[KhaamaPress] Adib Fahim, the former deputy intelligence chief of Afghanistan and elder son of the former vice president Mohammad Qasim Fahim, has distanced himself from Abdullah Abdullah ...the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against both Karzai and Ghani. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun. He also held the meaningless salaried sop position as CEO of Afghanistan, while Ghani was president... , apparently due to an eternal feud.
Sources privy of the development said Adib distanced himself from Abdullah due to the internal political differences, mainly having links over the title of the Marshal of Afghanistan.
The sources further added that Adib decided to distance himself from Abdullah’s team as he opposed with the decision to confer the title of Marshal of Afghanistan to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum ...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier... Adib posted a short statement online on Monday, indirectly criticizing Abdullah for remaining short to respect an ’age-old’ friendship, brotherhood and loyalty, accusing him (Abdullah) of considering political concession against historical values of ’Jihad and Resistance®’.
Qasim Fahim, the former vice president of Afghanistan, who died of an illness in 2014, was conferred with the title of Marshal of Afghanistan following the fall of Taliban ...Arabic for students... regime.
This comes as reports emerged earlier suggesting a crack in electoral team of Abdullah Abdullah, having links with the political differences. The reports emerged amid ongoing efforts to end the political stalemate which intensified following the controversial conduct and announcement of presidential elections.
On the other hand, Abdullah announced last week that his team has reached to an agreement in principle to end the ongoing political tensions with President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money...
[ToloNews] The Afghan government on Tuesday released another group of Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... prisoners as part of efforts to put the stalled grinding of the peace processor back on track, a move welcomed by the Taliban.
So far, the government has released 950 Taliban prisoners, according to the National Security Council’s front man Javid Faisal, who said another 500 inmates will be released in the coming days.
Faisal said that at this stage a total of 1,500 prisoners will be released by the Afghan government. The Afghan government made an earlier pledge to release a total of 5,000 Taliban prisoners only after the start of the intra-Afghan negotiations and if violence is reduced in a way that leads to a countrywide ceasefire.
"The Taliban does not have much interest in peace. We are witnessing an increase of violence by them every day and they martyr the people of Afghanistan," said Faisal.
But the Taliban in a statement welcomed the move and called for an expedited release of their prisoners to "save them" from the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... and pave the way for the intra-Afghan negotiations.
The process continues amid hopes for beginning intra-Afghan negotiations, which have been delayed over issues around the prisoner release and other matters.
Some freed prisoners, who spoke in recorded videos released by the government on Tuesday, pledged they will not return to the war, saying that violence will reduce with the continuation of the process.
"I was imprisoned on charges of being a Taliban member. I was sentenced to nine years in jail. I completed three years of my sentence. I am released as part of efforts for the grinding of the peace processor and I hope that peace is established in the country," said Mohammad Yunus, a freed Taliban prisoner.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Kinnison began his slow infiltration of the sewer system... a member of the government’s negotiation team said they have started their initial meetings for beginning the talks.
"The negotiation team has made the required preparations and we are awaiting the recommendations of the leadership of the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Afghanistan and the specification of the time and venue of the negotiations," said Ghulam Farooq Majroh, member of the negotiation team.
"I want to tell the (Afghan) government that you say you want a ceasefire to fight the coronavirus, but you are not releasing prisoners over the pandemic," said Sayed Akbar Agha, a former Taliban member.
Analysts say that the release of Taliban prisoners will open the way for a reduction of violence by the Taliban.
"We should come together and make peace," said Mohammad Amin Waqad, an analyst.
"Taliban are blamed if they are acting against the (peace) agreement and if the government violates it, it is seeking power," said Mawlawi Qalamuddin, a former Taliban member.
So far, the Taliban has released 110 prisoners of the Afghan government.
[LIBYAREVIEW] Tunisian member of parliament (MP) Mabrouk Korchid said on Tuesday that "the process of transferring thousands of forces of Evil to Libya from Syria has negative results for Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya".
