[Naharnet] Tanzanian police said Saturday they have tossed in the calaboose Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! five people in possession of explosives in the economic capital Dar es Salaam.
"Five people were arrested the day before yesterday (Thursday) in possession of explosives after a tip-off from patriotic citizens," Dar es Salaam's police chief Suleiman Kova told AFP.
Asked if there was a link between the arrests and the May 5 deadly bombing at a church, Kova said: "Investigations are continuing into why these people had explosives and where they intended to take them."
The kaboom at a Catholic church in the northern city of Arusha had killed three people and maimed 60.
Tanzanian daily Habari Leo, which is close to the government, reported that the five arrested were Tanzanian nationals.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/19/2013 02:09 ||
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[Naharnet] A bomb went kaboom! Saturday in a Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... street housing the Algerian, Greek and Saudi embassies, lightly damaging a car, hours after a soldier was maimed in a bombing in Libya's second city Benghazi.
A security source said the homemade bomb, locally known as "gelatina", had been placed near a car on a street in the central district of Dahra where the three embassies are located.
The car, parked outside the Greek embassy, was slightly damaged and there were no reports of casualties.
On April 23, a boom-mobile detonated outside the French embassy in the upmarket Gargaresh area of Tripoli, causing extensive damage and wounding two embassy guards and several local residents.
Meanwhile a pre-dawn drive-by kaboom in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday slightly maimed a soldier.
"A bomb was thrown from a car at an army checkpoint at the Dubail crossroads in the centre of Benghazi," a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... "The attack was carried out at around 2 am (2400 GMT Thursday)," the official said, adding that the identity of the assailants was not known.
Benghazi, cradle of the 2011 uprising against former dictator Muammar Qadaffy ...a reminder that a single man with an idea can change an entire nation, usually for the worse... , has seen a spate of attacks on security forces and Western interests in recent months.
The latest bombings highlight the inability of authorities to establish effective security in Libya, which has been awash since the uprising with weapons used by former rebels and other groups who helped topple Qadaffy's regime.
The attacks, which are not claimed, are usually blamed on radical Islamists, such as the group which raided the US consulate in Benghazi last September 11 killing four Americans including ambassador Chris Stevens.
On Friday, a bomb apparently targeting troops guarding an empty Benghazi school building caused damage but no casualties.
Police shot dead a couple suspected to be terrorists after they threw four grenades, wounding five officers in an overnight stand-off, a police official said Sunday.
Following a tip, investigators raided the apartment where the couple was staying in the Githurai Kimbo area on the outskirts of Nairobi Saturday evening and ordered them out of their house, said Boniface Mwaniki, the head of the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit.
The couple refused to surrender, threw grenades and used their eight-month-old baby as a human shield, said Mwaniki.
Police fired tear-gas repeatedly into the house, said a resident of the building. The baby was removed from the house unconscious and two grenades were found in the house, said Augustine Nthumbi, the officer in charge of the Githurai Kimbo.
The incident highlights the threat of Islamic extremist violence in Kenya.
The man killed was Kenyan national Felix Otuko, who was suspected of carrying out two grenade attacks in October 2011 the first of a string of grenade and gun attacks in Kenya, said Mwaniki of the police anti-terrorism unit.
Mwaniki said Otuko was a member al-Shabab cell with another Kenyan national Elgiva Bwire Oliacha, also known as Mohammed Seif, who is serving a life sentence in jail for grenade attacks in Nairobi on Oct. 24, 2011 which killed one person and injured 20 others.
Civilians from three northern provinces in northern Nigerian have fled their home after as a new Nigerian army offensive has begun, according to wire reports.
The Nigerian Army had declared a curfew for the city of Maiduguri in Borno for 24 hours while regular army troops attack 12 radical Islamist Boko Haram strongpoints. Fighting has also been reported in Sambisa forest, south of Maiduguri.
According to Nigerian General Chris Olukolade, 65 terror suspects have been detained so far in army operations.
