Much more on the gentleman whose death by violence was reported here yesterday.
[LongWarJournal] A veteran Pak jihadist who rose to the highest levels of leadership within Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent was killed by Afghan cops in a recent raid in Farah province. The Al Qaeda leader, known as Mohammad Hanif, was involved in the 2002 liquidation attempt on Pak President Pervez Perv Musharraf ...former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date... and the suicide kaboom on the U.S. Consulate in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... that same year.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/13/2020 01:21 ||
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[11128 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent
#1
The Harakat ul-Mujahideen noted in this article was financed and trained by the Pakistan military's ISI for action in Kashmir. It produced many Al Qaeda emirs. Not the least of whom was Abu al-Ma'ali, trained by the Harakat and leader of the Mujahideen in Bosnia and later in the various Balkan wars.
#Russia plans to build a naval base on #Sudan's Red Sea coast to resupply its fleet, according to a draft agreement with Khartoum signed off by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.https://t.co/edUtgOIqtx
[IsraelTimes] Israir flight from Tel Aviv to India forced to take detour above Mecca and Jeddah, 2 months after Riyadh okayed Israeli use of its airspace.
Saudi air traffic control guided an Israeli plane across its skies after it was forced to reroute due to bad weather on Tuesday night.
The Israir flight "was forced to make a detour into 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... . Saudi air-traffic control assisted the plane the entire way," the airline said in response to a news hound who noted the strange route that the plane took from Ben Gurion Airport to India.
The airline’s pilots Twitter account then posted a picture of the Saudi skyline that was taken from the detoured flight, and noted that "it was really very nice" of the Saudi air traffic controllers to guide them along.
Saudi Arabia is not among the countries to have normalized ties with Israel as a part of the Abraham Accords, but it did decide to open its airspace to all Israeli flights traveling east from the Jewish state.
Israeli airlines had been at a significant disadvantage in the past, being forced to take a detour of several hours skirting the Gulf and 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... on flights to the Far East. Saudi Arabia last year allowed Air India flights to Israel to use their airspace, but not El Al flights on the same route.
Allowing the use of Saudi and Bahraini airspace makes direct flights between Tel Aviv and the United Arab Emirates viable by cutting flying time from some seven hours to only three and a half hours.
US President Donald Trump ...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat The Smartest Woman in the World in the general election... has predicted that Saudi Arabia will be among up to 10 further countries preparing to normalize their relations with Israel.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/13/2020 02:23 ||
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[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
[Jpost] Levi Salem Musa Marhabi was arrested for aiding a Jewish family to make aliyah.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called for the immediate and unconditional release of Levi Salem Musa Marhabi, a 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 Jew who is being held by Iranian-backed Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... militia in Yemen.
In a statement issued by the US Department of State on Tuesday, Pompeo said that the United States "stands with the Yemeni Jewish community" in calling for Marhabi’s release.
"Mr. Marhabi has been wrongfully detained by the Houthi militia for four years, despite a court ordering his release in September 2019," Pompeo said. "His health continues to deteriorate as he languishes in a Sanaa prison, where the threat of contracting COVID-19 is a real possibility."
He added: "Mr. Marhabi is one member of an ever-shrinking community of Yemeni Jews, who have been an important part of Yemen’s diverse social fabric for thousands of years. We call on the Houthis to respect religious freedom, stop oppressing Yemen’s Jewish population, and immediately release Levi Salem Musa Marhabi."
This is not the first time an American official has called for Marhabi’s release. In August, Elan Carr, America’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, posted a call for Marhabi’s release on Twitter, writing: "The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have a record of persecuting religious minorities. Levi Salem Musa Marhabi, a member of Yemen’s small Jewish community, has endured 4 years in prison despite a legal order for his release. We join in calling for his immediate release."
According to a report in Ami magazine, Marhabi was arrested for aiding a Yemeni Jewish family to make aliyah, as the family brought with them a very rare deerskin Torah scroll, claimed by some to be 800 years old and considered by the Yemeni authorities to be a national treasure.
[Jpost] 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.... grabbed credit on Thursday for an attack on a non-Moslem cemetery in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah which maimed several people, without providing any evidence.
