[The Peninsula] At least 11 Talibs were killed during military operations by Afghan national security forces in various provinces of Afghanistan during the past 24 hours.
The operations were conducted in Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. , Badakhshan, Balkh, Maidan Wardak, Pashtun-infested Logar, Ghazni, Paktiya, Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... and Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... provinces of Afghanistan, reported the Khaama press on Wednesday.
Afghan national police forces conducted the operations in cooperation with the Afghan army and Afghan intelligence National Directorate of Security (NDS) operatives.
Interior ministry of Afghanistan following a statement said Wednesday that 11 Talibs were killed during the military operations.
The statement further added that 2 Talibs were maimed and 12 others were also detained by Afghan cops.
Interior ministry also added in its statement that Afghan national security forces seized heavy and light weapons and ammunition during the operations.
Afghan national police forces discovered and seized six improvised bomb (IED) during military operations in Ghazni, Kandahar and Balkh provinces.
The IEDS were planted by Talibs to carry out insurgency attacks, interior ministry added in its statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[Tolo News] Four coppers and a civilian were killed in a Taliban orchestrated attack on the new Kabul Bank branch in eastern Kunar early Tuesday, local officials said.
Sixteen others were maimed in the attack.
The attack happened in Asadabad District of Kunar when three Taliban gunnies attacked the bank branch with explosives and firearms, according to the Governor of Kunar Shuja-ul-Mulk Jalala.
One of the bombers ignited his explosive near the branch as the other gunnies entered the branch. The second bomber let 'er rip inside the bank, while the third attacker was killed by Afghan forces few hours later, Jalala said.
The victims were taken to a nearby hospital for emergency treatment. Some of those injured are at death's door.
Meanwhile, ...back at the desert island, Bert was realizing to his horror that he'd had only one bottle for one message, and he'd forgotten to include a return address... in Khost, Taliban gunnies attacked a police outpost in the eastern Ali Sher District, killing one border police and injuring four others.
According to police, the gunnies numbered around 100 fighters, and ambushed several check posts at once. Several police vehicles were damaged in the attack.
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03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
just a coincidence that these provinces are next to Pakistan.
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/27/2014 4:34 Comments ||
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[MAGHAREBIA] A former manager of the Tibesti hotel in Benghazi was murdered on Tuesday (March 25th), Libya Herald reported.
According to witnesses, gunnies in three cars ambushed Mohammed Al-Tweir Al-Majbri outside his home in the city's Fuwaihat district. The assailants ordered him to recite the Shahada.
"They then shot him multiple times, shouting 'Holy Shit! Allahu Akbar', before driving off at speed," the online daily reported.
The victim was reportedly close to the Qadaffy regime.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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was sensed this morning in Ceelqooxle of the Galgaduud region after yesterday a fight took place yesterday for many hours between the Somali National Army backed by Ethiopian troops against Al-Shabaab fighters.
On the other hand, strong evacuation procedures are underway in the Ceelqooxle town, Ceelbuur district, of the Galgaduud region.
According to locals, they are reporting that that they are evacuating the town because they fear another fight will erupt soon as the Ethiopian troops and Somali National Army are ready to liberate more territories from Al-Shabaab.
At last, General Sulub Ahmed Diirriye the Chief of the Somali Military Toops stated to Radio Shabelle in Mogadishu that they started their military offensives against Al-Shabaab.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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According to breaking news from Kismayo the provincial capital city of Lower Jubba region, it has been reported that a strong explosion just took place in the city. The bomb was tied to the ground at a neighborhood known as 'Via Afmadow' within Kismayo.
An African Union convoy was passing by the neighborhood when the bomb blasted and it was confirmed by locals that one of their vehicles sustained serious wreckages.
The precise number of casualties has not been specified yet although the African Union troops opened gunfire almost immediately after the explosion.
Opened gunfire at what?
The sky, the earth, that tree over there...
And they missed the tree...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] One person was killed and 14 maimed Wednesday when police and student supporters of Egypt's deposed president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... clashed at Cairo University, the health ministry said.
Riot police fired volleys of tear gas from the university's main gate at students who were demonstrating against Monday's sentencing of 529 Morsi supporters to death in the biggest such act in the country's modern judicial history, an Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent reported.