The official communique said that Nigerian Army helicopters were used against Boko Haram strongholds in the country's northeast, killing "several dozen" insurgents and destroyed fields of "terrorists".
According to a separate report filed by Agencie France Presse, jet fighter aircraft have also been used against the insurgents.
"Also destroyed (were) heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns," said Olukolade in a statement. One army helicopter was damaged by gunfire, but no one as reported hurt in the encounter.
Preceding the new offensive, then Nigerian national government declared a state of emergency for the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.
[Naharnet] An apparent U.S. drone attack has killed four suspected al-Qaeda forces of Evil in southern Yemen and destroyed an explosives-packed truck, tribal sources said on Saturday.
They occurred on Friday night in Al-Mahfad region in Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... province, the sources said.
The truck was carrying grenades and boom belts, and the attack destroyed the weapons and killed the vehicle's four occupants, "members of al-Qaeda," one of the sources said.
A local dignitary confirmed to Agence La Belle France Presse that four people were killed but was unable to say whether they were Islamist myrmidons.
The United States has increasingly deployed unmanned aircraft against al-Qaeda targets in Yemen, which shelters what Washington regards as the jihadist network's most dangerous branch -- al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
In April, a security official and a witness reported that three suspected al-Qaeda forces of Evil were killed in a drone attack in Wadi Abida, in the eastern province of Marib.
U.S. drones strikes in Yemen nearly surged from 18 to 53 last year, according to the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank.
Yemeni national security chief Ali Hassan al-Ahmadi said in January that drone attacks would continue in cooperation with the United States.
Al-Qaeda loyalists seized large swathes of the south and east in 2011, taking advantage of a decline in central government control during an 11-month uprising that forced veteran president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... from power.
Governments troops have since recaptured much of the territory with support from U.S. drone strikes, but the jihadists retain bases in the desert east.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/19/2013 02:21 ||
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A police officer was injured early Friday when a suspected terrorist militant blew himself up near law enforcers in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia. A law enforcement spokesman said, "According to available information, a suicide bomber blew himself up near Interior Ministry officers at about 7:10 a.m. Moscow time in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in Ingushetia's Sunzhensky District [bordering on Chechnya]."
[Naharnet] Violence in Iraq killed 11 people on Saturday including a police officer, his wife and two children, while gunnies kidnapped up to 10 people, among them police, officials said.
The attacks are the latest in a wave of violence that has killed more than 270 people since the beginning of May, as tensions simmer between Iraq's Sunni minority and Shiite majority.
Gunmen broke into the home of the administrator for the Rashid area, south of Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , killing one of his guards, an interior ministry official said.
They then moved to the nearby house of Captain Adnan al-Obaidi, a member of a police anti-terrorism unit, and killed him, his wife and their two children, the official said.
In Latifiyah, also south of Storied Baghdad, a boom-mobilewent kaboom! in a popular market, killing at least one person and wounding at least 15, medical officials said.
Gunmen also killed a policeman in djinn-infested Mosul in north Iraq and rubbed out a local administrative official to the west of the city, while others killed the imam of a Sunni mosque near the main southern port city of Basra.
Near Ramadi, west of Storied Baghdad, security forces tried to arrest Mohammed Khamis Abu Risha, who is wanted in connection with the killing of five soldiers, police said. That sparked festivities with armed rustics in which two of them were killed.
Abu Risha is the nephew of powerful tribal sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, a key supporter of Sunni anti-government protesters in Anbar province who led the fight against al-Qaeda in the province from 2007.
The nephew confirmed to Agence La Belle France Presse that two members of his tribe were killed.
Hundreds of gunnies then gathered in the area of the Anbar Operations Command headquarters near Ramadi, but later withdrew, police said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment... up to 10 people were kidnapped in Anbar province, where Ramadi is located, though security officers gave varying numbers.
The head of the Anbar Operations Command said five police were kidnapped, a figure confirmed by a police officer who said the five were highway police.
