NATIONAL RESISTANCE FRONT ANNOUNCES START OF SPRING CAMPAIGN – A purported attack on a Taliban security checkpoint on the East side of Kabul last night is being touted on pro-NRF social media sites as the commencement of the Spring Offensive. No definitive information on possible casualties or damage inflicted has yet been reported. The NRF’s official website has not published anything regarding the incident and there is some skepticism about the NRF’s capabilities in 2023. A voice message that has been attributed to Vice President Amrullah Saleh was released on several pro-Resistance accounts. In the message, he warns Resistance forces to avoid sharing plans on social media. The admonition may lend credibility to the claims being made about the Spring Offensive.
EDUCATION ACTIVIST MATIULLAH WESA INTERROGATED FOR ‘WILLFUL ACTIONS’ – Taliban officials admitted to arresting Wesa as he left his Mosque on Monday. The allegations against the regime are centered on his organizing activities and charges that he has fomented insurrection against the state. Additional reports suggest that 2 of Wesa’s brothers have also been arrested (possibly, other family members as well) and we have been provided photos that clearly depict surveillance activity around Wesa’s home. The de facto regime has been roundly condemned by many in the international community and multiple calls have been made for his quick release.
4.3 MAGNITUDE QUAKE REPORTED 85KMS EAST OF KABUL – An early morning tremor shook the capital at approximately 0500hrs local time on Wednesday morning. Some shaking was reported by locals but no damage or casualties have yet been reported. The quake was estimated to have occurred at a depth of 10 km. The region remains on alert for seismic activity after a 6.8 quake jolted Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan.
TALIBAN CRACK DOWN ON JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT – The regime has continued to investigate and proceed against cases of corruption in certain sectors of society. Sources in Kandahar have stated that counter-corruption has been a priority for the Supreme Leader and his clique in 2023. A case in point was made in Ghor when a judge, Maulvi Mohammad Akbar Hekmat, was convicted on charges of bribery and sentenced to over 2 years in prison. As the proceedings were not publicly aired, it is not clear if Hekmat was accorded full due process but many local observers have said he continually accepted bribes in cases that were brought before him and he may have acted as a facilitator for bribery with other judges and Taliban officials. Some say the case was remarkable because he was considered to be extremely well-connected with Taliban officials in both Kabul and Kandahar. Currently, several other judicial misconduct cases are pending across the country.
HEAVY FLOODING HAS AFFECTED THOUSANDS OVER THE PAST WEEK – The United Nations conducted an assessment of the recent crisis and is helping to lead a response effort among other international NGOs to deliver aid to the most severely affected communities. UN officials warned that a decrease in their funding will hamper the timely delivery of the aid.
CONFLICT TRACKER Kabul: NRF fighters shared video of a purported attack on a Taliban security checkpoint on the outskirts of Kabul last night. No information concerning possible casualties has been provided yet and the incident has not been verified.
NEXT 24 HOURS
POSSIBLE RESISTANCE ACTIONS – If the reports concerning the National Resistance Fronts’ announcement over the resumption of offensive actions prove to be true, the group could be looking to stage a major operation in the coming days. Based on historical data, likely targets will be Taliban fixed positions (headquarters, garrisons, and security checkpoints) as well as ambushes of Taliban patrols. At-risk Afghans should avoid the fixed positions if at all possible as these are also targets commonly attacked by ISIS-K. While Resistance operations seldom involve non-combatant casualties, there is always potential for collateral losses.
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The UAE has accelerated to complete the construction of the military base on Abd al-Kuri Island, located in the 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... i archipelago of Socotra.
ICAD investigation platform affirmed in a report published on Monday, that new satellite images showed that the UAE had started laying the foundation for the runway of the military base on Abdel-Kuri Island, in preparation for its paving, after working has started since December 2021.
The report indicated that the photos showed developments affecting the new main airstrip, in preparation for the construction of military warehouses or logistical buildings, in addition to the establishment of workers areas and modern buildings east of the base, which began work on at the end of last year.
This came after the platform published, last January, a report on the UAE launching work to construct a military base on Abd al-Kuri Island, which has 6 oil sectors, close to the Gulf of Aden, Bab al-Mandab and Horn of Africa.
During the past year, the UAE carried out a forced displacement operation against the people of Abd al-Kuri Island, to the city of Hadiboh, the lovely provincial capital of Socotra, as well as the province of Hadhramaut.
