[ToloNews] U.S. officials have indicated that Afghanistan's Caped PresidentAshraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. made the point during his meeting on Saturday with U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel of pointing out the risks of a hurried NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... troop withdraw. President Ghani is expected to make a formal request for a more gradual withdraw of foreign troops when he visits Washington in the new year to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama I bowled a 129. Itâ??s like â?? it was like Special Olympics, or something... The leaders of the national unity government appear to be in agreement regarding the withdraw of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... has already spoken out about the troop pullout, and said that it would be hasty to move ahead as planned given the current security conditions around the country.
Based on Washington's current plan, 9,800 U.S. soldiers will remain in Afghanistan alongside another 1,000 additional troops until the end of 2015. The figure will then reduce to 5,500 troops the following year.
U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that it is likely Ghani will ask his U.S. counterparts to delay a number of different aspects of the withdrawal plan while he is in Washington early in the new year.
A number of political commentators have reinforced the logic behind Ghani's possible request. "The Afghan cops aren't equipped with heavy weaponry, we don't have an air force, therefore, I think that it is too early for all foreign troops to evacuate the country," military analyst Mia Gul Waseeq said.
In his interview with the Sunday Times, CEO Abdullah Abdullah suggested the withdraw of all foreign troops in the next year would be hasty and irresponsible given the current security situation in Afghanistan.
"Two years back, we had 150,000 foreign troops, helicopters and fighter jets in Afghanistan, but after two months, only 12,000 foreign troops will remain in Afghanistan," Abdullah said. "We are in dire need of air support, fighter jets and intelligence information."
While on his trip to Laghman province to visit U.S. troops, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the current wave of insecurity in Afghanistan highlighted the delicate situation in the country. But he maintained that Afghanistan should not be compared to Iraq, where a rapid U.S. withdraw left a vacuum that many experts blame for the current crisis there.
"Iraq and Afghanistan are totally different situations and you all understand that and many of you served in Iraq, so that's where you start," Hagel said. "There are some similarities, sure, our war is different in Iraq as it is here, Iraq has been an ally, you all "know and many of you served there, we invested our blood and treasure to help the Iraqi people.
[ToloNews] Taliban gunnies have demanded the release of 21 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 14 Afghan coppers who were taken hostage recently in northeastern Badakhshan province, local officials said on Tuesday.
Acting Governor of Badakhshan Shah Wali Adib, said that in the past two weeks 10 coppers were rescued by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) who were take recently taken hostage by the Taliban gunnies in Warduj district of the province.
"The release of the Taliban prisoners are beyond the local officials," Adib said. "We have talked to the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Interior about the issues, but negotiations still continue with support of the Ulema and tribal elders."
More than a month ago a number of Taliban attacked several ANSF outposts, in which dozens of Taliban and security forces were killed. During the festivities the Taliban captured 20 security personnel, taking them as hostages.
Sorry, guys, we're outta there. Y'all have fun picking up the pieces.
[AnNahar] Corruption, weak armed forces and a huge budget gap -- a U.S. watchdog overseeing rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan Wednesday released a list of seven "high-risk areas" leaving projects vulnerable to waste and fraud as troops withdraw.
"American taxpayer dollars and our strategic and humanitarian interests in Afghanistan are being placed at unnecessarily high levels of risk by widespread failure to track results, anticipate problems, and implement prudent countermeasures," the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko said.
"And, unlike countries at peace, those problems can lead to lives lost and our national security objectives hindered or denied."
After some 13 years, the U.S.-led NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... combat mission will officially end on December 31 although some troops will remain to train and support the Afghan army and police, who have taken on responsibility for suppressing worsening Islamist violence nationwide.
Sopko and the SIGAR team have warned consistently that as international troops withdraw it will be increasing hard to keep an eye on reconstruction projects without their protection.
SIGAR, set up by Congress in 2008 to monitor the billions of dollars spent in Afghanistan, has set out seven issues which pose a "high-risk" which Sopko said posed "a potent threat" to reconstruction efforts.