Korchid said that the presence of so many mercenaries in Libya affects Tunisia’s national security.
In the past many Tunisian born and raised forces of Evil have returned from Libya to cause problems in Tunisia.
Korchid added that transferring terrorism to Arab countries, similar to what was done in Syria, is a disaster for the neighboring countries and populations as well. He stressed the importance of achieving security in Libya as soon as possible to the Tunisian government.
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[NATION.PK] Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar Monday once again rejected allegations of India against Pakistain terming them baseless and invited UN observers and other independent groups to openly investigate these accusations.
In a TV interview with ARY News at the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), his first interview to a local news network since assuming office, the military front man of the armed forces said that India can give the location of infiltrators, it they are, inside Pakistain to UN and international observers. "They should come and investigate where infiltrators and launch pads are (in Pakistain)," he said and termed all these allegations as unfounded.
DG ISPR explained that no one was needed to infiltrate into India taking into account its internal situation and that of Indian Occupied Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... especially. He further said that India had its own satellite technology and added, "Where is the evidence." He further said that India had increased the strength of fence three-fold and with this infiltration was not possible.
He said that India used to level such allegations against Pakistain only to divert the attention from its internal situation and with this, the situation in the region can go towards wrong directions. "I once again reiterate that if India wants to investigate it, we are ready to get it investigated."
Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar said that this was a very serious situation the way the Indian army was behaving along the Line of Control (LoC). The India’s ceasefire violations and civilian casualties along LoC are on the rise with each passing day. In addition to that, the Indian military was levelling baseless allegation against Pakistain of infiltrating COVID-19 infected persons into India to spread the virus there, he said.
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[The News (Pak)] Pakistain on Tuesday summoned a senior Indian diplomat to register its strong protest over ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC) by New Delhi's forces which caused serious injuries to six civilians.
The May 4 ceasefire violations across the LoC had occurred at the Bagsar sector.
"Condemning the deplorable targeting of innocent civilians by the Indian occupation forces, it was underscored that such senseless acts are in clear violation of the 2003 Ceasefire Understanding, and are also against all established humanitarian norms and professional military conduct," read a statement by the the Foreign Office spokesperson.
"These egregious violations of international law reflect consistent Indian attempts to escalate the situation along the LoC and are a threat to regional peace and security," it added.
According to the blurb, the Indian forces' indiscriminate and unprovoked firing severely injured six Pak citizens — Nazima Bibi, 55; Zareena Begum, 50; Jamil and Waheed, both 45; Shaheen Begum, 30; and Aqeel, 12; residents of the Khaulian, Penga, and Bandala villages.
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#1
BERLIN—The US sanctioned Iranian Mahan Air ignored travel and safety restrictions, enabling the first cases of the deadly coronavirus to spread into Iraq and Lebanon... BBC Arabic reported: "As coronavirus spread worldwide, strict travel restrictions were imposed. But they were ignored by some. BBCArabic can reveal that the first coronavirus cases in Iraq and Lebanon were flown into the country, on Mahan Air flights” ...BBC News Arabic has analysed flight tracking data and open source footage which shows how Iran's largest airline - Mahan Air - continued to fly while government flight bans were in place, contributing to the spread of Covid-19 in the Middle East.”
It added that “Mahan Air ran hundreds of flights to and from Iran, Iraq, the UAE and Syria between late January and the end of March. They gave Mahan Air permission to land. And they did so while their ban on flights from Iran were in place.”
True, along with Covid, a certain Drone Strike, Russian friction, No money to support terrorist actions...
[PJ Media] Israeli defense officials are now reported as saying that, under the pressure of repeated Israeli airstrikes, Iran‐which has been involved in the fighting in Syria since 2011‐is starting to pack up and leave.
Ulululululululululululululululululu!!!
Its forces, the anonymous officials say, are "pulling out of Syria and closing military bases there." That news comes on the heels of two more reported strikes on Monday night‐and no less than 14 since April 10.
