarily used for air superiority missions.
Some of the combat aircraft are anticipated to be housed at Tactical Air Base (TAB) 8 of the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF), which is located in the Iranian city of Isfahan in the country’s center.
Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) says the Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jet "combines the qualities of a modern fighter (super-maneuverability, superior active and passive acquisition aids, high supersonic speed and long range, capability of managing battle group actions, etc.) and a good tactical airplane (wide range of weapons that can be carried, modern multi-channel electronic warfare system, reduced radar signature, and high combat survivability)."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2023 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[19 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Doesn't Russia need these Jets more locally???
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/17/2023 0:26 Comments ||
Top||
#2
No gas for Irani domestics,
no oil credit for Syrians.
Backing away from Lebanon.
What the heck is going on?
So Iran is buying the jets?
Does Russia need the cash?
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.
[AfghanDigest] LAST 24 HOURS
[JustTheNews] Bureau of Prisons won't reveal reason for absence.
...The nation is noted for 
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