In a statement issued through its official channel on Telegram, the group said that its "soldiers" had managed to hide a homemade bomb in the cemetery on Wednesday which then went kaboom! after several "consuls of crusading countries" gathered there.The explosion, which occurred during a World War One remembrance ceremony, was the second security incident to take place in Jeddah in the last couple of weeks, and the first attack with explosives in years to attempt to hit foreigners in the conservative kingdom.
#5
Just missed that opportunity by 45 years. The biggest Saudi exports (oil and terrorism) are both at the bottom of their markets. But no worries Joe Biden will get that turned around quickly.
Posted by: Bob Grorong1136 ||
11/13/2020 7:32 Comments ||
Top||
#7
The revision began some time ago with the creation of the huge Yanbu complex. More recently there has been talk of creating a tourist complex south of the Straits of Tiran where scuba divers considered its waters the equal to Ras Mohammed in Sinai or Hurdagha in Egypt.
#9
This is more complex than most people can mentally handle. Really.
I’m going to explain this is extremely simplistic terms due to today’s 30 second attention span and 140 character tweet limitations. Which is truly a mind numbing concept….. as precisely when mankind’s technology is becoming exponentially more complex, we as humans have inexplicably shortened our own ability to discuss its impact. It’s a process that is designed to crash….. My long term advice is to simply drink heavily……
Back to understanding Saudi’s economy and its stated objective to diversify away from oil. As if diversity is simply a choice. It isn’t. The ability to diversify is baked into a country’s geological resources and also it geolocation that determines its climate. In simple words the country’s resource base and its climate.
Saudi’s oil reserves and its size of its fields determine its profitability. Saudi produces 95% of its oil from approx. 9 major fields. They are giant formations. Its remaining untapped and non-producing reserves are essentially 60 plus small polka-dot fields widely dispersed. Its low marginal cost of production is due to these huge existing fields (Ain Dar, Shedgum, Udahilyah, Safaniyah, Abqaiq, Shaybah etc.) flowing day in and day out. The vast bulk was put on line way back in the 50’s and it hasn’t really changed much. But to add productive capacity it needs to tap into many small, widely dispersed fields. Not a good long term prospect.
These large fields have low marginal costs of production, down as low as 1 to 2 dollars per barrel. Even a sales price of $40 yields a huge rate of return. For simplicity sake her, lets say it 1000% rate of return. Now if you are a Saudi private businessman looking to invest your money, where would you invest it? Your choices are
1) Aramco (and that’s only recently been made an option)
2) Oil service sector businesses that keep Aramco functioning like pipes, valves, drilling services, training, IT for the oil sector etc.
3) Bakery
4) Supermarkets
5) Banking
6) etc. etc.
Investing in oil gets you 1000% rate of return, while all other investment options yield anywhere from 2% to 25%. What Saudi economic sector would you put your next million dollars if your were one of the many Saudi private business investors being asked to help diversify the domestic economy..... ?
Diversifying away from a major part of the Saudi economy that yields 1000% rate of return is essentially an impossibie choice. Why would you choose to invest in anything else that doesn’t even come close to the rate of return that one can get in Saudi’s geologically fortuitous oil sector.
Saudi’s economy has supermarkets, construction companies, bakeries and all sorts of other supportive businesses, but to actually create businesses that can compete with OTHER foreign country’s existing export businesses is really an exercise in failure. Think about it. Can Saudi make furniture cheaper and better quality that China? Where will Saudi get its wood, steel, chrome, glass, etc at a lower cost than what China or Malaysia or Thailand can obtain it. Then there’s the labor costs….. Can Sudi suddenly be a player in software development, or farming, or education, or car manufacturing?
Diversity is NOT a choice that one can simply make happen with a wave of one’s hand. If it were possible, then why isn’t every nation on earth diverse. Fish farming in Switzerland, ship making in Austria, micro-chip manufacturing in Senegal.
There are other economic factors such as Ricardo’s “Comparative advantage” (not competitive but “comparative”) This concept is one of economics’ most misunderstood theories. It’s even more important than Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” in supply and demand. Yes…. More important! If your really want to test your intellect, try understanding this 1817 concept…. Wiki it. Then you will realize how impossible it will be for Saudi to actually diversify it economy.
#11
Certainly natural resources and climate are baked in, but some countries like Israel, Hong Kong and Singapore have managed to cobble together a pretty decent economy despite their handicaps.
