Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said at Monday's Council of Ministers meeting that the Taliban's leadership has suffered a major blow during recent special military operations conducted by Afghan security forces.
He said according to the National Security Council's order, security forces have focused on eliminating key and operational safe havens of militants.
"The Taliban's leadership in Afghanistan has suffered a major blow in special operations in recent weeks," he said.
He added: "The security forces will be in a better situation in the next year because they will focus on basic and main centers from where the Taliban are organizing their subversive activities."
Meanwhile, a number of military analysts said they believe that next year will be the toughest year yet for Afghan forces if the challenges and gaps are not addressed.
"The security forces should be trained to thwart the new techniques used by terrorists against them," said Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, former minister of interior.
This comes after the ministries of Defense Interior on Sunday said they have identified Taliban's strategic operating centers and will target these facilities in the upcoming winter.
The ministries said the second Shafaq Operation is already underway to eliminate insurgents in insecure regions.
Islamic whack-a-mole, Libyan Edition
TRIPOLI, Libya: Libyan loyalist forces have seized full control of the coastal city of Sirte from the Daesh jihadist group, an official spokesman said Monday.
“Our forces have total control of Sirte,” after more than six months of fighting, Reda Issa, a spokesman for pro-government forces, told AFP.
“Our forces saw Daesh totally collapsing,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the group.
Sirte, on Libya’s Mediterranean coast, was the last significant Daesh-held territory in the north African country.
Forces allied with the country’s unity government launched an offensive to retake the city on May 12, quickly seizing large areas of the city and cornering the jihadists.
But Daesh put up fierce resistance with suicide car bombings, snipers and improvised explosive devices.
The United States started a bombing campaign in August at the request of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) to help local forces recapture the city, seized by jihadists in June 2015.
“Daesh has totally collapsed and dozens of them have given themselves up to our forces,” said a statement on the loyalist forces’ official Facebook page on Monday.
The fall of Sirte — the hometown of the slain dictator Muammar Qaddafi — represents a significant blow to the extremists, who have also faced major setbacks in Syria and Iraq.
More from al-Manar
Forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed government said Monday they had seized full control of Sirte from the Islamic State group, in a major blow to the terrorists who battled for months to retain their bastion.
The battle for the coastal city, which was the last significant territory held by the so-called ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) takfiri group in Libya, cost the lives of hundreds of loyalist troops as well as an unknown number of ISIL gunmen.
“Our forces have total control of Sirte,” Reda Issa, a spokesman for pro-government forces, told AFP. “Our forces saw Daesh (ISIL) totally collapse.”
Forces allied with the country’s unity government launched an offensive to retake the city on May 12, quickly seizing large areas of the city and cornering the terrorists.
But ISIL put up fierce resistance with suicide car bombings, snipers and improvised explosive devices.
“Daesh [ISIL] has totally collapsed and dozens of them have given themselves up to our forces,” said a statement on the loyalist forces’ official Facebook page.
The capture of Sirte boosts the authority of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), which was launched in Tripoli last March but whose legitimacy is contested by a rival administration based in eastern Libya.
The United States started a bombing campaign in August at the request of the GNA to help local forces recapture the city, seized by terrorists in June 2015.
As of December 1, US warplanes, drones and helicopters had conducted 470 strikes.
Libya descended into chaos following the NATO-backed ousting of longtime dictator Moammar Ghaddafi in 2011, with rival administrations emerging and well-armed militias vying for control of the country’s vast oil wealth.
The infighting and lawlessness allowed extremist groups such as ISIL to seize several coastal regions, giving the terrorists a toehold on Europe’s doorstep.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/06/2016 00:00 ||
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"Just give us some time to come up with some ballots..."
ADEN, Yemen: Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi would cede power only to an “elected” leader, after rejecting a UN peace roadmap asking him to hand over to a deputy, an official said Monday.
Hadi made his statement during talks last week in Aden with UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who has begun a new attempt to restart negotiations between the government and Iran-backed rebels.
The official said the roadmap, whose content was not made public, requires Hadi to cede power to a vice president named in agreement with the rebels, a plan the president rejected.
Hadi referred to a former peace plan brokered by Gulf states, which stipulated that he would supervise the country’s political transition.
“The roadmap has contradicted the Gulf initiative in terms of the president’s powers,” the official told AFP, adding that Hadi should run Yemen during the transition and supervise national dialogue and elections.
“He would pass his powers to an elected president,” the official said.
The Gulf initiative eased former president Ali Abdullah Saleh out of power in 2012 after 33 years in office following a year of nationwide protests. It also led to Hadi’s election the same year.
But in a blow to the political transition, Saleh allied himself with Shiite Houthi rebels who overran the capital in 2014 and expanded their control across Yemen, forcing Hadi to flee to Riyadh in March 2015.