According to the report, the runway of the military base, which is 30 meters wide and likely 1.25 km long, with the extension of the dirt line of the runway.
Earlier this week, the UAE sent new forces to Hadiboh airport, including foreign officers.
Those forces were transferred, according to local sources in Socotra, to Abd al-Kuri Island.
Abd al-Kuri Island is the second largest island in the Socotra archipelago and located between the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa. The UAE has ambitions on the island because it is located within a major shipping corridor linking Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... and Asia, near the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait of Yemen.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2023 00:27 ||
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#1
A small island west of Socotra, in the Socotra Achipelago. UAE activity could be taken out with one bombing raid.
[NPASYRIA] Gothenburg District Court sentenced on Wednesday a woman to three months in prison for belonging to Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) and involving in war crimes in Raqqa Governorate, northern Syria, in 2014.
Fatosh Ibrahim, 35, from Gothenburg, on Sweden’s west coast, posted photos from Syria of herself with severed heads impaled on the fence of Naim roundabout in Raqqa on her social media accounts in 2014.
Ibrahim commented on the photos, "mutilated bodies" hinting the people in the pictures.
The court said in its ruling that Ibrahim posted "disparaging comments" about the bodies in the photos, expressing that they deserve what happened to them.
She said in the court, "I posted the pictures on Facebook, I don’t know what I was thinking. I was war maimed."
Ibrahim has two siblings who belonged to ISIS and later all of them returned home.
Ibrahim claimed that she did not travel to Syria to join ISIS, as she travelled to Syria in 2012 and was forced to stay there, and ISIS came in 2013.
Ibrahim’s first husband was British-Pak, who died in 2013; while her last husband is currently imprisoned in Australia.
Ibrahim is one of three siblings from Gothenburg, on Sweden's west coast, who all belonged to the Islamic State and later returned home, according to the Swedish newspaper Expressen.
It reports that her brother Hassan Al-Mandlawi was sentenced to life in prison for terrorism offences, while her younger sister died after she had returned to Sweden with her shrapnel-injured daughter.
And the sister's son died at the age of three when he was playing with a hand grenade that detonated.
"It was very common to see dead bodies in Raqqa", Ibrahim said.
Ibrahim said: "I was permanently employed as a welder. My brother wanted me to go to Syria and visit. Then I got stuck there and couldn't travel home. That was in 2012 and IS came in 2013."
The publication claims that her first husband was British-Pakistani militant Ibrahim Almazwagi, 21, the Hertfordshire University graduate who died in 2013.
Her last husband is currently imprisoned in Australia.
Ibrahim told the court that she wanted to stay where her husband was buried but was forced to go to Raqqa.
She returned to Sweden in 2017, according to the verdict.
Ibrahim was also convicted of threatening and defaming social workers in Sweden after they took away her children.
The first British-born casualty of the Syrian civil war has been revealed as Ibrahim al-Mazwagi, a 21-year-old jihadist who graduated from Hertfordshire University last year.
To his friends, he was a sociable member of the university's American football team, but to rebels in Syria, he was one of about 80 British men who are believed to have joined the fight against Bashir al-Assad in the last two years. According to the Facebook page set up in his honour, the north Londoner had fought in Libya in 2011
...he’ll have been Al Qaeda, then, and part of the crowd of brothers, cousins, and schoolmates who were rounded up a few years later while preparing for a major multi-pronged terror attack for ISIS ...
before heading to fight alongside his "brothers" in Syria last August. Announcing his death, a message on the page read: "He took part of [sic] a major operation against the Assad regime forces yesterday and passed in the ensuing battles."
A Swedish court has tossed in the slammer ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... two men to life in jail on terror charges after police found footage linking them to two beheadings in Syria in 2013.
The Goteborg District Court ruled that not only were Hassan Mostafa al-Mandlawi, 32, and 30-year-old Sultan al-Amin, involved in the killings but that the murders were intended to intimidate and frighten people in Syria and abroad.
'The murder films have obviously been crucial, and the prosecutor has managed to show that it is those two guys who are in the videos,' the court's chairman, Ralf G Larsson, told the TT news agency after pronouncing the guilty verdict on Monday.