I would expect the biggest limiting factor in trying to diversify the economy would be Saudis themselves and their poor work ethic.
#14
China & Saudi Arabia to build $5.6 billion Petrochemicals Plant. www.beltandroad.news › Jan 8, 2020 — The Plant would be located in Yanbu industrial city on the Red Sea Coast ... It can contribute to creating scores of industrial investment opportunities.
Posted by: b ||
11/13/2020 17:49 Comments ||
Top||
#15
^Saudis won't work. And, if it employs Pakistanis, I expect a kaboom.
[LIBYAREVIEW] On Wednesday, a Libyan man pleaded guilty to murder for stabbing three of his friends to death with a knife as they sat in an English city park.The 26-year-old, Khairi Saadallah,
... who’d been released early from prison just two weeks before running amok, complete with a diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoid schizophrenia — for which he refused to take medication. He’d arrived in England as a tourist in 2012, then was given asylum because he liked to drink and party; at some point he even converted to Christianity long enough to get a related tattoo, but clearly he never mastered the turn the other cheek bit. MI-5 took an interest last year when it looked like he planned to go a-jihading abroad, but they concluded he was not serious. It was only after the murders that it was revealed that Mr. Saadallah was the proud owner of a GNA militia identity card...
admitted to three murders and three attempted murders for the June 20 attack west of London.
It was Reading, actually, but geography on other continents is hard.
The three British men were enjoying a warm Saturday evening in a park when they were stabbed. Each died from a single stab wound. Three other men were maimed.
Police declared the stabbings a terrorist attack. Prosecutors said Saadallah has stabbed all six victims within two minutes.
The Judge said during a hearing at the London Criminal Court that Saadallah maintained he was not motivated by an ideological cause and had not done substantial planning for the attack. The judge has set a sentencing hearing for December 7.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/13/2020 00:00 ||
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[11129 views]
Top|| File under: Devout Moslems
#1
>It was Reading, actually, but geography on other continents is hard.
Haha but Reading is commuter belt for London as the Trains go fast to paddington etc.There are some green spots, but you need to go north of Reading to get into Oxfordshire before it gets nice and proper Englandy.
A delegation from #Russia will visit #Turkey to discuss the creation of a joint center for monitoring a truce deal between #Azerbaijan and #Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Turkish foreign minister says.https://t.co/pnM5pvE6Ga
The defense ministers of #Greece, #Israel and #Cyprus agree to step up military cooperation they say will keep their armed forces better prepared, help create more jobs and bolster security in a fraught region.https://t.co/joJVQSVnrX
[IsraelTimes] Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies says Iranian hackers have been behind several recent ransomware attacks on Israeli companies.
Global ransomware attacks have generally been on the rise. Such attacks involve software infecting the target’s computers and either locking the users out of their own system or threatening to publicize secret information unless a ransom sum is paid.
The recent attacks reportedly used weaknesses in companies’ VPN software for employees’ remote connection to their networks.
Several recent attacks on Israeli firms have seen targets asked to pay 7-9 bitcoins (some $112,000) to secure their data.
Check Point says the trail has led its Sherlocks to Iranian hackers. There is now word on the attacks being tied to the government in Tehran.
Making hay while the sun still shines, just in case.
[Jpost] Of particular concern, however, is the Givat Hamatos project, which Netanyahu promised to advance in February while on the election campaign trail.
The Antiquities Authority is surveying the site of the new east Jerusalem Jewish neighborhood at Givat Hamatos in advance of construction there, according to Aviv Tatarsky of the Left-wing NGO, Ir Amim.
In addition, he said on Thursday, building permits have been issued for 115 housing units in the Jerusalem Jewish neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, in a section located beyond the pre-1967 line.
Both moves have come in the aftermath of US President-elect Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden ...Candidate for president in 2020. Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.... ’s victory that Israel anticipates will herald a significant policy change with respect to Jewish building both in east Jerusalem and in the West Bank.
Ir Amim and the Left-wing NGO Peace Now on Thursday expressed concern about pending Israeli moves to develop areas of east Jerusalem in the last weeks of the administration of President Donald Trump ...the Nailer of NAFTA... Peace Now noted, in particular, that Ramat Shlomo was particularly sensitive historically for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Biden. It recalled that in 2010 plans were deposited for 1,600 new homes in Ramat Shlomo during a visit by Biden, who was then the US vice president.