Here is the list:
CORRUPTION/RULE OF LAW: "Corruption is one of the most serious threats to the U.S.-funded Afghanistan reconstruction effort," the watchdog says, highlighting that it has repeatedly raised this issue.
It questions whether the State Department has developed a proper strategy to battle graft and drawn up plans to protect U.S. funds, as well as to tackling corruption within the Afghan government.
SUSTAINABILITY: The watchdog maintains that much of $104 billion spent by the U.S. since the 2001 invasion to oust the Islamic Talibs risks being wasted "because the Afghans cannot sustain the investment without" continued donor support.
In 2013 the war-torn country's annual revenue was only $2 billion, while its expenditure was $5.4 billion. The IMF expects the funding gap to remain at about $7.7 billion through 2018.
Improving the energy sector for example is vital to the country's long-term economic progress, but the Afghans cannot afford to pay for much of the electric power infrastructure provided by the Americans.
Likewise, millions invested in the health sector could also go up in smoke because the Afghan government will not be able to afford to maintain and operate new hospitals.
THE CAPACITY OF THE AFGHAN SECURITY FORCES: Some $62 billion or, more than half of all the U.S. expenditure, has gone towards building up the Afghan cops. Military experts have warned this could be put at risk unless proper training and advise missions are left in place.
DIRECT FUNDING ASSISTANCE: Since 2010 the U.S. and international donors have been replacing aid in the form of contracts and grants, to direct assistance into the Kabul government's coffers to give Afghans more freedom to manage their budget. SIGAR is increasingly concerned that many Afghan government agencies are ill-equipped to handle such a flow of money and has called for strong internal controls and greater oversight.
COUNTERNARCOTICS: "The expanding cultivation and trafficking of drugs puts the entire U.S. and international investment in the reconstruction of Afghanistan at risk," the report says. Drug-trafficking feeds the Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgency as well as corruption and organized crime.
CONTRACT MANAGEMENT: U.S. agencies have failed to consistently manage civilian contractors, and no one knows precisely how much has been spent on them since 2002. The report also detailed a number of problematic projects under construction by local contractors.
STRATEGY AND PLANNING: A lack of implementation or operational planning "threatens to cause agencies and projects to work at counter-purposes, spend money on frivolous endeavors or fail to coordinate efforts."
#4
Alot depends on what Pakistan wants for Afghanistan?independence which worrys them re indias influence/friendship or pak control via the taliban again?
Everyone knows what is the Main problem country in that region re Afghanistan!
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2014 19:14 ||
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#1
"This article is only available to registered members. "
I don't know about you, but I'm not a subscriber to Libya Herald. How about a copy-and-paste or at least an excerpt from the article? Otherwise this page was pointless.
Egypt has imposed restrictions on male citizens travelling to Turkey and war-torn Libya to stop them joining militant organisations like the ISIS group, a security official said on Wednesday.
Men aged between 18 and 40 years who plan to travel to the two countries need prior clearance from Egyptian immigration under the new rules which came into effect on December 3.
"We are adopting these measures to protect our sons from joining terrorist groups abroad," the official said. "Now every man travelling to these countries must clearly state the reason to the authorities."
Terrorists Militants have stepped up attacks in Egypt, mostly in the Sinai Peninsula, since the ouster of president Mohammed Mursi last year, and officials say that many of them have fought in Syria, which borders Turkey. In November Egypt's deadliest militant group, Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, pledged allegiance to the ISIS, further raising security concerns.
Ties between Cairo and Ankara have deteriorated since the army ousted Mursi, a key ally of Turkey. Egypt has accused Ankara of "backing terrorism," while Turkey has dubbed Mursi's ouster a "coup".
Turkey, a vocal critic of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, has denied accusations that it tolerates the flow of foreign fighters into Syria.
Cairo has also regularly raised concerns over the war in Libya, which has plunged into chaos since the ouster and killing of long-time leader Moammer Gaddafi in 2011.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/11/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Kenya's government wants to beef up security laws after a string of attacks by Somalia's Shabaab myrmidons, but media and opposition warn some proposals are too severe, reports said Wednesday.
