[FDD's LongWarJournal] The Bahrain Interior Ministry reported on March 3 that its security forces arrested 116 members of a militant cell operating in the Gulf kingdom. The weekend raids are the latest in a series of major arrests of reportedly Iranian-backed militants in Bahrain over the past few years.
According to the Bahrain Interior Ministry, the cell was linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Additionally, it said that the members belonged to different militias in the island but the IRGC “unified them in a single framework.” Moreover, the ministry accused the IRGC, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Asaib Ahl al Haq in Iraq of training the militants in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. On state TV, suspected militants repeated the same claim and alleged they were trained by the aforementioned three groups, as well as Kata’ib Hezbollah, before returning to Bahrain.
These claims cannot be independently verified by FDD’s Long War Journal, however, this is a longstanding accusation of Bahrain. This also fits with a larger trend of Iranian support of various groups across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, and Yemen.
Posted by: 3dc ||
03/13/2018 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran Proxies
[DW] Anti-China sentiments are running high in Pakistain's northern Gilgit-Baltistan area over the arrests of China-born Uighur Moslem women married to the locals. These women have reportedly been nabbed Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! inside China in the past few months over alleged links to krazed killers.
Due to Xinjiang's proximity to Gilgit-Baltistan, the residents of the two areas have shared long historical, cultural and family ties. Many Uighurs are married to the Gilgit-Baltistan locals and vice-versa. The arrests of Uighur women from Gilgit-Baltistan could be a result of China's suspicion of their alleged association to Islamist krazed killers.
Uighur Moslems, a Turkic-speaking minority in China's northwestern Xinjiang province, have long faced persecution by the country's communist authorities. They are a distinct and mostly Sunni Moslem community and one of the 55 recognized ethnic minorities in China. However, women are made to be loved, not understood... the Uighurs feel increasingly suppressed and view Beijing as a "colonizing power" attempting to undermine their cultural identity, political rights, religion and exploit their region's natural resources.
In the past few years, the Chinese government has acted strictly against the separatists in Xinjiang. This has pushed many Uighurs towards radicalization and militancy. The situation is also becoming aggravated due to the fact that Uighur separatism is not only an ethnic movement but also has a religious dimension to it.
The Uighur issue is generally viewed as an internal Chinese security problem but some experts argue that it should also be looked at in the context of the rising global jihad and Islamic fundamentalism. The crucial point, the analysts say, is that the Uighur case is getting increasingly hijacked by the jihadist movements, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistain where a number of Uighur forces of Evil have reportedly fought alongside the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... , at least prior to 2014.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2018 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists
[DAWN] The 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... administration has ’reclaimed’ land that once housed Jamia Hafsa ... the Islamic nunnery maintained by Lal Masjid.... and a children’s library.
The mosque administration has installed a signboard on the land next to the mosque, calling it their property, while the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has remained silent.
The Jamia Hafsa building and the library were demolished by the government following the military operation in 2007.
After the operation, the government and the mosque administration, led by 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... , reached an agreement under which the CDA would provide an alternative site for the reconstruction of Jamia Hafsa.
The CDA has allotted 20 kanals of land for this in H-11, and construction is ongoing.
However, you can observe a lot just by watching... the Lal Masjid administration recently installed a board on the site, claiming that the land was the mosque’s property.
Hafiz Ihtesham Ahmed, a spokesperson for the mosque’s Shuhada Foundation, claimed: "As per our agreement with the government we can include this plot [where Jamia Hafsa once stood] in the Lal Masjid yard."
While discussing the installation of the board, he added: "As per the agreement, ultimately this four kanal plot was to be made part of the mosque, but so far the CDA has not merged it with the mosque."
When asked if the CDA, which is the custodian of land in the capital, was party to the aforementioned agreement, Mr Ahmed said it was not.
CDA spokesperson Malik Saleem, when asked about the agreement Mr Ahmed had referred to, said he had no knowledge of an agreement regarding the merging of the plot with the mosque.