The interior ministry said a law student from Al-Azhar Islamic University in the Nile Delta city of Tanta was killed in the festivities.
Elsewhere, 16 people were maimed in festivities between security forces and students of the Nile Delta university of Zaqaziq, state news agency MENA quoted the health ministry as saying.
The Anti-Coup Alliance, which supports Morsi, had called for protests on Wednesday against sentencing by a court in Minya, south of Cairo, of Morsi supporters for the murder and attempted murder of two coppers during riots on August 14.
Of the 529, only 153 are in jug. The rest were tried in absentia and will get a retrial if they turn themselves in.
Another 17 defendants were acquitted.
The court has also set April 28 for the verdict on some 700 other co-defendants.
Monday's verdict triggered a global outcry as the sentences were handed down after just hearings.
The mass trial is part of a relentless crackdown on supporters of Morsi, Egypt's first civilian and elected president, who was ousted by the army last July.
Since then, his supporters have staged near daily protests calling for his reinstatement. These protests have often descended into street festivities with security forces and sometimes opponents of Morsi.
Since July, a police crackdown on Islamists has killed more than 1,400 people in festivities, while thousands more, including most of the top leaders of Morsi's Moslem Brüderbund, have been tossed in the slammer You have the right to remain silent... Morsi himself currently faces three trials on various charges, including colluding with krazed killer groups.
Student demonstrations have crippled higher education,
...such as it is...
delaying until this month a new university semester that should have begun in February.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] Security forces in North Sinai have tossed in the clink ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... 21 suspected gunnies and destroyed eight tunnels connecting the border town of Rafah with the Paleostinian Gazoo Strip, the Egyptian army's front man Ahmed Ali said on Wednesday.
Ali said that four of the 21 detainees were jihadi gunnies tasked with monitoring the army's movements in the town of Sheikh Zuweid in preparations for an attack on security forces.
One person arrested in the campaign had broken out of jail during the January 2011 uprising where he had been serving a sentence of 85 years for a variety of charges, Ali said.
The rest of the suspects will undergo security screenings, he added.
The army's two-day offensive in North Sinai also hit a number of bully boy hideouts, said Ali, including two warehouses containing explosives and weapons along with a number of vehicles and cycle of violences.
Egypt's army has been locked in an ongoing battle with suspected Islamist gunnies since the ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... in July, as bully boy groups have stepped up attacks against security forces.
While the attacks have remained largely in the Sinai Peninsula, gunnies have also grabbed credit for bombings and killings in the Nile Delta and Cairo.
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03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] Egypt's chief prosecutor has ordered two new mass trials for 919 suspected Islamists on charges that include murder, the country's state news agency reported on Wednesday.
The new trials will be held in Minya province, south of Cairo, where a judge this week sentenced 529 defendants to death on charges of killing a police officer during an attack on a cop shoppe last summer. The verdict sparked international criticism.
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03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] The African peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic declared war on the majority-Christian vigilante groups known as "anti-balaka" on Wednesday after a fresh outbreak of deadly violence in the capital Bangui.
The head of the MISCA force blamed the groups for recent attacks on peacekeepers in the former French colony, and said they would be treated as "enemies".
"From now on, we consider the anti-balaka as enemies of MISCA," Congolese General Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko said in remarks carried by a private radio station. "And we will treat them as such."
"They even fire on people who are here to try to end this crisis on behalf of the Central African people to which they belong," the general said.
"We hold them responsible for attacks that have targeted our troops in recent days."
Around 20 people have died in festivities involving gangs and foreign peacekeepers since Saturday in Bangui, where security is tight ahead of the first anniversary of the toppling of Francois Bozize by majority-Moslem Seleka rebels.
Around 6,000 African peacekeepers are working alongside nearly 2,000 French troops to disarm both sides after a year of inter-religious violence sparked by the coup in the impoverished majority-Christian nation.
The so-called "anti-balaka" militias were formed in response to killing and pillaging by the Seleka rebels who went rogue after the coup.
Anti-balaka means "anti-machete" in the local Sango language and refers to the weapon of choice wielded by the Seleka -- but also taken up by the vigilantes.
Thousands have been killed and around a quarter of the country's 4.6 million people -- most of them Moslems -- displaced.