The proposals include boosting the time police can hold terrorism suspects from the current 90 to 360 days, increasing sentences, and more powers to intercept communications, according to a draft seen by AFP.
The draft also proposes capping the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya to 150,000, a dramatic cut to the currently more than 607,000 the country hosts.
New ideas also suggest jail terms of up to three years for journalists broadcasting reports deemed to "undermine investigations or security operations relating to terrorism," while those who use social media to praise or incite acts of terrorism could face up to 20 years in prison.
The changes, due for initial debate in parliament Wednesday, also propose setting up a specialized Counter-Terrorism Center bringing together all the branches of the security forces.
Opposition politicians said they would oppose many of the proposals, with Orange Democratic Movement party chairman John Mbadi saying some were "draconian amendments", according to The Star newspaper.
Kenya's government has been under fire since last year's Shabaab attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, in which at least 67 people were killed.
Earlier this month Kenya's interior minister and police chief were removed from their posts after the Shabaab carried out massacres in the northeast of the country.
Newspapers said that while action to increase security needed to be taken, some of the proposals were too severe.
"The very real and present dangers must not be used as an excuse to roll back the gains of a free and democratic society," the Daily Nation's editorial read.
The Standard newspaper warned the proposed bill would bring in "massive amendments... which if implemented could see the 'long' hand of government in all spheres of public life."
[AnNahar] Hundreds of relatives of people who disappeared during a violent crackdown on the opposition ahead of this year's elections in Bangladesh protested on Wednesday to demand justice.
More than 200 people were killed in street festivities between the security forces and opposition supporters before and during the January 5 polls.
Opposition parties say another 300 of their supporters were kidnapped ahead of the vote, which they boycotted, leaving the ruling Awami League to stand uncontested.
Hundreds of people took part in Wednesday's protest in the capital Dhaka, many carrying photographs of relatives who have been missing since the bloody crackdown.
Afroza Islam Akhi said troops from the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a controversial elite unit, took her brother and five of his friends -- all low-level opposition officials -- in December 2013.
"They were never returned," she said. "Our plea to the government and the RAB: please return them. They did no harm."
Syeda Shammi Sultana said she had not seen her husband since plain-clothes security forces detained him in Dhaka.
"My husband's only crime was that he was a BNP supporter," she said, referring to the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Rights groups said the disappearances reached levels not seen since Bangladesh won independence in 1971.
"These cases of disappearances are unprecedented and very alarming. We've not seen disappearances on such a scale since the 1971 independence war," Nur Khan Liton of the Ain of Salish Kendra (Law and Litigation Centre) told Agence Frnace Presse.
"We've investigated scores of such disappearance cases and found that in most cases security forces were involved."
The government has denied that its agencies were behind the disappearances of political opponents.
RAB front man Mufti Mahmud told AFP the force was "not involved in any such abductions or disappearances".
The United States was among a host of countries to demand new polls that "credibly express the will" of the people after the Awami League romped to victory in the January ballot.
But rather than address such concerns, critics say the government has attempted to silence any further dissent backed, crucially, by the military.
Bangladesh's military has a long history of intervening in politics and the former territory of East Pakistain has seen more than a dozen coups since its bloody war of secession from Islamabad more than 40 years ago.
[AnNahar] Five of the six former Guantanamo inmates being resettled in Uruguay will likely move into a house in the capital Montevideo on Wednesday, according to the labor union providing the lodging.
The men have undergone medical checks in a military hospital since they arrived Sunday as part of a deal aimed at helping U.S. President Barack Obama I inhaled. That was the point... fulfill his long-delayed promise to close the prison set up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Five of them -- three Syrians, a Paleostinian and a Tunisian -- will "probably" move Wednesday into a house set up for them in Montevideo that resembles "any ordinary worker's," said Fernando Pereira of national labor union federation PIT-CNT.
He said the sixth, 43-year-old Syrian national Jihad Diyab, will remain in hospital to recover from a hunger strike that has left him weakened and sparked a U.S. court battle over prison officials' right to force feed him.