A police lieutenant colonel said 10 security forces members had been kidnapped.
Defense ministry front man Mohammed al-Askari gave the same number, telling Al-Hurra TV they were four police, four border guards and two civilians.
The Ramadi area is one of the main centers of the Sunni protest movement in Iraq, which began almost five months ago.
Tensions are festering between Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, and Sunnis who accuse the authorities of marginalizing and targeting their community, including through wrongful detentions and accusations of involvement in terrorism.
While the government has made some concessions, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of Sunni anti-Al-Qaeda gunnies, underlying issues have not been addressed.
[Naharnet] Dozens of Paleostinians held a protest in the Old City of annexed east Jerusalem on Saturday, hurling rocks at Israeli police and setting ablaze garbage bins, a police spokeswoman said.
"Dozens of Paleostinians threw rocks at police forces near Nablus Gate. Two of them were tossed in the calaboose Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! ," said Luba Samri.
An Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent said some of the demonstrators were carrying banners which called for a "third intifada," or anti-Israeli uprising.
The protest was an extension of the Paleostinian demonstrations held in the Old City earlier this week to mark what the Arabs regard as the "Nakba" (catastrophe) of the Jewish state's creation on May 15, 1948, she said.
A Moro Islamic Liberation Front commander accused the Philippine military of joining forces with the Moro National Liberation Front in a gun battle at Matalam, North Cotabato that killed several MILF troops.
MILF commander Hadji Ali Mansur said he and his relatives were attacked early in the morning of May 16 by MNLF guerillas led by Datu Dimam Ambil.
In a statement on the MILF website, Mansur said his group were able to repel the MNLF troops in the morning, but they were surprised by seeing Philippine Army troopers joining another attack in the afternoon.
Mansur said, The military attacked us from the back which we did not expect, claiming that the participation of members of the Armys 602nd Infantry Brigade in the attack was a violation of the governments agreement with the MILF.
He said, The army troops were supposed to be a neutral buffer force and should have halted the assault and the burning of houses by forces of Datu Dima."
Mansur also said, We will file our protest on this military-backed MNLF attack and the necessary charges for the burning of our houses."
But the military denied his claim and dared the MILF leader to pursue his complaint. Army spokesman Maj. Randolf Cabangbang said, It would be best for the MILF to file their protest to determine the veracity of their claim, but we clearly state that we operate independently. It is impossible that they will operate together with the MNLF.
Posted by: ryuge ||
05/19/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
But the military denied his claim and dared the MILF leader to pursue his complaint.
Six people were wounded in a bomb explosion at a hotel in Narathiwat province's Sungai Kolok municipality yesterday as police named two guests as suspects.
The blast happened on the third floor of the Asia Hotel about 11 a.m. No one suffered life-threatening injuries. Two 19-year-olds were taken to Sungai Kolok police station for questioning after the blast.
In Narathiwat's Rueso district, a village defense volunteer was gunned down in front of his house at about 3 p.m. yesterday. A pickup truck pulled over in front of his house and two of the four men in the vehicle called the victim to come out. When he showed up, one of the men dragged him out of the house. He was then shot at point-blank range with an M16 rifle.
[Jpost] Iran hanged two spies it found guilty of spying for Israel and for the US, AFP reported on Sunday.
According to Tehran's prosecutor's office, one of them, Mohammad Heydari, was convicted of "receiving payment to provide intelligence on various security issues and national secrets in repeated meetings with the Mossad."
The second, Koroush Ahmadi, was convicted of providing intelligence to the CIA.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/19/2013 03:03 ||
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#1
but the spy-squirrels are safe and still fulfilling their missions
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/19/2013 11:16 Comments ||
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[Naharnet] The forces of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... thwarted an attempt by "terrorists" to infiltrate into Syrian territories on Saturday, state-run SANA news agency reported, announcing the death of two of the group members.
According to SANA, the "terrorist group" was sneaking into the town of Tall Kalakh near the border with Leb.