A Saudi-led coalition intervened the same month in support of Hadi’s government.
In his response to the UN mediator, Hadi demanded that Saleh and rebel chief Abdul Malik Al-Houthi “abandon politics and be forced into a country of exile of their choice for 10 years.”
More than 7,000 people have been killed and nearly 37,000 wounded since Yemen’s conflict escalated in March 2015.
Now prithee tell: Why would Orudderless need these kinds of powers?
After eight years as a wartime president, Barack Obama is handing his successor an expansive interpretation of the commander in chief's authority to wage war around the globe. And that reading has continued to grow even as Obama prepares to pass control to Donald Trump.
In his final weeks in office, Obama has broadened the legal scope of the war on extremism, the White House confirmed Monday, as it acknowledged for the first that the administration now asserts it is legally justified to take on the extremist group al-Shabab in Somalia.
The determination is based on an expanded application of a 9/11-era use of force authorization, a statute Obama has repeatedly leaned on to justify military operations. That rationale has raised concerns about how Trump might use Obama's precedent to justify other overseas entanglements -- without consulting Congress.
The White House staunchly defends Obama's use of military power, arguing in a detailed report Monday that all operations have been firmly grounded in domestic and international law. White House counsel Neil Eggleston called the report -- the first of its kind -- a demonstration of how Obama has ensured "that all U.S. national security operations are conducted within a legal and policy framework that is lawful, effective and consistent with our national interests and values."
Yet the report, which Obama said should be updated annually, also reveals how his administration has relied overwhelmingly on the 2001 authorization, which even Obama acknowledges is outdated.
Though the law's targets were al-Qaida and the Taliban, a clause in the bill includes "associated forces" of al-Qaida, in Afghanistan or beyond. That clause is now being used as a catch-all for military action in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Libya, the report shows, plus the basing of U.S. troops in other countries.
As for al-Shabab, until recently, the U.S. determined only that its individual leaders were linked to al-Qaida, which limited targeting of those individuals. Now the broader group is included.
Trump has promised a more muscular and militaristic approach to counterterrorism, occasionally using expletives to suggest he'd aggressively bomb ISIS militants, although he has been vague on details.
Deborah Pearlstein, a former White House official and international law professor at Yeshiva University, said it's likely the next administration will use Obama's framework as its starting point. "By practice and long history, those opinions tend to stand," she said.
For Obama, the heavy reliance on 9/11-era authorities is a powerful illustration of how his campaign pledges to construct limits on the president's war-making powers were confounded by difficulties of dealing with Congress and the pressures of rapidly evolving threats.
Obama came into office aiming to reverse what he argued were the overreaches of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama had built a national name opposing the unpopular Iraq War and pledging safeguards to ensure mistakes in that conflict weren't repeated. In the first days of his presidency, he signed executive orders prohibiting secret CIA "black site" prisons and ending harsh interrogation techniques considered by many to be torture.
Yet Obama quickly discovered that imposing strict constraints made it harder to pursue his preferred approach to counterterrorism.
Wary of major overseas entanglements, he turned increasingly to surgical, stealthy operations like drone strikes that have traditionally operated under a murky legal framework. In a nod to that approach, Obama planned to visit U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters Tuesday in Tampa, Florida, to pay tribute to special ops forces.
Obama's challenges were exacerbated by extremist groups whose attacks bear little resemblance to traditional state-versus-state warfare. Meanwhile, Congress displayed little appetite for politically controversial votes to authorize new uses of force.
So even when Obama, in 2014, announced the U.S. would target ISIS with airstrikes, he said the 2001 law gave him authority because the group had grown out of al-Qaida. Months later, he asked Congress to pass a new war powers resolution to address ISIS more specifically and replace the outdated law.
Congress never acted. Obama, unbowed, stuck by his legal argument that the 2001 version was still sufficient.
Not everyone agrees.
"If a president can't convince Congress, as the proxy for the people, of the need to do this such that they will pass an authorization to do it, then we ought not to be using force abroad," said Scott Roehm, vice president of the Washington-based Constitution Project.
Obama did take other steps to try to strengthen the checks on a president's military power. In 2013, he notably pulled back from impending U.S. airstrikes in Syria, and instead sought formal approval from Congress that never materialized. And under pressure from civil liberties advocates, he put in place tougher rules for drone strikes, aiming to limit civilian casualties.
"It's not a legacy that is gonna score a lot of political points. It's imperfect," Obama said in a recent interview with New York Magazine. But Americans will have a better idea "their president is going to have to be more accountable than he or she otherwise would have been."
Some of those details are outlined in the 61-page White House report, the most comprehensive explanation to date of the policies the Obama administration has applied for drone strikes, detention of terrorists and access by humanitarian groups like the International Committee of the Red Cross.