Diyab will join the rest of the group a little later, Pereira told Agence La Belle France-Presse.
The men will take Spanish classes and receive professional training at the house, a temporary residence until they settle elsewhere along with their families, he said.
"These refugees are just like you and me. Ideally they'll be seen in the neighborhood as just another neighbor," he said.
But he said their adaptation to Uruguay "will not be easy" after more than 12 years at Guantanamo.
The former inmates have been kept under tight security, a measure the Uruguayan interior minister has said is for their own safety and will continue after they leave hospital.
The men, all in their 30s and 40s, were among the first detainees sent to Guantanamo in 2002.
Detained as part of the U.S. "War on Terror" for alleged links to al-Qaeda, they were never charged or tried.
They had been cleared for release, but the United States ruled they could not be sent to their home countries for security reasons.
Uruguay's President Jose Mujica, a former leftist guerrilla who leaves office in March, has said he agreed to take in the inmates in part because he sympathized with their plight as a one-time political prisoner who spent 13 years in jail.
#1
ah they will learn spanish - no problem then - can easily become an "undocmented resient" or whatever the latest LLL label is - i have lost track of that
Posted by: Bov Flimbers ||
12/11/2014 2:00 Comments ||
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#2
"there goes the neighborhood"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/11/2014 9:52 Comments ||
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O & Co sends them to a fellow traveler in Uruguay, where they will be rehabilitated given R&R and will escape to kill some more people.
Not being released to their home countries for security reasons means that they will be killed when they return to the auld sod.
The main issue is: would you use interrogation techniques not in line with court approved procedures to save American lives, or would you play nice to make you feel good and lose thousands or millions of Americans in a wartime attack?
The left uses the word "torture" as a loaded term to disarm the American people. We will spend billions of dollars for feeling good, but only achieve greater vulnerability to attack. If the left feels so strongly about the Gitmo Guyz, they can take them in as foster children in their own homes.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/11/2014 10:49 Comments ||
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#4
How will they feel being surrounded by infidels lol
[DAWN] The capital of China's far western Xinjiang has banned the wearing of Islamic veils in public, the regional government said on Thursday, in a move experts worry could spark more unrest in the troubled region.
The restriction comes as China is stepping up curbs on religious clothing amid increasing nervousness about Islamist extremism. Beijing blames Islamist separatists for several deadly bomb and knife attacks that have killed hundreds of people over the past two years or so.
Many Xinjiang experts say the outlawing of veils and the heavy-handed enforcement of the rules would further stigmatise the region's minority Uighurs.
Uighurs have traditionally followed a moderate form of Islam, but many have begun adopting practices more commonly seen in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... or Pakistain, such as full-face veils for women, as China has intensified a security crackdown in recent years.
The veil ban was "considered and approved" by the Urumqi parliament's Standing Committee on Wednesday, the official news website of the Xinjiang government said.
It is scheduled to come into force after review by the Xinjiang parliament's Standing Committee before it is formally announced, the website Tianshan.net, reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2014 13:18 ||
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North Korean leader Fat Boy Kim Jong-un's sister Yeo-jong is a vice director of the Workers Party's Propaganda and Agitation Department, a source said Wednesday.
The state media reported on Nov. 27 that Kim Yeo-jong is a vice director in the party's Central Committee but did not specify her duties, sparking a frenzy of speculation among North Korea watchers.
Former leader Kim Jong-il held the same job on his way to power, overseeing the personality cult surrounding nation founder Kim Il-sung. At present, Kim Ki-nam (85) is the director of the department, but Kim Yeo-jong apparently handles day-to-day affairs.
Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un's aunt and widow of executed eminence grise Jang Song-taek is apparently deteriorating resting at a summer home in North Pyongyang Province. Kim Kyong-hui has not been seen in public since September last year, leading to speculation that she has also been killed purged, killed committed suicide or killed been sent off to a nursing home abroad.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/11/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] French police locked away Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! five men suspected of making threats online to attack a synagogue.
