[ToloNews] Over 630 children were killed and maimed in Afghanistan in the first six months of 2020 due to war and violence, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said on Tuesday. Of that figure, 225 children were killed and 405 others were maimed.
The rights body said that the main cause of the deaths and injuries was an escalation of violence in the residential areas.
"630 children in Afghanistan were among the casualties—225 children killed and 405 more maimed. Of course, the figure will be much higher than this. According to the international conventions on human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... , those people who are not involved in the war, killing them is a war crime," said Zabihullah Farhan, a front man for the AIHRC.
Last month, The International Committee of the Red Thingy (ICRC) said that Afghanistan remains the deadliest country for civilians, with Afghan women and kiddies making up half of the fatalities.
Back in October, The UN mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) in a report said that, overall, the civilian casualty figure for the first nine months of 2020 dropped by around 30 percent compared to the same period in 2019, but while the number of civilian casualties is the lowest in the first nine months of any year since 2012, "the harm done to civilians remains inordinate and shocking."
UNAMA documented that Anti-Government Elements (AGEs) remain responsible for the majority of civilian casualties (58 percent). Compared to the same period in 2019, the amount of civilian deaths attributed to AGEs remained at similar levels, although there was a decrease of 34 percent in the total number of civilian casualties — killed and injured — attributed to AGEs, said the report.
The report said that the number of civilians killed attributed to the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... increased by six percent in the first nine months of 2020, adding that the overall number of civilian casualties — killed and injured — attributed to the Taliban dropped by 32 percent, mainly due to a reduction in the number of civilians injured by suicide kabooms and ground engagements, though this was partially offset by an increased number of civilian casualties from assassinations and illegal, indiscriminate pressure-plate improvised explosives devices (IEDs).
Attacks causing civilian casualties carried out by undetermined age increased. There were more incidents, especially in relation to the use of IEDs and assassinations, in which UNAMA could not determine which anti-government group was responsible. This also corresponds with a decrease in the number of incidents for which the Taliban or ISISgrabbed credit.
U.S. Forces Lash over Analysis Presented on ‘Costs of War’
[KhaamaPress] The front man for United States Forces in Afghanistan Colonel Sonny Leggett sharply criticized the analysis presented on "costs of war" that shows a 330 percent increase in the number of civilians causalities by US-led Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... between 2016 to 2019 in Afghanistan.
On Monday, finding by the Brown University’s research institute on Costs of War indicated a 330% increase in the number of civilians killed by US-led airstrikes during the 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... administration in 2016 to 2019.
"We disagree with the one-sided analysis presented in "Costs of War," which relies on disputed data and ignores civilian casualties caused by Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... and ISIS attacks," said Leggett in a statement.
"This includes ongoing Taliban use of boom-mobiles, IEDs, rockets and assassinations to intimidate, harass and instill fear across Afghanistan," he added.
Referencing the recent quarterly report by UNAMA, the front man said civilian casualties caused by US airstrikes "all but ceased" since Feb. 29, adding that same report attributed more than 3,400 civilian casualties to "anti-government elements," including ISIS and the Taliban.
"We take seriously our duty to train our Afghan counterparts on civilian casualty prevention measures, and we have observed an extraordinary amount of effort and care in their operations," Leggett elaborated, assuring continued support.
NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... had more than 100,000 troops in a big combat operation. Then have gradually reduced its presence and now are roughly 11,000 troops in a Train, Assist and Advise mission. More than half are non-US troops coming from European NATO Allies and partner nations.
330% of Civilian Casualties Blamed on Trump Administration: Report
Mohammad Haroon Alim
[KhaamaPress] American President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... ’s decision in 2017 to loosen military rules of engagement in Afghanistan, the rules that were meant to protect civilians took a sharp turn to an increase in the civilian casualties.
On Monday Brown University Watson Institute’s Costs of War Project, released a report that indicated a 330% increase in the number of civilians killed by US-led Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s from 2016 to 2019.
"Some of this harm could be avoided by tighter rules of engagement, as well as better training. A negotiated ceasefire might also yield results at the bargaining table and at the same time avoid escalating harm to Afghan civilians from airstrikes." the author of the report, Neta C. Crawford, said.
In 2007 to 2016, the Afghan government and US-led forces killed an average of 582 civilians, the report found.
During trump’s administration from 2017 till 2019, named forces killed an average of 1,134 civilians in one year, a 95% increase according to the report.
Civilian casualties have taken a dramatic increase due to the U.S. and allied forces airstrike, the report indicates.
The 2019 was the year 700 non-combatants were killed due to airstrikes, more civilians than in 2001 and 2002, the airstrikes decreased following the US-Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... agreement in Doha, Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... in February of 2020.
As strikes declined so the civilian casualties have decreased, report said.
According to the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... , US-led and Afghan government airstrikes killed more civilians than did Taliban bad boy attacks during the first half of 2019.
The new report found that as US-led bombings declined following the agreement reached with the Taliban in February 2020, Afghan government airstrikes have increased.
According to the report, "as a consequence, the Afghan Air Force (AAF) is harming more Afghan civilians than at any time in its history."