Amnesia Amnesty International warned Wednesday that the country faces an "even greater humanitarian crisis" if the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... did not act soon to send troops to contain the escalating violence.
"The EU's immediate deployment of troops is literally a life-and-death decision," said Central Africa researcher Christian Mukosa in a statement.
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03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] Police have seized crude bomb-making materials at Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... 's Paltan office on Wednesday afternoon.
Morshed Alam, officer-in-charge of Paltan cop shoppe, told the Dhaka Tribune that acting on a tip-off, a team of the cop shoppe raided Jamaat's Paltan office around 1pm.
Police recovered leaflets, posters, banner and activists' list at the office, he added.
No leaders and activists of the party was present during the raid, said the OC.
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03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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Seven individuals were killed or were found dead in ongoing drug and gang related violence in southern Chihuahua state, according to Mexican news accounts.
In Bocoyna municipality last Friday four unidentified men in their 30s and 40s were found shot to death.
According to a news report which appeared in the online edition of El Diario de Chihuahua news daily, the victims were found near the break between the villages of Cienega de Huacayvo and Tayarachi, near the San Isidro River.
All four had been shot to death and all had been left in the location long enough to be partially consumed by vermin.
Three others were killed in southern Chihuahua state.
Two men were found shot to death in Parral Sunday night, according to a news account in El Diario de Chihuahua.
Sergio Ubaldo Rodriguez Herrera, 18, and Jesus Manuel Herrera Salcido, 24, were found inside a Ford Mustang sedan parked on Calle Martires 3 de Mayo in Emiliano Zapata colony.
The victims were apparently sitting in the vehicle drinking when armed suspects shot and killed them.
Meanwhile, Wednesday, a man in Guadalupe y Calvo municipality was found shot to death.
Aurelio Corral Ponce, 56, was found near the Restaurante DoĂąa Cuca in Guadalupe y Calvo municipality, bound hand and foot, and shot three times. The news report which appeared in El Sol de Parral news daily, said an AK-47 rifle was used in the killing.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. he can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
[Ynet] North Korea test-fired two medium-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday, South Korea and the US said, a defiant challenge to a rare three-way summit of its rivals Seoul, Tokyo and Washington that focused on the North's security threat.
The missiles flew about 650 kilometers (400 miles) off North Korea's east coast early Wednesday morning, South Korean Defense Ministry front man Kim Min-seok said. It wasn't immediately clear where the missiles splashed down. Kim said the missiles were likely fired from a mobile launcher.
[Ynet] Police on the French Riviera found a stash of explosives in the possession of a suspected jihadist who returned home from Syria with apparent aims to carry out an attack, a French official familiar with the case said Wednesday.
Authorities found 900 grams (2 pounds) of explosives in Mandelieu-La-Napoule near Cannes following the arrest last month of a 23-year-old man identified as Ibrahim B. The explosives consisted of triacetone triperoxide, or TATP - the same substance used in the 2005 London subway and bus bombings.
The Wall Street Journal, according to Powerline, is crowing about the conviction citing the arguments of those who contend that civilian courts, rather than military commission, are suitably equipped to handle terrorism prosecutions.
Powerline disagrees, as do I and so do, I imagine, most of Rantburg.com readers.
According to Mark Steyn and this Powerline blog entry, Abu Ghaith has a legal team that comprised a khaffeyeh and ponytail wearing Jew, a transvestite homosexual and the son of convicted terrorism support Lynne Stewart, Geoffrey Stewart.
So long, Suleiman. Surely better death in the Hindu Kush than a decade of appeals with no one but a Jew and a transgendered infidel for company.
Osama Bin Laden's son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was an al-Qaeda spokesman after 9/11, has been convicted of terrorism-related charges at a trial in New York.
He could face life in prison when he is sentenced in September for conspiracy to kill Americans and aiding al-Qaeda.
The Kuwaiti clergyman was captured in Jordan last year and brought to the US.
He is the highest-ranking al-Qaeda figure to face trial on US soil since the attacks.
[DAWN] Tehran on Wednesday issued a warning to Islamabad after reports emerged that an Iranian soldier kidnapped and taken across the border into Pakistain by the hard boyz had been executed.