Antisemitism, oh so fashionable once again
Did it ever really go out of style?
Two of the suspects, all of whom are believed to be far-right activists, were arrested on Tuesday morning in the southern city of Montpellier, the French news agency AFP reported. The remaining three were apprehended in the nearby city of Beziers.
The suspects are believed to have written on social networks that they intended to burn down the Grande-Motte Synagogue in Herault, also in southern La Belle France, Le Figaro reported.
Also Tuesday, French police arrested three men and two women in Marseille in connection with the killing of four people at the Jewish museum in Brussels on May 29. Mehdi Nemmouche, a Frenchie, was extradited to Belgium and charged with murder there.
Two days earlier, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said at a rally against anti-Semitism that he intended to declare efforts to curb the phenomenon a national cause ? a statement that could mean the government would select the issue next year as the subject for a national publicity campaign.
The rally in Creteil, where some 1,500 people gathered, was in response to the rape of a young woman last week in the Gay Paree suburb, which police said occurred during a robbery by three armed perpetrators who selected their victims because they were Jewish.
The incidents drew condemnations from French Prime Minister Manuel Vals and President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist...
A prominent Uzbek imam, a radical Islamist critical of Uzbekistan’s government, has been gunned down in Istanbul. The imam, who used the name Shaykh Abdullah Bukhoroy, was shot early on December 10 near his home in Istanbul’s Zeytinburnu district.
The imam was born with the name "Mirzagholib" in the Shakhrikon district of Uzbekistan's Andijon Province. After leaving Uzbekistan a decade ago, he opened a madrasa in Istanbul and reportedly was operating eight of them in Turkey at the time of his death.
In October, he claimed that his followers were being persecuted in Uzbekistan and that he was being sought by Uzbekistan's National Security Service.
[WashingtonFreeBeacon] The CIA's enhanced interrogation program 'saved lives and played a vital role in weakening al-Qa'ida,' according to a minority report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released on Tuesday.
The report was a rebuttal to the majority's study criticizing the controversial former CIA program as ineffective and destructive.
'We have no doubt the CIA's detention program saved lives and played a vital role in weakening al-Qa'ida while the Program was in operation,' said the report written by Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.), Richard Burr (R., N.C.), James Risch (R., Idaho), Dan Coats (R., Ind.), Marco Rubio(R., Fla.), and Tom Coburn (R., Okla.).
'When asked about the value of detainee information and whether he missed the intelligence from it, one senior CIA operator [redacted] told members: 'I miss it every day.' We understand why,' the senators wrote.
A group of former CIA officials launched a website called CIASavedLives.com in response to the committee's majority report, defending the agency's use of rendition, detention, and enhanced interrogation. The similarly named website CIASavedLives.org redirects to the ACLU, a staunch critic of the agency's detention program.
[Politico]“The report’s full of crap, excuse me,” Cheney said in an interview with Fox News after calling the report a “terrible piece of work” and “deeply flawed".
[Cheney] continued, “What happened here was that we asked the agency to go take steps and put in place programs that were designed to catch the bastards that killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure that didn’t happen again. And that’s exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit, not the condemnation that they’re receiving from the Senate Democrats.”
“You see it too often in Washington where a group of politicians get together and sort of throw the professionals under the bus,” Cheney said.
[AnNahar] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed criminal mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, should not have to face the death penalty, his lawyer said Tuesday, following revelations of torture in a scathing U.S. Senate report.
Generally, getting your own lawyer to agree that the state should go light on you isn't that far a stretch...
"It's not legal, humane, or fair to execute a person after torturing him," David Nevin told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Mohammed is known to have been waterboarded 183 times in secret CIA prisons and in March 2003 he was subjected to five waterboard sessions over 25 hours.
"Holding a real execution of Mr. Mohammad, after 183 mock executions, is cruel and unusual punishment," prohibited under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Nevin said.
"The brutality revealed in the details of the torture is quite shocking," he said, and "produced absolutely no useful information."