#3
George Will, who knows a lot, but like all tiresome pedants manages to distill that knowledge into something nobody need to know, got this observation correct: The left sees history as a ratchet, continually moving in the left's desired direction. When this does not happen, leftists are first shocked, then run to the ramparts to defend their imagined gains...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/06/2016 10:45 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] Authorities say West Bank-born imam Mohammad Qatanani failed to reveal 1993 arrest for Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", membership
The leader of one of New Jersey’s largest mosques is heading to court to fight from being deported after federal authorities say he lied on his green card application about being detained by Israel more than 20 years ago.
...the good imam has been fighting deportation for years -- his citizenship application was denied in 2006. Before that he came out strongly against the Iraq war...
told his congregation at the Islamic Center of Passaic County that he will return to court on Monday, after the Department of Homeland Security appealed an immigration judge’s decision not to deport him eight years ago after finding no credible links to terrorism, The Record (http://bit.ly/2gYYpqX ) reported.
Qatanani came to the US from Jordan. He was born in the West Bank and said that he was detained by Israeli officials while visiting there in 1993.
Federal officials say that he didn’t disclose being convicted in Israel for being a member of Hamas, but Qatanani denies that he was ever part of the group classified as a terrorist organization by the US government. He says that he was only detained like many others at the time and was never told that he was convicted of anything.
His brother-in-law was a senior Hamas military leader killed by Israel, but Qatanani said in 2008 that he did not participate with him in political activities.
"I know that justice will prevail and that everything will be in the right way. I believe in the judicial system in this country," Qatanani, 52, said Friday.
An attorney for homeland security wasn’t available for comment.
An FBI agent testified previously that Qatanani admitted that he was tossed in the clink Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! and tried, but he claimed during the trial that he was not aware of the conviction and that he was subjected to physical and mental abuse while in detention.
Qatanani came to the US in 1996 on a religious worker visa to lead the Paterson mosque and has been credited with working with leaders of different faiths and law enforcement. He has worked on the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office’s Moslem outreach task force.
A number of character witnesses have testified on his behalf at his first trial, including a rabbi and several high-ranking New Jersey law enforcement officials.
While serving as the US federal prosecutor in New Jersey, Republican Gov. Chris Christie called him a "man of great goodwill" and said that "he’s always had a very good relationship with us."
General James Mattis has reportedly accepted his nomination for Secretary of Defense, and if confirmed would serve under President Donald Trump.
After he was nominated, having heard rumors about "Mad Dog" Mattis over the years, I called upon our best friend’s son, SSG John C. Steffens, US Army, to inquire more about Mattis; about his real disposition and personality. John worked closely with General Mattis for about a year as a member of Mattis’ "Executive Protection" detail, in the Protective Services Division (PSD). They spent a lot of time together.
So last night (December 1st, 2016), I went to see John, his wife Tadzia, and their three children ‐ Little John, Joanne, and Emma. I was happy to have a chance to get some insights into General Mattis from someone who has spent a great deal of time around him. General Mattis had not yet accepted the nomination at the time of the interview.
The General is famously quoted as saying, "Demonstrate to the world there is ’No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy’ than a U.S. Marine." Well, he may be "Mad Dog Mattis" to his enemies, but to those who know him, there is indeed no better friend. See below:
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
12/06/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, "Mad Dog Mattis" does sort of have a pleasing rhythm to it, if he's on your side.
[Daily Excelsior] Waging over seven decades’ struggle, the West Pak refugees settled in Jammu region today finally got some reprieve with the State Government on the directions of Union Ministry of Home Affairs devising a mechanism to issue certificates to them, excepting state subjects, which would facilitate their recruitment in Central forces including five battalions of Indian Reserve Police (IRP), which are being raised in Jammu and Kashmire.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the State Government has finally come out with a mechanism designating the officers in Revenue Department, who would issue certificates of West Pak refugees and within them the category certificates like Scheduled Caste etc that would facilitate their recruitment in para-military forces for which the Home Ministry has kept special provision.
The relief for West Pak refugees came within days after Union Cabinet approved Rs 2000 crores worth package for Pakistain occupied Jammu Kashmire (PoJK) refugees, which was only a part of the package and not full and final settlement.
Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Dr Jitendra Singh, who was vigorously following the package for West Pak and PoK refugees ever since his appointment as the Union Minister along with representatives (of the refugees), said the devising of mechanism for issuing caste certificates to West Pak refugees was one among various steps being taken by Narendra Modi Government to mitigate their sufferings.
"We are vigorously following the case of West Pak refugees in the Home Ministry along with their representatives and more measures were in the pipeline to help them," Dr Singh said.