President Hassan Rouhani in a telephone call with Pakistain's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... demanded "serious and swift action" by Pakistain to secure the release of the soldiers.
"We expect to hear good news in this regard," he said, while calling for "joint action by both countries against terrorists," the official IRNA news agency reported.
For his part, Sharif said the issue was of "utmost importance" to his government and that he was "prepared to boost action to free the soldiers."
Earlier, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed "grave concern" about the fate of Jamshid Danayifar, who was kidnapped along with four other border guards on February 6 by rebel group Jaish Al-Adl.
"We did all we could to secure their release," Zarif told the state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
after a cabinet meeting. "But it is disappointing that the Pak government has failed to secure its borders, and allows Death Eaters to operate on its soil."
Zarif's remarks came after his ministry summoned Pak ambassador Nour Mohammad Jadmani, demanding "swift and serious action" to secure the release of the soldiers, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli meanwhile warned -- without elaborating -- that Iran "reserves the right to utilise all its ability in its border areas."
Jaish Al-Adl said on its website on Sunday that Danayifar had been killed, warning of further executions should Tehran refuse to "release Sunni prisoners."
Iran's interior ministry says it is awaiting Islamabad's official position amid media reports that local Pak authorities have confirmed the group's claim.
The rebel group, which took up arms in 2012 to fight for what it says are the rights of Iran's minority Sunni population, is active in the restive Sistan-Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province that borders both Pakistain and Afghanistan.
In November it grabbed credit for killing a local prosecutor, a month after its rebels killed 14 Iranian border guards in an ambush.
UN Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... condemned in a Tuesday statement the reported killing as an "appalling act" and urged that the perpetrators are brought to justice.
A front man for the US State Department, Alan Eyre, called for the "swift release" of the kidnapped soldiers while expressing hope the reported execution -- that came as Iran was celebrating its Persian New Year, Nowruz -- was not true.
Shortly after the abduction, Iranians launched a campaign on Twitter, despite the micro-blogging service being banned in Iran.
Demanding the soldiers' release, the FreeIranianSoldiers hashtag went viral in February.
Some Iranians have used social media to hit out at the Tehran government for its inability to bring home the young soldiers, who were serving their 24-month mandatory military service.
Border guards chief Hossein Zolfaghari has admitted that there was "negligence" in the lead-up to the kidnapping, saying those responsible were suspended, with some facing prosecution.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] Two Paleostinians were sentenced by a Gazoo military court to prison time on Wednesday for "collaboration with Israel," Paleostinian news agency Ma'an reported.
One was sentenced to 12 years and another to eight, according to the report.
[Ynet] Paleostinian youths from the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem set an IDF watchtower on fire on Wednesday, Paleostinian news agency Ma'an reported.
A Facebook page for Aida Camp News 24 Hours posted several pictures documenting the incident.
An IDF front man told Ma'an that there were "20 Paleostinians hurling rocks and they also rolled a burning tire" at the camp, but he was not familiar with the watchtower being set on fire.
The Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have signed a historic peace agreement, ending 40 years of conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.
Guns are set to fall silent in southern Philippines after the five-page Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was signed in Malacanang, the presidential palace, before a thousand guests including Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and 600 members of the MILF. Malaysia served as the third party facilitator for the peace negotiations.
Philippine President Aquino vowed to stop "spoilers" who would try to derail efforts of the Philippine government and the MILF to set up the Bangsamoro political entity. He said, "I will not let peace be snatched from my people again, not now when we have taken the most significant step to achieve it."
Posted by: ryuge ||
03/27/2014 06:36 ||
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#1
Maybe now they will change their acronym? The current one makes me thing the Phillipine government is negotiating with Stiffler's mom.
#2
treaty formally endorses sharia law for muslims in Bangsamoro
a fair number of people think its only a matter of time before sharia law encroaches on non muslims and since war against non believers is part of sharia, well..
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/27/2014 8:28 Comments ||
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Suspected militants from the communist New Peopleâs Army (NPA) killed an Army sergeant and injured six others in an ambush in Mindanao in apparent retaliation for the recent capture of their leader by government security forces.
Inspector Filomeno Munoz said the ambush occurred Tuesday noon about 800 meters away from a military patrol base in a remote village in the town of Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur province. He said the sergeant and his men were aboard a military truck when the militants launched the attack.