So you and the Democrats in the Senate say. Now...
Tuesday's report revealed that sleep deprivation for over a week, beatings, shackling and waterboarding were among the cruel methods used by the George W. Bush-era CIA to interrogate Al-Qaeda terror suspects. The document found that the techniques employed by the Central Intelligence Agency were "far more brutal" than the spy agency had previously admitted to.
And the Dems knew all along...
The lawyer for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who allegedly led Al-Qaeda operations in the Gulf, said it was "stunning" that the prosecutors knew of the torture "for years and hid it from the court in violation of their professional obligations."
Al-Nashiri, who was tortured in CIA prisons, is accused of criminal masterminding a suicide kaboom of the USS Cole which killed 17 American sailors in 2000 off the coast of Yemen.
"The fact that military and civilian prosecutors are protecting torturers who were acting in violation of American and international law is disappointing, although regrettably not unexpected," Richard Kammen told AFP.
Rights advocates hailed the exposure following the report's release, but criticized a Justice Department announcement that it will not prosecute any U.S. officials implicated.
It was regrettable that "the government has excluded from the report the identities of the torturers, the locations of the torture, and many other facts," said James Connell, the civilian lawyer for Mohammad's nephew and accused co-conspirator Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali. He called for the publication of "the remaining 6,125 pages" of the redacted report.
Lieutenant Colonel Sterling Thomas, Ali's military lawyer, said that "torture violates American military values."
"The military commission should order access to the full torture report and its underlying documents as part of that accounting for torture," he said.
According to the Senate report, Mohammed was the detainee who was tortured the most of the 39 prisoners who underwent the interrogation techniques.
[DAWN] The United States affirmed on Wednesday Pakistain's claim that the military operation in North Wazoo had disrupted hard boys.
At the 23rd meeting of the US-Pakistain Defence Consultative Group, the two countries also stressed the need for creating a mechanism for reimbursing Pakistain after the expiry of the Coalition Support Fund. The fund expired this year.
"Both delegations affirmed the significance of the Pakistain military's ongoing North Waziristan operation, which the US side affirmed has disrupted hard boys," said a joint statement issued after the meeting.
The two sides also agreed to "continue providing Pakistain's counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency requirements which will inform the provision of security assistance".
The United States and Pakistain also "discussed the importance of a mechanism to reimburse Pakistain for operational expenses after Coalition Support Funds expire at the end of fiscal year 2015," the statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2014 00:35 ||
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[AnNahar] Six months into the jihadist offensive in Iraq, the autonomous Kurds said Wednesday they had lost more than 700 fighters and argued the burden of hosting a million displaced civilians was becoming unsustainable.
Since 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 launched a devastating offensive from Syria on June 9, Iraq's Kurds have been involved in battles along a frontline stretching more than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles).
Continued on Page 49
[AnNahar] Israel announced Wednesday for the first time that it is mulling the possibility of starting ?undeclared cooperation? with the Lebanese army against the Death Eater Islamist groups that are operating in the region.
Tel Aviv is ?contemplating the possibility of engaging in undeclared cooperation with the Lebanese army against the Sunni Death Eater groups despite the official state of war between the two countries,? the Israeli public radio quoted an Israeli army official as saying.
?The U.S.-led international coalition has gathered forces and parties that have an interest in fighting the common enemy, and accordingly Israel is also seeking to expand its security ties with Egypt, Jordan and the Paleostinian Authority,? the official added.
In response to a news hound's question, the official declined to confirm or deny whether the supposed cooperation had ?already started.?
Leb and Israel have been in a state of war for six decades and the Lebanese army refers to the Israeli military as ?the enemy? in all its statements, amid daily violations of Lebanese illusory sovereignty.
Leb has not officially joined the anti-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.... coalition and has insisted that it must operate under the authority of the U.N., although Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji has attended several Coalition meetings in Washington.
#2
not really - there's only the one sensible adult and all these squabbling kiddos - what's the track record of any of these kiddos reaching puberty, far less adulthood
Posted by: Bov Flimbers ||
12/11/2014 2:51 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] The jihadist group 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.... is trying to sell the body of US journalist James Foley for a reported $1 million.
