[Al Jazeera] The Afghan Taliban ...Arabic for students... has called for direct talks with the US to take place in its political office in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... A senior Taliban official based in Doha told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that the group invites US officials to its political office in Qatar to discuss a "peaceful solution" to end the bloodshed in Afghanistan.
His comments followed local news media reports in Kabul on Friday, claiming that the Afghan government has been discussing with Qatari authorities the closure of the Taliban's Doha office.
The media reports cited government officials as saying the Doha office had "no positive consequence in terms of facilitating the peace talks".
In an apparent warning to the Afghan government, the Taliban official said further talk of shuttering the Doha office would scuttle the group's offer of talks altogether.
The Taliban official also said that departure of American troops from Afghanistan remains a precondition for the group's talks offer.
"Our struggle is for the liberation of the country," he said. "It is not a power struggle. How can a liberation struggle be deemed complete without foreign forces pulling out?
"Since it is [only] the US which can decide and implement a decision for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, that is why direct talks with the US are necessary in the first phase.
"During a second phase, we can sit with the Afghan government and discuss all of the domestic issues."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
I think direct negotiations have been ongoing by B52s, Drones, Helo Gunships, Tucanos...
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/28/2018 19:21 Comments ||
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[RadioShabelle] A group of 113 Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... n, Somali and South Sudanese refugees who were living in Æthiopia’s refugee camps have left here for Italia on Monday through a relocation program.
The 113 refugees, who are relocated to Italia as part of the "Humanitarian Corridor" initiative, include 88 Eritreans, 22 South Sudanese, and 3 Somalis, who had resided in Æthiopia’s refugee camps for some time.
The Humanitarian Corridor program, which envisages rebuilding the lives of a total of 500 refugees, is an initiative established by the Italian Government in partnership with several humanitarian and faith-based- organizations, the Æthiopian refugee agency (ARRA) and the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... refugee agency (UNHCR).
Zeynu Jemal, Deputy Director of Æthiopian Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA), said the initiative is an important step forward in "changing the lives of refugees as it also gives them hope and one way of curbing illegal secondary movements out of camps."
"We value and greatly commend the Government of Italia’s contribution to creating a world more open to refugees and to the advancement of comprehensive responses to refugee situation," Jemal added.
According to ARRA, half of the 113 refugees that were relocated to Italia are minors, including South Sudanese children born in Pugnido’s Refugee Camp in Æthiopia’s Gambella Regional state.
Some 25 refugees from Somalia, Eritrea, and South Sudan left for Italia as part of the initiative’s first round of relocation program in December last year.
The humanitarian corridor initiative is designed through a personalized method of accompaniment and integration with an Italian host family and community, it was noted.
The initiative is said to be a response mechanism as refugees often risk their lives crossing the Sinai desert, Libya and the Mediterranean Sea with the aim of reaching Europe ...also known as Moslem Lebensraum... through the support of illegal human smugglers and traffickers.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Saudi advisor Saud al-Qahtani welcomed the visit of Prince Bandar bin Sultan to the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Royal Court in Riyadh.
The visit lasted 12 hours, during which a number of briefings were presented and Prince Bandar bin Sultan gave a four-hour historical lecture on politics and security.
"I and my colleagues were honored by the presence of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a political legend, at the Center for Studies and Media Affairs " al-Qahtani wrote on Twitter.
"Prince Bandar bin Sultan honored us with the following words of encouragement in the Register of Senior Visitors, which is an honor on all of our publications at the Royal Court center," he added.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan is a former ambassador of 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... to Washington. His daughter is Princess Reema bint Bandar, currently President of the Saudi Federation for Community Sports while his son Prince Khalid bin Bandar is the current Saudi ambassador to Germany.
Nice to see the kids have set themselves to reasonably honest labour. But twelve hours?? He must have been bored to tears by the sound of his own voice.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
A four hour lecture...oh boy hold me back from that one.
[Ynet] A Czech court ruled on Tuesday that former Syrian Kurdish PYD leader Saleh Moslem be released, despite The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire.... 's call for his detention pending an extradition request.
Moslem formerly headed the PYD, the major component of a coalition that governs Kurdish-held autonomous parts of northern Syria. He was detained in Prague over the weekend at the request of Turkey, which accuses him of disrupting the state and aggravated murder.
"The court ruled Mr. Moslem will be released," a spokeswoman for the Prague Municipal Court, Marketa Puci, said, adding the ruling had taken legal effect as both the state attorney and the defense gave up their rights to appeal.