Security experts think the ambush was in retaliation for the capture of Benito Tiamzon, head of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA, its armed component, on the island province of Cebu on Saturday.
The NPA regional command in Southern Mindanao warned it would âconduct widespread and intensive tactical offensivesâ against government forces in retaliation for the capture of Tiamzon, his wife Wilma, identified as the movementâs finance officer, and five other rebels.
[AnNahar] State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr on Wednesday ordered convicting 21 people in the case of the double blast that targeted two mosques in the northern city of 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... last summer.
Among the convicted were Arab Democratic Party leader Ali Eid and the head of the pro-Syria Islamic Tawhid Movement-Command Council ...The Tawhid party is divided into two parts, one led by Sheikh Bilal Shaaban, a close ally of Hezbollah who is said to be financed by Iran, while the other is headed by Sheikh Hashem Minkara, a staunch Syria supporter... , Sheikh Hashem Minkara.
The state-run National News Agency said Saqr conducted a first assessment in the mosques' bombing case, and ordered the conviction of several people.
"He charged 10 with terrorism, involvement in the crime, killing, incitement and sabotage," the NNA detailed.
He also ordered convicting 6 people on terror charges, and of being involved in the crime.
"Judge Saqr ordered the conviction of 4 others, among them Eid, on charges of smuggling suspects," the same source added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the comedy club, Boogie ducked another tomato... Minkara was accused of concealing information about the mosques' kaboom.
Saqr referred the 21-name list name to First Military Investigation Judge Riyad Abu Ghida, who will issue the convictions, the NNA remarked.
On Monday, Abou Ghida issued an arrest warrant in absentia for Eid.
The warrant was based on the content of the lawsuit that was filed against him by the military prosecution in connection with the alleged smuggling of suspects wanted over the twin bombings that hit al-Taqwa and al-Salam mosques in Tripoli last summer.
Abu Ghida had issued a subpoena to Eid to testify before interrogators in November 2013.
The judge also issued arrest warrants for two suspects who are in jug -- Eid's personal driver Ahmed Ali and Shehadeh Shannoud, who is accused of smuggling Syrian woman Sukaina Ismail into Syria. The woman is accused of driving the two cars that were used in the bombings from Syria into Leb.
On August 23, two boom-mobiles went kaboom! outside the al-Taqwa and al-Salam mosques in Tripoli, leaving 45 people dead and more than 800 injured according to an unofficial toll.
[Al Ahram] Gunmen killed an Alawite in Leb's tense second city 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... on Wednesday, a security source said, in an apparent new sectarian attack linked to the conflict in neighbouring Syria.
A woman bystander was also killed, and her son and a street vendor injured, when the slain man's vehicle crashed, the source added.
The northern port city has been rocked by repeated bouts of violence pitting its Sunni Moslem majority, who largely support the rebels in Syria, against the Alawite minority, who back their coreligionist Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... .
"An Alawite employee of Tripoli city council was rubbed out by two men on a cycle of violence who chased his car as he drove home after work," the security source told AFP.
"The car went out of control after the shooting, and crashed into a vegetable cart. A woman was standing there with her child. Both were maimed, and she died of her injuries soon afterwards," he added.
"The son's hand was broken, as was the cart vendor's leg."
A similar fatal attack on a Sunni earlier this month by gunnies on a motorbike sparked 13 days of armed festivities between neighbouring Sunni and Alawite districts of Tripoli that killed 27 people.
Tensions between mainly Sunni Bab al-Tebbaneh and mainly Alawite Jabal Mohsen go back decades but have been exacerbated by the three-year-old conflict in Syria.
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03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Syrian government forces intensified their shelling Wednesday of positions seized by rebels in the coastal province of Latakia, focusing on the Kasab border crossing into Turkey, an army officer said.
The province is the historic heartland of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... 's clan and his Alawite sect of Shiite Islam, and territory the regime will not easily give up.
An Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent, who was with troops in the village of Al-Bassit, 15 kilometers (nine miles) west of Kasab, reported seeing columns of smoke rising over a mountain separating it from the border crossing.