Now, with less than a week since Biden’s electoral victory, Israel has worked to shore up the same neighborhood.
"After straining relations with Biden and the US in 2010 over the approval of settlement units in Ramat Shlomo, one would think that Prime Minister Netanyahu would at least try not to remind the incoming Biden administration of that time. Approving units in the exact same location just as Biden is about to enter office is both counter to Israel’s interests and recklessly provocative toward Biden personally," Peace Now said.
Of particular concern, however, is the Givat Hamatos project, which Netanyahu promised to advance in February while on the election campaign trail.
But also a tender that was issued for 1,100 units was never published and the date has consistently been pushed back. The latest anticipated date had been November 2 and no new date was set.
But Tatarsky said the presence of the Antiquities Authority at the site was "a worrying sign," that movement on the project would occur soon.
Paleostinians and Left-wing Israelis have argued that the project helps cut off Paleostinian living in east Jerusalem from nearby Bethlehem, thereby harming the contiguity of a future Paleostinian state.
It was an argument that had less impact under the Trump administration. While the Trump administration did not recognize Israeli illusory sovereignty over east Jerusalem, it held that the majority of east Jerusalem should remain under Israeli illusory sovereignty in any final resolution to the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict.
Biden, in contrast, holds that east Jerusalem, including Givat Hamatos should be part of a future Paleostinian state.
The Trump administration took a number of significant steps to shore up Israel’s hold on Jerusalem. It recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocated its embassy there from Tel Aviv.
But according to Peace Now data, tenders for Jewish construction in east Jerusalem were low under Trump until this year. Tenders were issued for 130 units in 2017, 603 in 2018, 805 in 2019 and 1,547 in 2020. The 2020 data includes the Givat Hamatos project.
The numbers were higher under the B.O. regime, when looking at years 2012-2014. Some 2,554 tenders were issued in 2012, 2,015 tenders in 2013 and 2,240 in 2014.
[Jpost] Negotiations between Israel and 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... were launched in September, as Israel and Lebanon reached an agreement to hold negotiations on their maritime border after a years-long impasse.
[ENGLISHBETA.ALARABIYA.NET] An adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron met top Lebanese officials on Thursday in a desperate bid to save a plan Gay Paree put forward to rescue the country’s agonizing economy.
Patrick Durel, who arrived in Beirut on Wednesday, held talks with President Michel Aoun ...president of Leb, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah... and other key players, including parliament speaker Nabih Knobby Berri ...Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, head of the Amal Shiite party aligned with Hezbollah, a not very subtle sock puppet of the Medes and Persians... A statement from the presidency quoted Aoun as saying that he "adheres to the French initiative, which is in the interest of the country."
Yet 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 ruling class has ignored the deadlines set by La Belle France, which has spearheaded efforts to stop the country’s collapse since a crushing currency crisis and a cataclysmic explosion at Beirut port.
On September 1, Macron gave politicians two weeks to form a non-sectarian government of experts tasked with carrying out urgent reforms capable of unlocking billions in aid.
On September 27, Macron gave another deadline of "four to six weeks" which also went unheeded.
French officials have voiced their exasperation with Lebanese politicians’ unwillingness to put the interest of the country before their own.
After Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany was designated to form a government and failed, Aoun last month asked Saad Hariri ...Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too.... to return and attempt to forge a consensus on a cabinet line-up.
Hariri, who has held the position twice, was forced to resign last year, under pressure from an unprecedented popular protest movement.
Hariri, Aoun, Berri and others embody the sectarian-driven, corrupt and hereditary brand of politics that protesters, and ostensibly La Belle France, say needs to be done away with.
Lebanon, which defaulted on its debt this year, is experiencing its worst ever economic crisis and is still reeling from a devastating explosion at the port that gutted entire neighborhoods of Beirut on August 4.
Both are widely blamed on government corruption and incompetence.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/13/2020 00:00 ||
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[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
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.
...former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date...
...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 
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
...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 
[LIBYAREVIEW] On Wednesday, a Libyan man pleaded guilty to murder for stabbing three of his friends to death with a knife as they sat in an English city park.The 26-year-old, Khairi Saadallah, 
...Candidate for president in 2020. 
...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...