One of the Israeli attacks on Monday night hit militia bases in the Deir Azzor region of eastern Syria and, according to the UK-based, anti-Assad-regime Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, "killed at least 14 Iranian fighters and allied militiamen."
Another, in northern Syria near Aleppo, was said to hit Iran-linked weapons depots "adjacent" to Syrian "defense labs." Or‐as other reports have it‐the attack struck the labs themselves, which are centers for producing chemical and biological weapons.
Israel has been raiding hundreds, if not thousands, of Iranian, Syrian, Hezbollah, and foreign-militia targets in Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011, hitting arms depots, missile batteries, outposts along the Syrian-Israeli border, and much else. Since April, though, the pace has picked up to a possibly unprecedented level.
As Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday: "We are determined, more determined [than Iran], and I will tell you why‐for Iran, Syria is an adventure 1,000 miles from home, but for us it is life…. We will not give up nor allow the establishment of a forward Iranian base in Syria."
That has been Israel's policy all along‐but why the recent uptick in airstrikes, to the point that‐for the first time‐it's being said that Iran has finally had enough and is starting to go home?
Amos Harel, a military analyst for Israel's Haaretz daily, attributes it to several factors‐and particularly the U.S. assassination on January 3 of Qasem Soleimani, who was head of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Harel says Iran's entrenchment in Syria and aid to Hezbollah were Soleimani's "flagship project," and "in recent years, the greater Soleimani's influence around the Middle East became, the more his efforts to smuggle arms to Hezbollah and build bases in Syria increased. Soleimani evidently insisted on continuing this despite Israel's airstrikes."
His replacement, Gen. Esmail Ghaani, however, "discovered that his predecessor's shoes were a bit too big for him. Ghaani doesn't share Soleimani's superstar status. He's having trouble imbuing the ranks with a fighting spirit, even if we take into account the pressure Iran and Hezbollah have been under lately."
And that pressure, of course, has been huge. For Iran it includes intensifying U.S. sanctions, a coronavirus crisis that is widely assumed to have exacted far more than the 6,300 deaths reported so far, and plunging oil prices as the world economy goes into a tailspin.
Then there's the fact that neither of Iran's erstwhile allies in the Syrian civil war‐that is, neither Russia nor Syria itself‐particularly wants Iran to stay on Syrian soil.
For Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iran has outlived its usefulness. Although it helped Syria significantly during the war, its lingering presence in Syria now means constant Israeli airstrikes, including on Syrian missile batteries, that are the last thing Assad needs as he tries to rehabilitate his devastated country.
And as for Russia, it hopes to consolidate its own economic and strategic interests as Syria's patron‐and sees Iran as little more than an unwelcome competitor.
If, then, the above-mentioned Israeli officials are right and Iran has decided it's had enough, it will be a great Israeli victory‐and to some extent an Israeli-U.S. victory‐in the fight against the Iranian axis of territorial expansion and war. Or, even if the claims are premature and Iran still wants to tough it out, it will find that it's playing the losing hand.
[CBSNews] Tehran - The head of Iran's Central Bank announced Monday [4 May] that the nation's currency was set to be re-named and re-valued. Long called the rial, Iran's money will soon likely be called the Toman, and an impressive four zeros will be shaved off all denominations. What was previously 10,000 rials will become one Toman under the plans, which were approved Monday by the Iranian parliament. IIUC, the Toman will, initially be worth about 10 cents in the black market and about 25 cents on the official market.
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#3
toman (plural tomans) (historical, military) A division of 10,000 men in the Mongolian army. (historical, numismatics) A Persian money of account or gold coin issued until 1927, notionally worth 10,000 dinars.
#9
/\ Why do you think they want to get rid of paper currency? If it is all electronic the government can screw it's own citizens with the push of a button.
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 former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against both Karzai and Ghani. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun. He also held the meaningless salaried sop position as CEO of Afghanistan, while Ghani was president...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