"The Syrian forces thwarted an attempt by bully boyz to enter its territories in an ambush in the town of Tall Kalakh," the news agency added.
It pointed out that two of the group's members were killed in the ambush and the army confiscated the weapons in their possession, while the rest of the "terrorist group's" members were able to flee.
Leb and Syria share a 330-kilometer border but have yet to agree on official demarcation.
Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, Bossy was furiously chewing her cud and thinking... The Free Syrian Army announced the death of ten Hizbullah members who were trying to infiltrate into the fields of al-Qusayr.
According to VDL (100.5), the FSA announced the death of Hizbullah fighters in an ambush in the town of Qusayr in Homs near the border with Leb.
On Tuesday, Syria's opposition National Coalition demanded Leb to control the border and secure the withdrawal of Hizbullah fighters from the neighboring country, warning that 30,000 civilians in the rebel-held town of Qusayr faced an "extremely dangerous situation."
Hizbullah, an Assad ally, has dispatched its fighters to battle alongside regime troops in the Qusayr region.
Hizbullah Secretary-General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... declared that his party "will not hesitate" to help the Lebanese residents of Qusayr in their confrontation with Syrian rebels.
"30,000 Lebanese Mohammedans and Christians were targeted, torched and prevented from going to work" at the hands of Syrian rebels in Qusayr, Nasrallah said.
The area is of key strategic importance because it runs along the border with Leb and is near the route running from Damascus to the coast.
Hizbullah says that its members who are fighting in Homs province are Shiite residents of Syrian border towns engaged in self-defense against rebel forces.
Fighting in the area has spilled over into Leb, with rebels targeting border towns inside Leb in response to Hizbullah involvement in the conflict.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/19/2013 01:18 ||
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[Naharnet] Gunmen kidnapped the elderly father of Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad on Saturday, apparently in reprisal for the arrest of one of their relatives, according to a government source and a watchdog.
"Today gunnieskidnapped Mr Muqdad's father from his home in the village of Ghossom," in the southern province of Daraa, the government source said on condition of anonymity
"They beat him up in front of his family then took him to Daraa city," said the source, adding that he is 84 years old.
There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction, which was first reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence La Belle France Presse earlier that Muqdad's father, who was not named, was seized "in reprisal for the arrest by regime forces of relatives of one of the gunnies."
Abdel Rahman said negotiations were underway to free him.
Daraa province is the cradle of the insurgency against the central government and the scene of deadly battles between government forces and armed rebels.
The government considers all gunnies as rebels fighting to topple Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... Muqdad is considered as one of the most powerful voices of the embattled Syrian regime.
The conflict, which erupted as a peaceful uprising, has claimed more than 94,000 lives since it started in March 2011, according to the Britannia-based Observatory which relies on a broad network of activists, doctors and lawyers for its reports.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/19/2013 01:07 ||
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[Naharnet] Rebels in Syria have seized control of four deserted Alawite villages in the central province of Hama, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... hails from the Alawite community, which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while the rebels are predominantly Sunni Mohammedans.
"Late on Friday night, the rebels took complete control of Tlaissiyeh, Zoghbe, Shaata and Balil, after the withdrawal of the army following several weeks of fighting," the Observatory said.
"The residents abandoned the villages at the beginning of the fighting," it added.
Elsewhere, the Observatory reported a campaign of arrests in central Damascus, and regime artillery fire at sites in Damascus province, which maimed several people.
North of the capital, in Yabrud district, state media announced that the army had "destroyed bomb-manufacturing facilities and killed hard boyz with Saudi, Tunisian, Libyan and Afghan nationalities."
The regime and state media use the term "terrorist" to refer to all those involved in the uprising.
Violence across the country on Friday killed 116 people -- 47 rebels, 44 civilians and 25 soldiers -- according to the Observatory.
The violence comes against the backdrop of renewed international efforts to find a political solution to the conflict, which began with peaceful anti-regime protests in March 2011.