The report says, "In the first six months of this year, the AAF killed 86 Afghan civilians and injured 103 civilians in airstrikes. That rate of harm nearly doubled in the next three months. Between July and the end of September, the Afghan Air Force killed 70 civilians and 90 civilians were maimed," adding that "As with the international airstrikes, some of this harm could be avoided by tighter rules of engagement, as well as better training."
Per the highlights of the facts, total U.S. withdrawal of the infantry does not mean a decrease in the civilian casualties, the combat is one-sided, and may the airstrikes continue.
A total of 43,000 non-combatants were killed in the US-led war, the analysis of this report showed most non-combatants were killed by the Taliban, some civilians including children were victims of US, Allied, and Afghan government bombings and bullets.
A United Nations analysis of photos of four anti-tank guided missiles in #Libya found that one “had characteristics consistent with the #Iranian-produced Dehlavieh” missile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reports to the Security Council.https://t.co/xr11Xwe44vpic.twitter.com/Cb4u3wRRQ9
GNA Threatens to Withdraw from Ceasefire Agreement
“We warn the UN and the countries supporting peace and dialogue in Libya that we will withdraw from the 5+5 Joint Military Commission...”#Libya#LibyaReviewhttps://t.co/cw2v72prgj
#Uzbekistan repatriates 25 women and 73 children from #Syria where they had been staying at camps with other families of #ISIS fighters, the Tashkent government says.https://t.co/8E0nIU7DeV
The Greek government accuses #Turkey of encouraging Somali migration through promotion campaigns and visa offers, and then allowing the migrants to continue on to #Greece.https://t.co/lqLrjiAahC
[GlobalNews] A key member of a terrorist group that plotted truck bombings in downtown Toronto in 2006 was granted day parole on Tuesday, even though a corrections official opposed his release as "premature."
The Parole Board of Canada approved Shareef Abdelhaleem’s
...age 43, database engineer Muhammad Shareef Abdelhaleem is the Egyptian-born son of nuclear engineer-cum-imam Mohammed Abdelhaleem and almost-husband of Omar Khadr’s sister, which would have made him Taliban “hostage” Joshua Boyle‘s brother-in-law and a member by marriage of the Khadr clan, Canada's Al Qaeda family. Sonny Boy and Pops used to regularly discuss jihad, especially after 9/11, but during his trial Shareef differentiated between lawful jihad and lawless terrorism — he was against terrorism...
plan to move to a Montreal halfway house, but said he must stay away from Toronto and cannot have a leadership position in any religious group.
[IsraelTimes] Iranian prosecutors have pressed criminal charges against a deputy of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani ...Iran's moderate president, which he is, relative to his predecessor, which doesn't mean he's anything but a puppet of the nearest holy man... , the judiciary says, making him the second Rouhani ally to face prosecution in recent weeks.
Vice President Isa Kalantari, who is Iran’s environment chief, is involved in an ongoing case involving the condition of a lagoon in north of the country as well as "remarks that circulated recently on social media," judiciary front man Gholamhossein Esmaili tells news hounds.
He doesn’t elaborate.
Kalantari has faced strong criticism from conservative media in recent days over comments he made in a year-old interview that they deemed insulting to the founder of the Islamic Theocratic Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini.
"He has presented his explanations. We must wait and see what the court decides, as he has only been recently summoned," Esmaili says.
Kalantari told state news agency IRNA on Sunday that his comments had been taken out of context.
"If you listen to the whole interview, you will see no such (insult) has taken place. It’s not logical to draw conclusions from 20-40 seconds of a two-hour interview," he said.
The 68-year-old served as agriculture minister in the 1990s and was appointed head of the environment department in 2017.
The charges against Kalantari come just days after it was reported that former vice president Shahindokht Molaverdi had been sentenced to two and a half years in prison on charges of handing classified information to foreign parties and "propaganda" against the state.
Molaverdi served as vice president for women’s affairs during Rouhani’s first term as president and was replaced by current Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar in 2017.
She said she intends to appeal.
When asked about her case, Esmaili says he can’t comment as the "verdict issued is not yet final."
[AlAhram] The Treasury also imposed terrorism-related sanctions on Iran's al-Mustafa International University, which it said uses its branches around the world as a Quds Force recruitment platform
The United States imposed terrorism sanctions on Iran's envoy to the 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... s, describing Hasan Irlu's recent dispatch to Yemen
Continued on Page 49
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12/09/2020 01:24 ||
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[ENGLISHBETA.ALARABIYA.NET] Running for student council elections in 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... as an independent has long been a move considered as going against the tide, with students sticking to the banners of established political parties. This year, the tables turned.
Broad public discontent with traditional political parties has emerged over the last year as the country’s economy worsens and the old parties become more synonymous with corruption and mismanagement.
In Lebanon, student council elections at universities hold a certain type of significance, as big and diverse campuses are widely seen as a microcosm of Lebanon’s political arena.
While the sectarian elite still rules in Beirut, on Lebanon’s campuses, a new scene is playing out.
"Student’s aren’t being fooled by the programs of the sectarian parties anymore," said Charbel Chaaya, the President of the Secular Club at Saint Joseph University in Beirut.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2020 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.
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
...
...
[GlobalNews] A key member of a terrorist group that plotted truck bombings in downtown Toronto in 2006 was granted day parole on Tuesday, even though a corrections official opposed his release as "premature."
...Iran's 
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
...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...