The bully boy terrorist organization executed Foley in a gruesome beheading video in August. Two more US citizens — American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig — have followed, as well as two UK nationals David Haine and Alan Henning, both aid workers as well.
Foley's was the first in a series of the grisly, publicized executions that shocked many in the West. British journalist John Cantile and an unnamed 26-year-old American woman remain in IS captivity.
IS offered to provide a DNA sample and transfer Foley's body to Turkey, BuzzFeed reported Wednesday, in a piece detailing exchanges with "middlemen with ties to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)," using another name for the marauding group which has murdered and plundered its way to controlling large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.
One of the "middlemen," a Syrian rebel, told BuzzFeed he was approached by an IS commanders seeking to make the deal with the US government or with Foley's family. The man, who reportedly managed hostage negotiations with the al-Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front, said the motivation was to provide closure for the family, "a humanity case"
Another intermediary was much more to the point, telling the popular site: "This is business."
A third point-person mentioned in the report was an official in the US-backed Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... rebel group, who urged the site not to publish details of a potential deal for fear it could be sabotaged.
"It will be like a shame for the US government," the FSA official told BuzzFeed. "People will ask why you brought the body but you didn't bring him when he was alive."
The Islamic State has made a lucrative business of hostage taking — reportedly trading 15 European nationals and others for between $35-45 million earlier this year (and killing the ones whose governments would not negotiate) — but this report indicates the terror group has turned a revolting new page.
"They were trying to negotiate (a ransom deal) for his freedom before they beheaded him, and after beheading him, they are trying to sell his body," the FSA official said, according to the report.
The group is not starved for funds, however, with its ransom business, black market oil sales and tax collection raking in up to $800 million per year, according to reports.
Just this week, analysts said the terror organization spent no less than an estimated $200,000 on a propaganda video that featured the beheading of 22 Syrian soldiers, and that took between four and six hours to film.
The propaganda video, released on November 16 and called "Though the Unbelievers Despise It," shows the simultaneous executions of the Syrian soldiers as well as the beheading of Kassig.
In the video, the killers appear to be led by a masked "Jihadi John," the British IS krazed killer believed to be responsible for the beheadings of Kassig, as well as Foley, Sotloff, Haine and Henning.
In light of the large numbers of radicalized foreigners who have joined the Islamic State, analysts from all over the world have been studying the clip in an effort to identify the rest of the killers.
A recent UN report estimates an "unprecedented" influx of 15,000 imported muscle from 80 countries, who have joined the Islamic State's relentless campaigns in Iraq and Syria.
#4
During the Great Siege of Malta, after a protracted siege of Fort St. Elmo, the corpses of the Knights of Malta as well as the Priest of Malta, were mutilated in various ways, then dressed in their garb, nailed onto crosses and floated into the bay as a way to break the defenders' moral.
Disgusted at the treatment of the survivors and corpses, in retaliation La Valette had all of the muslim captives slain and decapitated and cannonaded the heads at the Turkish army.
Brutal? Perhaps. But the jihadis were parlay violence as intimidation. The muslim corsairs were much, much worse. They would land in the dead of night, and raid a village with an eye on VIPs, being sure to cut the rope to the church to prevent warnings. In the morning, VIPs would be marched out on the beach for ransom. Those who could make ransom were left in poverty. Those who didn't, to the slave markets. Entire villages within 10 miles of the coast; starving the local population.
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.
[ToloNews] U.S. officials have indicated that 
Egypt has imposed restrictions on male citizens travelling to Turkey and war-torn Libya to stop them joining militant organisations like the ISIS group, a security official said on Wednesday.
A prominent Uzbek imam, a radical Islamist critical of Uzbekistan’s government, has been gunned down in Istanbul. The imam, who used the name Shaykh Abdullah Bukhoroy, was shot early on December 10 near his home in Istanbul’s Zeytinburnu district.
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Wazoo