On Wednesday, the so-called Friends of Syria gathering of countries that back the uprising will gather in the Jordanian capital Amman.
And on May 23, the Syrian opposition will meet in Istanbul in Turkey to hold elections and decide whether to attend a peace conference being organized by the United States and Russia.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/19/2013 00:23 ||
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[Ynet] Al Arabyia reports rebel claims that Assad's army has fired chemical laced mortars into a residential neighborhood in Damascus, causing many to suffer breathing issues. In additional incident, rebels claimed were attacked with phosphorous; kill Hezbollah men
"Red lines? Pshaw! Besides, we don't have proof, only the word of those jihadi rebels ... and they had it coming!"
Syrian rebels quoted by Al Arabyia claim that Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... has used chemical weapons once again -- in Damascus and in the city of Saraqeb in the district of Idlib.
According to the report, dozens of people suffered respiration problems after the Syrian army bombarded the Al Asali district in Damascus with chemically laced mortars. There were no further reports regarding the condition of the maimed.
In another, second attack, rebels reported being hit by phosphorous laced mortars in residential areas in which fighting is currently being conducted.
In the meantime, rebels reported that they had managed to kill seven Hezbollah fighters trying to make their way to Homs to partake in the fights currently underway there. They additionally reported killing four Iranians after destroying the Syrian government car they were traveling in.
Saturday's reports join the long list of alleged cases of chemical weapons use on the part of Assad's regime.
On Thursday, the BBC reported that residents of the northern Syrian town of Saraqeb said government helicopters had dropped at least two devices containing poisonous gas.
The reports echoed those of Saturday in terms of both location and outcome. On Thursday, doctors at the local hospital told the BBC's correspondent that the maimed admitted, eight in all, suffered from breathing problems, as was reported in Saturday's Al Asali attack.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Friday that tests conducted on Syrian casualties, who arrived in Turkey, suggested chemical weapons may have been used by Syrian security forces.
"We have been making tests and we have some indications regarding chemical weapons being used, but in order to make sure and verify we are continuing these tests and will be sharing these tests with UN agencies," Davutoglu was reported saying by Rooters.
Assad's forces and opposing rebels have accused each other of using chemical weapons.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/19/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Not certain if White Phosphorus munitions [assuming this is (WP)] are now categorized as "chemical weapons" or not. The Russians have been in the lead with regard to Thermobaric weapon development however. Thermobaric weapons are quite deadly.
#2
WP is no more a chemical weapon than the explosive chemicals in a HE round. However, the Lefties have used that rationale in their propaganda about the use of it, particularly when employed by America or anything that even smells the slightest of Western Civ.
Al-Qaeda's Syrian arm is helping to fund its activities by selling the product of oilfields once used to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Up to 380,000 barrels of crude oil were previously produced by wells around the city of Raqqa and in the region to its east that are now in rebel hands. Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda off-shoot, is the strongest faction in this part of the country.
Now the group, which has been steadily increasing its control in the region, is selling the crude oil to local wheeler-dealers, who use home-made refineries to produce low-grade gasoline and other fuels for Syrians facing acute shortages.
Their ability to profit from the oil locally, despite international sanctions which have hindered its sale abroad, should be particularly worrying to the European Union, which has voted to ease the embargo but at the same time wants to marginalize the extremist group within the opposition.
In the battle for the future of the Syria, the oil-fields may begin to play an increasingly strategic role. All are in the three provinces closest to Iraq, while the Iraqi border regions are the homeland of the Islamic State of Iraq, as the al-Qaeda off-shoot in that country calls itself.
#1
I'd like to see a picture of one of these home-made refineries. I would guess they are similar to primitive "teapot?" designs that refined much Pennsylvania's first oil strike.
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.
A Moro Islamic Liberation Front commander accused the Philippine military of joining forces with the Moro National Liberation Front in a gun battle at Matalam, North Cotabato that killed several MILF troops.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