The court said police found photographic and video evidence on computer memory sticks seized during a search at the Goteborg home of one of the men. It showed two killings, including a beheading, at an industrial area north of Aleppo between April 12 and May 2, 2013. While neither man is shown with a knife in his hand, the prosecution argued, and the court agreed, that footage was evidence that the men were present during the murders and had an intention to kill.
Chief Prosecutor Agnetha Hilding Qvarnstrom said the pair, who were arrested in July in Sweden, had both 'expressed joy over the deeds.'
The men have denied involvement and said they would appeal. Mr al-Mandlawi's lawyer Lars Salkola previously argued that his client should not have been prosecuted because a gunshot wound to the head left him wheelchair-bound and unable to communicate.
A life sentence in Sweden generally means a minimum of 20-25 years in prison.
Swedish press reported that the two men had lived in Sweden for years and held Swedish citizenship.
The two men traveled to Syria in the Spring of 2013 and were involved in the killing of two men who worked for a Syrian regime owned oil company.
Al-Amin, who has been tossed in the slammer ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... since July, will begin serving his life sentence immediately. The court also ordered the imprisonment of al-Mandlawi, who had been released after questioning because he used a wheelchair following a gunshot wound to the head.
Al-Mandlawi's lawyer, Lars Salkola, said he was not satisfied with the verdict especially as he can only discuss it with his client's relatives because al-Mandlawi is unable to communicate with him because of the brain injury.
Brain damage, speechless, and wheelchair-bound? It’s a start.
In line with international practice, Swedish courts may try certain crimes committed abroad if the suspects live or are apprehended in Sweden.
[Dawn] The police here on Wednesday arrested a suspected bad boy and recovered explosives and arms from his possession, officials said.
They said the police had received a tip-off that a suspected person present near a police post in Chowkiabad area was plotting to destroy a government installation in the area through a terror bid. They said a team was formed to avert the attempt.
They added that the team led by DSP Sanobar Khan and comprising SHO Ashfaq Khan and other officials raided the area and apprehended the alleged bad boy, namely Sher Ghani alias Ibrahim of Shama Korona area of Nesata.
The officials said the police also recovered two hand grenades, a rocket shell and 60-foot prima cord from his possession. The detained bad boy was shifted to an undisclosed location for interrogation.
According to the police, the bad boy belonging to the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban ...Arabic for students... Pakistain was wanted by the Counter-Terrorism Department, Mardan, in various cases of militancy.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/30/2023 02:56 ||
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[Dawn] A deputy superintendent of police (DSP) and three constables were martyred when an improvised bomb (IED) went off on the Pirwala Road in Lakki Marwat on Thursday, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa police said.
According to the police, the blast occurred as the personnel were en route to the Saddar cop shoppe, where coppers were fending off an attack under way.
"The DSP, along with a heavy contingent, left for the cop shoppe after he received information regarding a terrorist attack there.
"On the way, near the Pirwala turn, an IED blast occurred in which DSP Iqbal Momand and constables Ali Marjan, Waqar and Karamatullah were martyred," it added.
Lakki Marwat police spokesperson Shahid Hameed told Dawn.com that murderous Moslems shot up the Saddar cop shoppe in the early hours today. Resultantly, an exchange of fire took place between the police and the terrorists.
During the shootout, six copperswere maimed, he said. The maimed men, identified as Head Constable Farooq Shah and constables Amanatullah, Asghar, Sardar Ali and Arif have been moved to the Lakki City Hospital.
A police statement also revealed that the bully boyz were equipped with advanced and heavy weaponry. "The police were on alert and the attackers had to flee when the police returned fire."
The murderous Moslems fled while taking advantage of the darkness, it added.
Later, funerals of the slain coppers were offered at the Police Line, which was attended by senior coppers.
The outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... Pakistain (TTP) claimed the attack in a statement.
Talking to Dawn.com, former chief of the National Counter Terrorism Authority, Ihsan Ghani, said that the police are a "soft target" for gangs.
Ghani, who has also served as chief of the KP police, said that police routinely come under attack as they are on the streets and perform duties anywhere. "We are now alone in the war on terrorism," he added.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/30/2023 02:56 ||
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[NPASYRIA] Iraqi forces announced on Wednesday the killing of a number of Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) turbans after targeting a hideout of them in Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... north of the country.