"The land adjacent to Lal Masjid is the CDA’s property, and no one would be allowed to encroach upon it," he said, adding that the authority also stopped efforts to construct on the land last year.
When asked why action had not been taken to remove the signboard if the land is the CDA’s property, Mr Saleem said they would look into it.
After the 2007 operation, the CDA had changed the master plan for the G-6 civic centre, erasing several plots adjacent to Lal Masjid and leaving the entire area an open space.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2018 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] The recent orders of the Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 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. High Court’s 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.... circuit bench suspending sentences of 25 convicts and releasing them on bail in the Mashal Khan lynching case have raised many eyebrows. The stance adopted by the concerned additional advocate general of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government, who had not opposed the suspension of the sentences before the court, has also been criticised by Mashal’s father Iqbal Khan and his lawyers.
A two-member bench of the high court had on Feb 27 heard applications for suspension of sentences and granting bail to the said 25 convicts. Those applications were filed in the criminal appeals of the convicts challenging their conviction by an anti-terrorism court on Feb 7.
The anti-terrorism court, which conducted trial of the lynching case inside the Haripur central prison, had convicted 31 of the accused persons, whereas remaining 26 accused were acquitted. The court had also issued perpetual arrest warrants of four of the absconding accused persons and they were declared proclaimed offenders.
The said 25 convicts, who are now released on bail, were sentenced by the trial court to three years rigorous imprisonment each, under section 11-WW of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, with a fine of Rs50,000 each. The said provision of ATA was incorporated in the law in Feb 2017 through the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2017, and it deals with lynching.
They were also sentenced to one-year imprisonment each with fine of Rs50,000 under section 297 (indignity to human corpse), 148 (rioting) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of Pakistain Penal Code (PPC). The trial court had ordered that their sentences shall run concurrently.
Before the high court, the counsels appearing for the said 25 convicts had contended that as their sentences were short one, they may be released on bail by suspending their sentences till final disposal of their appeal. It was contended that these petitioners were behind bars for the last about 10 months, but there was no likelihood that their appeal would be fixed for hearing in the near future due to the huge backlog of criminal cases before this court.
The bench in its order observed that the additional advocate general had also got no objection to the desired suspension of the sentences to the extent of petitioners who were sentenced to three years imprisonment.
The court had granted them bail on condition of furnishing two sureties each of Rs200,000. While the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) has empowered an appellate court to suspend a sentence and set free a convict on bail, the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) in clear terms provides that the appellate court shall not release the accused on bail.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2018 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
The previous estimate was 25,000, but better accuracy is better.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) More than 19,000 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.... forces of Evil were killed over three years during liberation battles across Iraq, the Federal Police announced on Monday.
"So far, some 19,484 forces of Evil were killed in each of Nineveh, Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... Salahuddin, north of Baghdad, in addition to Anbar, which represents around one third of the country," Lt. gen. Shaker Jawdat, commander of the Federal Police, told the Russian Sputnik agency.
The total areas liberated by the Federal Police in the four provinces, according to Jawdar, "reached 27155.496 square kilometers."
Moreover, the total regions, towns and districts liberated by the troops reached 890.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/13/2018 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ForeignPolicy] Nikki Haley bet the rest of the world would cover the costs of American aid cuts to Palestinian refugees. That hasn’t happened.
I strongly suspect the FP journalist has this wrong. President Trump assumed that the world would not cover the cuts, but was unconcerned that they might choose to do so, his key concern being that America no longer do so. His secondary concern is that a reduction of the green stuff would push the Palestinians to see that their interest lies in quickly making peace with Israel, or that they become less able to support their “covert” war.
[IsraelTimes] Holot will close after four years; 480 detainees to be released with geographic restrictions on where they can live and work
Holot, an open air detention center where Israel housed illegal migrants colonists largely from 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... and Sudan, will close its gates at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, the Population Immigration and Border Authority announced.
Continued on Page 49
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.
...literally the 
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 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.