According to sources, the Union Home Ministry has designated Joint Secretary Home, Incharge Jammu and Kashmire, Gyaneshwar Prasad to work out solution to the issues of the West Pak refugees, who have been denied state subject rights even after about 70 years of their migration. In view of this, the West Pak refugees were not entitled to jobs in the State Government.
Sources said the Home Ministry has kept special reservation for the West Pak refugees in the Central forces. However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... they were not able to apply for the para-military forces against the reserved posts as the Revenue officers of the State had refused to issue caste certificates to them.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, on the intervention of Dr Jitendra Singh, had written to the State Government to devise a mechanism for issuance of caste and other certificates to the West Pak refugees to entitle them to apply for para-military forces and five IRP battalions being raised in the State.
"A mechanism has now been devised and the officers designated to issue West Pak refugee and caste certificates, which would facilitate their recruitment in the para-military forces, IRP battalions and other Central Government jobs," sources said.
They added that some other major issues like permission to West Pak refugees to carry out studies in the State and reservation for them outside the State are being followed as the State Government has shown its helplessness in issuing state subjects to them.
Sources said an exclusive employment package for the West Pak refugees in Central forces and other Centre Government jobs was likely to be worked out after the end of ongoing Parliament session.
The process to work out settlement to the problems of West Pak refugees was set in motion after their delegation met Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who took cognizance of their problems and was very supportive of them and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, a law knowing persons, who suggested some ways out.
Meanwhile, ...back at the revival hall, the SWAT team had finally arrived... sources clarified that Rs 2000 crores worth relief package approved for PoJK refugees by the Central Government was not end of the road.
"This is not the full and final settlement. During disbursement of package, the PoJK refugees will not be asked to submit affidavit of final settlement," sources said, adding that since Rs 2000 crores was part of Rs 80,000 crores package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it has been approved and is being kept at the disposal of the State Government for disbursement.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj PrunefaceAziz ...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in good jihadis and bad jihadis as a matter of national policy... on his return from India on Sunday night after attending the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference in Amritsar expressed serious reservations over the remarks and attitude of the Indian prime minister and Afghan president.
[DAWN] 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... approved, in principle, the renaming of Quaid-e-Azam University's (QAU) physics department to the Professor Abdus Salam Center for Physics on Monday, according to a Press Information Department (PID) statement.
The Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training was directed to draw up a formal summary of the renaming of QAU's National Centre for Physics for President Mamnoon Hussain's approval.
The PM also approved a grant for five annual fellowships for Pak PhD students in the field of Physics through the Higher Education Commission in reputable international universities. The programme will be named the Professor Abdus Salam Fellowship, the PID said.
The moves were made in order to recognise the contributions of Dr Abdus Salam, a major figure in 20th century theoretical physics, the PID said. He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the field.
He was the first Pak to receive a Nobel Prize in science.
"His remarkable achievement earned fame and prestige for the country which rightly deserves to be valued," the PID said. I believe he's so far the only Pak to receive a Nobel prize in science. Left out of the description is the fact that he's not a proper Moslem, but an Ahmadi, which means somebody will blow himself up in protest and that there'll be political pressure to name the center after someone else -- perhaps a bustard-shooting Qatari will donate a few million and they'll name it the "Al-Thani Center for Moslem Science."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
The scenario of terrorists on motorcycles is derived from an incident during Operation Protective Edge in which the army discovered motorbikes in a Hamas attack tunnel. Authorities believed that the bikes were to be used by Hamas for rapid raids into Israel during which they would kidnap or kill Israeli civilians or soldiers and then quickly retreat back into Gaza.
As opposed to the NorK method of going as deep as possible into territory to cause mayhem.
Warm up the drones, lads, there's a new Number Three to hunt.
[Ynet] ISIS identified a new media front man for the group for the first time on Monday in an audio message released online.
The recording appeared on Al Furqan, a media organization linked to Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , giving the new front man's name as Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer.
The United States confirmed in September that Islamic State's previous front man, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, had been killed in a US air strike on Aug. 30 in Syria
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/06/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"Gee...thanks"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/06/2016 18:37 Comments ||
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In which the reversal of the ISIS conquests is laid out.
[AlAhram] The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group, which has just lost its Libyan coastal stronghold of Sirte, has also suffered a series of major setbacks in Iraq and Syria.
The Islamist krazed killers, who since 2014 have seized swathes of territory in the three countries, are currently under attack in their strongholds of djinn-infested Mosul
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/06/2016 00:00 ||
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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.
[Daily Excelsior] Waging over seven decades’ struggle, the West Pak refugees settled in Jammu region today finally got some reprieve with the State Government on the directions of Union Ministry of Home Affairs devising a mechanism to issue certificates to them, excepting state subjects, which would facilitate their recruitment in Central forces including five battalions of Indian Reserve Police (IRP), which are being raised in Jammu and 
...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in 