"The court accepted a promise by Mr. Moslem that he will remain on EU territory and will be attending court hearings."
They keep reporting it as released, when really they just mean these people are out on bail.
Moslem's lawyer Miroslav Krutina told news hounds his client had promised the court not to obstruct further proceedings.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/28/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Good, any defiance of Caliph Wanna-Be Yippy is good
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/28/2018 12:35 Comments ||
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[BBC] German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the latest politician to criticise a major food bank's decision to bar foreigners from receiving free food.
“Blither, blither, blither, rant!” she said.
The charity Essener Tafel called it a temporary restriction necessary because the share of foreigners using the food bank had soared to 75% in recent years.
The charity says it helps about 16,000 poor people in Essen, a city in the western industrial Ruhr region.
Foreigners registered for the handouts before Essener Tafel's new rule took effect last month can still use the food bank.
Mrs Merkel spoke out against the requirement to show a German passport in order to receive food.
Essener Tafel head Jörg Sartor said the restriction had nothing to do with xenophobia; he said it was all about fairness, because large numbers of elderly women and single mothers had stopped coming to Essener Tafel.
They’re already being shoved out of their homes to make way for the colonists, so why not starve them to death, too.
Data from Germany's national migration agency BAMF shows that NRW has the highest number of asylum claims among the German states.
Tomorrow belongs to me. I hate that song from Cabaret, but it suits here. When Frau Merkel dies, may God send her to the deepest circle of Hell, the one reserved for traitors and evil counsellors.
[Al Jazeera] A Ottoman Turkish conservative news anchor has caused outrage with televised comments he made while criticising claims that civilians were being killed in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's ongoing offensive in northern Syria.
In his morning show on national Akit TV, Ahmet Keser said he would start in the predominantly secular neighbourhoods of Istanbul and the Ottoman Turkish parliament if he intended to kill what he called civilian "traitors".
"[Claim is that] the army of Republic of Turkey is killing civilians ... Why would it? Why would army of Turkey be there if there were civilians there? Why would the army of Turkey go there to kill civilians?" Keser said.
"If [we] had the intention to kill civilians, we would have started doing it from Cihangir, Nisantasi, Etiler, Right? I mean there are lots of traitors, there is the Ottoman Turkish parliament."
Cihangir, Nisantasi and Etiler are among Istanbul's predominantly secular neighbourhoods, where critical sentiment against Turkey's conservative government remains high.
Keser's comments about the Ottoman Turkish parliament were apparently targeting the parties opposing to the government.
Turkey's army and officials have repeatedly denied that non-combatants were killed in the operation in Afrin, which was launched in January against the Kurdish fighters who Turkey sees as "terrorists".
Baris Yarkadas, an opposition MP, announced on Twitter that he appealed to Turkey's media authority RTUK to punish Keser over the comments.
Eren Erdem, another opposition MP, also announced through a tweet that he has taken the issue to prosecutors, accussing Keser of inciting hatred.
The anchor's comments caused a stir on Ottoman Turkish social media, with many condemning Keser for threatening parliament and secular Turks.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Didn't take long for the Islamist jackboots to show up. If you don't like someone, in Turkey, call them secular or Kurdish, which is equivalent to "terrorist" in Erdogan's Reich. Then its open season for Erdogan's Sturmabteilung. Hitler had the Jews, Erdogan has the Kurds to blame everything on.
Big difference is the Kurds have read the history of the Turks genocide of Armenia. And Hitler as well. They are armed and will fight.
The emergence of violent Barelvi extremism in Pakistan was brought sharply to the country’s attention last year when Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah, an Islamist political party, staged an almost month-long sit-in that later turned violent. Whack-a-mole in Pakwakiland
Most militant Islamist organizations in South Asia—and particularly in Pakistan—adhere to either the Deobandi-Sunni or Ahl-e-Hadith (Salafist) schools of Islam. Prominent among these are Deobandi organizations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Harkat ul Jihad-e-Islami, Harkat ul Mujahedeen, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Omar and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Waliyat-e-Khurasan, Hizb-ut Tahrir and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) adhere to the Salafist tradition.
By contrast, before the emergence of Tehreek-i-Labaik, no Islamist organization belonging to the Barelvi sect of Sunni Islam had been involved in violent activities. Sunni Tehreek, a Barelvi group that is now part of Tehreek-i-Labaik, was considered by some to have violent tendencies, but it was not a designated terrorist organization.