War Media Cell tweeted that F-16 destroyed a hideout of the "terrorists" in Kirkuk, resulting in the destruction of the hideout and killing a number of ISIS turbans who were there.
Earlier on the day, Iraqi Directorate General for Intelligence and Security of Ministry of Defense announced killing a dangerous bully boy of ISIS in Saladin Governorate of Iraq.
In turn, the War Media Cell said, in a statement, that detachments of Directorate of Intelligence and Security arrested an ISIS "terrorist" in Saladin Governorate, central Iraq.
In a separated operation, the Iraqi forces arrested a bully boy of ISIS north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
A security source told alSumaria News that a joint security force arrested an ISIS terrorist, as he will be referred to specialized authorities after investigating him.
On March 15, the Iraqi forces announced the arrest of seven turbans of ISIS in the center of the country and the killing of three others in Baghdad.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2023 00:08 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Attack causes material damage, sets off air defenses, report says, after two strikes on Aleppo airport in recent weeks
The Israeli Air Force allegedly carried out an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... near the Syrian capital Damascus early Thursday morning, according to Syria’s state-run media outlet.
The airstrike maimed two soldiers and caused material damage, the state news agency SANA reported.
Loud explosions were heard over Damascus at around 1:30 a.m., and Syrian air defenses were "confronting hostile targets," SANA said, quoting an unidentified military official.
There was no comment from the Israel Defense Forces, in line with its policy of not generally commenting on air raids in Syria. Israel is believed to have carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, including attacks on the Damascus and Aleppo airports, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.
Israel has acknowledged, however, that it targets bases of Iran-allied groups, such as Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... ’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... ’s forces. Israel views Iran’s expansion throughout Syria as a continued threat to its national security, and has conducted strikes across a broad range of targets in an effort to curb Iran’s forces in the region.
Thursday’s reported airstrike came after two attacks in recent weeks against the Aleppo International Airport, also attributed to Israel. Those attacks temporarily closed the airport’s runway.
One of the strikes last week also targeted an underground munitions depot at the adjacent Nairab military airport, according to two unnamed "regional intelligence sources" who spoke to the Rooters news agency. The sources said the site was used to store missile-guided systems that had been delivered by Iranian cargo flights.
Also this month, Israel carried out a rare daytime strike against targets in northwestern Syria, injuring three soldiers and causing damage, SANA said.
Government forces kill an unidentified gunman suspected to be an #ISIS militant after attacking a government checkpoint in eastern #Deir_ez_Zor in eastern #Syria.https://t.co/ilxZw6nIBy
— NORTH PRESS AGENCY - ENGLISH (@NPA_English) March 29, 2023
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2023 00:18 ||
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[NPASYRIA] The Third Legionof the Ottoman Turkish-backed Syrian opposition factions, also known as the National Syrian Army (SNA), deployed on Tuesday hard boyz on the outskirts of the city of Azaz in northern Aleppo.
The deployment came following information about the mobilization of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS, formerly al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... front) hard boyz in the village of Qatma in Afrin countryside.
An exclusive source told North Press that the Third Legion mobilized its forces in Azaz and Kafr Janneh in the Afrin countryside following news of the presence of HTS hard boyz in Qatma hill in the Sharran district.
Azaz has witnessed a state of high alert at all checkpoints surrounding the city, and cars exiting and entering the city were subjected to an accurate check.
This came after HTS entered Jindires following Jaish al-Sharqiya’s killing of five Kurdish civilians and injured others in Jindires countryside for lighting fire to celebrate Newroz.
The region witnessed military alert that was followed by the HTS withdrawal from the town due to Ottoman Turkish refusal over its presence, according to the source.
Following the crime, massive public demonstrations took place in Jindires and other areas in Afrin.
The city of Afrin and its countryside were occupied by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... in 2018 following military operation "Olive Branch" to push away the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) under the pretext of protecting Turkey’s "national security."
The operation caused the displacement of about 300,000 of the original inhabitants of the Kurds of Afrin who have been taking shelter in 40 villages and five camps in Shahba region since then.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2023 00:18 ||
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IED blasts in the eastern countryside of #Homs Governorate, central #Syria, resulting in the death of four people, including three women and the injury of four others.https://t.co/Jg8Z8HXtY3
— NORTH PRESS AGENCY - ENGLISH (@NPA_English) March 29, 2023
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2023 00:12 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
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 land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...Arabic for 
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