"The army is relentlessly bombarding Kasab to stop the rebels from digging in" after capturing it on Sunday, the officer told AFP, adding that the nearby rebel-held village of Samra was also being targeted.
Omar al-Jeblawi, an activist on the ground, confirmed heavy shelling, and air strikes, near the border.
"There is a heavy bombardment of Kasab, using tanks and planes," Jeblawi told AFP by telephone.
And a rebel who identified himself only as Samer said the pounding was ferocious, but that there are "thousands of fighters ready to strike back against the army."
The officer said thousands of rebels had participated in a Friday assault on Kasab, in fighting that had killed 50 soldiers and left hundreds of rebels dead.
For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said around 100 fighters had been killed on each side.
"The regime mobilized thousands of soldiers and fighters from the National Defense Force (militia) to retake these areas," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"And there are many regime supporters, the majority of them Alawites, who have also volunteered to fight against the rebels.
"The regime did not expect this surprise offensive on its stronghold, but it will certainly not let the rebels keep control," he added.
On Tuesday, the rebels captured a hill known as Observatory 45, which strategically overlooks opposition-held areas of Latakia.
Separately on Sunday, Turkey downed a Syrian jet that Ankara said had violated its airspace, an act that Damascus described as "a flagrant act of aggression."
On Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his country was ready to take any measures, including cross-border military operations, against threats to its national security.
"The Turkish republic is a powerful state and never hesitates to take any measures to protect its national security if need be," he told AFP in an exclusive interview.
Turkey backs the revolt that broke out against Assad in March 2011, and hosts more than 750,000 Syrian refugees.
But Syria has accused Turkey of giving cover to rebels in the assault on Kasab, and the officer in Al-Bassit said a Turkish tank had even fired at a Syrian army position.
More than 146,000 people have been killed in the three-year conflict and nearly half the Syrian population has been displaced.
[AnNahar] An 11-year-old boy was killed on Wednesday afternoon as intense sniper activity was recorded in the northern city of 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... The festivities renewed after a resident from the Jabal Mohsen neighborhood was killed when unknown assailants shot up him near al-Ridani bakery in the northern city, according to the state-run National News Agency.
Hassan Mazloum was attacked with gunshots which made him lose control of the vehicle at the Abu Ali roundabout in Tripoli, and run over a woman and her child.
"Mazloum was innocent," Arab Democratic Party front man Abdul Latif Saleh told al-Jadeed television.
"An employee of the city council was rubbed out by two men on a cycle of violence who chased his car as he drove home after work," a security source told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"The car went out of control after the shooting, and crashed into a vegetable cart. A woman was standing there with her child. Both were maimed, and she died of her injuries soon afterwards," he elaborated.
"The son's hand was broken, as was the cart vendor's leg."
Hours after the shooting, festivities erupted on the dividing line between the city's rival Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen districts.
A rocket killed an 11-year-old boy and maimed another person in Bab al-Tebbaneh, the security source said.
Several media reports identified the boy as Ahmed al-Sayyed, noting that he died near Khalil al-Rahman mosque in the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood in the city.
"Mahmoud Fakhreddine was maimed in the head by sniper fire," the NNA said, adding that he was transferred to a hospital for treatment.
Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, Bossy had come up with a new idea, one that didn't involve kerosene... a group of young men blocked the road in the Baddawi area, and called on Tripoli residents not to take the highway because of the intense sniper activity.
Radio Voice of Leb (93.3)added that a bomb was hurled on the Syria street in Tripoli as sniper activity was recorded on the Bazar axes.
"Gunshots were also heard on Syria street that separates the rival neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh, according to the same source.
The relatives of the victims in the double blast that targeted two mosques last summer issued a statement denouncing any attack against their "Alawite partners in the country."
"We praise the army and we call on troops to probe any attack in the city and try those involved in them," they added,
"We will not allow anyone to tarnish our cause with small acts here and there that are rejected by our religious beliefs."
Following Wednesday's escalation of security events, troops patrolled in al-Beddawi area in Tripoli, according to the NNA.
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.
North Korea
Nawaz Sharif
Suspected militants from the communist New Peopleâs Army (NPA) killed an Army sergeant and injured six others in an ambush in Mindanao in apparent retaliation for the recent capture of their leader by government security forces.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