Yep, you could say the same thing about Gaza...if the Jews didn't want it after the Yom Kippur was, you just know its a real pile. The Israelis can literally make paradise out of anything, witness the Negev, but they didn't want Gaza.
It is interesting though, as much trouble as the Philistines gave the Hebrews back in the day, you would think there would be enough institutional angst to at least want to raze everything in Gaza to the ground and piss on the rubble...
[DAWN] The National Assembly’s defence committee on Tuesday said that maps showing Azad Jammu and Kashmire as a disputed territory should not be used.
The issue came up during a meeting of the committee held to consider budgetary proposals of the defence ministry relating to the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the financial year 2018-19.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2018 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] In a world where belief and militancy are becoming fused, there are peaceful yet puritanical forms of religion that still capture peoples’ imagination. One such form is advanced by the Tablighi Jamaat A group of itinerant Deobandi preachers who form one of al-Qaeda's recruiting arms... (TJ), a worldwide Islamic missionary movement popularising the concept of inner reform among believers.
What makes TJ fascinating and relevant is its complete divorce from the politics of militancy. Instead, TJ focuses on being unassuming and austere. Instead of training guns at others, da’wah [invitation to the righteous path] encourages Moslems to train their thoughts on inner reform and spiritual cleansing.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2018 00:00 ||
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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraq is opposed to the rumored United States intentions to transfer its military base in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire.... to Kurdish areas in Iraq or Syria, an Iraqi government source was quoted saying on Tuesday.
Iraqi website Almaalomah quoted the source saying that "the Iraqi government has received with astonishment the news about U.S. plans to relocate its military base in Turkey’s Incirlik to Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdish regions in Syria".
According to the source, "Baghdad will reject any U.S. step in that direction and will not accept U.S. bases on its soil".
Benhas Anbari, an Israeli Middle East expert, has been recently quoted saying that the United States was earnestly considering the relocation of the Angerlick base to Iraqi or Syrian Kurdish areas.
The U.S. says it maintains slightly above 5000 troops in Iraq for assistance and training purposes.
An Iraqi government spokesperson was quoted a few weeks ago saying U.S. troops would be logically cut down after ending their mission supporting Iraqi forces in their campaign against 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.... myrmidons. Coalition and Pentagon commanders denied intentions to downscale troops’ numbers.
Iraq declared victory over the Islamic state in December, ending three years of operations against the myrmidon group which had occupied a third of the country’s territories.
The construction of the Incirlik airbase was concluded in 1955, with Ankara and Washington signing an agreement for the joint use of the facility. It has been used for several military operations over the past decades, and has served as a strategic storage area for the U.S. military.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/28/2018 00:00 ||
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#2
There is a US Base in Katar and one in Turkey and the existence of these two serves as protection to the regimes in those two places from US anger. Both have taken advantage of that protection to pursue direct opposition to US goals in the Middle East through support of terrorism by the ruler of Katar and opposition to Kurdish interests by the tyrant in Turkey.
It is time to move both of these to other countries. This would provide such protection where it would conform to our interests, and probably would improve behavior of both these countries.
Posted by: Daniel ||
02/28/2018 2:03 Comments ||
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#4
Their country, their choice. How about sunny Cyprus? We could share the old British bases and mayhap, one fine day, give the Turk occupying the northern third of the island the boot.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/28/2018 19:28 Comments ||
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#8
Is the primary objective to have (a) A large airbase with stable environs (no 'sappers in the wire')? Or (b) to redraw the national boundaries, alienating ALL the local countries, creating a new Kurdish nation? Think carefully before choosing.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Pro-Assad media outlets shared a video of children being painted with red blood claiming that they were Syrian opposition factions in eastern Ghouta trying to fake child injuries.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... the video turned out to be from an art workshop which creates this health exercise annually in Gazoo.
The goal of the workshop is to recreate child injuries sustained in warzones so that doctors can get familiar with them and learn how to care for injured children, the owner of the workshop, Abd al-Baset al-Loulou, said.
He added that clips from his workshop’s video were edited together and shared by pro-Assad media outlets as coming from eastern Ghouta. al-Loulou said that he was then forced to release a statement clarifying that the video was from his annual workshop centered around using special effects makeup to recreate child injuries.
"It’s sad that the Syrian regime used art for political reasons," al-Loulou said, adding that doctors and health care professionals worldwide use special effects makeup artists to train their staff.
Russian media has also attempted to show forged victories by Russian soldiers in Syria by using fictional images and scenes.
According to the Washington Post, Russian media used scenes from a videogame called Arma purportedly showing Syrian war footage, and a battle that took the life of Senior Lieutenant Alexander Prokhorenko.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Not unlike using plastic baby dolls to simulate dead infants.
It has been a perennial complaint that the jihadi recruits are as ignorant as pigs in mud.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] In the series of Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... files, discovered in the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones... 's house which was raided by the US military in Abbottabad, northern Pakistain in 2011, one document has exposed particularly sensitive information.
It reveals that al-Qaeda targeted "common" and "ignorant" recruits worldwide, as stated by the group’s Libyan military commander Abu Yahya al-Libi.
Abu Yahya was al-Qaeda’s second-in-command after Ayman al-Zawahri and was killed in a dronezap in the North Wazoo region of Pakistain.
The document dated Monday, 29 March, 2010 was an internal bulletin sent to al-Qaeda members. It read: "Warning: To be published among the media, but not for public publication, a special message to the brothers of the jihadist media."
Recruiting and inciting ’common people’
Terms of the group’s recruitment were defined by Abu Yahya, who wrote: "Concentrate on your speeches and publications on the Moslem common people, do not to indulge in discussions with the so-called ’elites,’ they are the most beneficial to the jihad, because they are mostly pure and full of goodness, even they have failed in some sins. However, a woman is only as old as she admits... their thoughts are not contaminated with corruption and do not have the complex ignorance [of common Moslems]."
Abu Yahya added: "As you know, most of the common people do not realize the truth of the scientific discussions and political analysis, but they are incited by emotions."
Previously released documents show the strains of managing al-Qaeda’s external networks, including identifying capable leaders and finding resources to fund operations abroad.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Secret AQ memo to manipulate "Ignorant Muslims? Recall the Democrat 2016 email between Bill Ivey and John Podesta. How is what AQ doing different?
#3
#2 -- Link provided only worked when my browser tried to "open link in new tab" Hot-linking - opening the link from the current tab - was expressing forbidden by the source.
#4
Here is the text from that questionable link from #2
From: biglobalculturalstrategies . corn
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2016—03—13 17:06
Subject: From Bill Ivey
Dear John:
well, we all thought the big problem for our US democracy was Citizens
United/Koch Brothers big money in politics. Silly us; turns out that money
isn't all that important if you can conflate entertainment with the
electoral process. Trump masters TV, TV so-called news picks up and repeats
and repeats to death this opinionated blowhard and his hairbrained ideas,
free-floating discontent attaches to a seeming strongman and were off and
running. JFK, Jr would be delighted by all this as his 'George' magazine saw
celebrity politics coming. The magazine struggled as it was ahead of its
time but now looks prescient. George, of course, played the development
pretty lightly, basically for charm and gossip, like People, but what we are
dealing with now is dead serious. How does this get handled in the general?
Secretary Clinton is not an entertainer, and not a celebrity in the Trump,
Kardashian mold; what can she do to offset this? I’m certain the
poll-directed insiders are sure things will default to policy as soon as the
conventions are over, but I think not. And as I've mentioned, we’ve all
been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire
to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains
strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands
some serious, serious thinking — and not Just poll driven,
demographically-inspired messaging.
#5
A major problem in both the East and West is living one's life for the main purpose of seeking entertainment, while hypocritically pretending (to oneself, first and foremost) that one is "really" pursuing other, more high-minded goals.
#6
Thanx for your efforts. I don't know why the email was blocked. It worked on my aging computer. Really the last few lines was the money quote. I've always been astounded by the arrogance, audacity and malice as reflected by this quote by these people enemies within our country.
And as I've mentioned, we’ve all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands some serious, serious thinking — and not Just poll driven,
demographically-inspired messaging.
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.
[Al Jazeera] The Afghan 
[RadioShabelle] A group of 113 
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Saudi advisor Saud al-Qahtani welcomed the visit of Prince Bandar bin Sultan to the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Royal Court in Riyadh.
[DailyMail] 
[BBC] German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the latest politician to criticise a major food bank's decision to bar foreigners from receiving free food.
[Al Jazeera] A .jpg)
[DAWN] The National Assembly’s defence committee on Tuesday said that maps showing Azad Jammu and 
[DAWN] In a world where belief and militancy are becoming fused, there are peaceful yet puritanical forms of religion that still capture peoples’ imagination. One such form is advanced by the 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Pro-Assad media outlets shared a video of children being painted with red blood claiming that they were Syrian opposition factions in eastern Ghouta trying to fake child injuries.
