[AnNahar] An Afghanistan-based jihadist group known for its past ties to Pak intelligence on Wednesday vowed to send "thousands" of fighters to Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... in support of 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...
Brilliant! Go in your thousands and be killed there, while the Afghans get on with whatever self-rule and stability they are capable of when less molested by Pakistani bright ideas.
Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin was one of the main Sunni myrmidon groups that fought against Soviet troops and later re-emerged to fight U.S.-led coalition forces after 2001.
"If there is any possibility to go to Iraq and Yemen, thousands of Afghan mujahideen would be ready to go, to counter Iran's interference and to defend their Moslem brothers," its leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ... who used to be known in intelligence circles as The Most Evil Man in the World but who now seems merely run-of-the-mill evil... , former prime minister of Afghanistan, said in an online statement.
"After Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Leb, Tehran has now started interfering in Yemen, it is supporting the anti-Moslem, apostate troops," he added.
Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin first emerged as part of the anti-Soviet mujahideen alliance in the 1980s which was bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and the United States, and coordinated by Pak intelligence.
[RFE/RL] The Afghan Taliban unexpectedly published a biography of Mullah Omar this week to mark his 19th year at the helm. Published on the militant group's website on April 5 in four languages, the 5,000-word document gives a surprisingly detailed account of the reclusive leader's daily activities and even details of his family and personal life.
It also seeks to clarify disputed facts about Omar, who has not appeared in public since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and to dispel rumors of his demise.
BOSSASO, Somalia -- Yemen crisis spurred smuggling of arms consignment into Somalia’s northeastern state of Puntland according to multiple independent sources, Garowe Online reports.
They needed an excuse?
GO learned that Yemeni businessmen clinched agreements with Somali arms dealers to sell weaponry on markets, already prompting concerns over the consequence of the damaging move by Puntland government officials.
Sources who spoke to GO said, first consignment was spotted in Bari coastal towns where Yemenis on dhows have long traded on catches in territorial waters. Armed conflict experts told GO that the flood of illegal weapons from Yemen could have adverse effect on regional security.
The arms or the thugs holding them?
Presidential spokesman Abdullahi Quranjecel said on VOA Somali service that Puntland will be keeping vigil on Somalis fleeing from Yemen.
You don't need a vigil, you need to jug them -- or send them back to Yemen...
Undisclosed number of convicted Somali pirates was freed in an attack on prison by Al Qaeda in the port city of Mukallah on Friday.
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04/09/2015 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Kenya has suspended a series of bank accounts suspected to be linked to financing terrorism, days after the university massacre of almost 150 people by Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab, the treasury said Wednesday.
"Actions taken are consistent with the international law on financing terrorism.... we produced a list of persons and entities who may have been involved in facilitating terrorism activities," said top treasury official Kamau Thugge.
"There will be intensive investigations to be able to establish whether indeed they were involved."
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday warned Shabaab fighters his government will respond to their killing of almost 150 students in the "severest way" possible, with warplanes on Monday attacking Islamist bases in southern Somalia.
But Kenyatta also warned that the criminal masterminds behind last Thursday's attack were inside Kenya, not Somalia.
"The planners and financiers of this brutality are deeply embedded in our communities," he said.
"We will not allow them to continue their lives as normal, the full force of the law will be brought to bear with even greater intensity that has been the case in previous years."
The treasury have given no details on the exact accounts frozen.
However, the man who has no enemies isn't anybody and has never done anything... there are huge flows of money both ways between the neighbouring nations, for trade and business, as well as in lifeline remittances to war-torn Somalia from relatives in the region.
With no formal banking system in the impoverished country, diaspora Somalis turn to money transfer services to send money back home support their families, sending some $1.3 billion (1.1 billion euros) each year, dwarfing foreign aid.
The day-long seige on Garissa University, situated near the border with Somalia, claimed 148 lives, including 142 students, three coppers and three soldiers.
The massacre was Kenya's deadliest attack since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi.
[AnNahar] Warring forces in the Central African Republic have agreed to a ceasefire deal after months of negotiations mediated by Kenya, Nairobi announced on Wednesday.
The deal was signed between Joachim Kokate, a representative of the mainly Christian anti-balaka rebels, and ex-president Michel Djotodia of the predominantly Moslem ex-Seleka ...a 'mainly' Moslem rebel force in the Central African Republic that overthrew the govt, imposed a regime of rapine and looting on the country's non-Moslem population, and was then tossed by France. They still exist, getting funding and weapons from somewhere or other, licking their wounds, complaining about the oppression of Moslems, and occasionally raping and looting someone... movement, the Kenyan presidency said in a statement.
"There will be many who will try to bring divisions amongst you for their personal benefit," President Uhuru Kenyatta said in the statement.
But he praised the "spirit of brotherhood" the parties had demonstrated.
An earlier ceasefire deal in January had called for the replacement of CAR's interim government led by President Catherine Samba-Panza and was never recognized by Bangui.
Samba-Panza has not been part of the grinding of the peace processor initiated by Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso.
The January accord was also rejected by the 10-member Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC).
Since then the rival sides in the Central African Republic have agreed to recognize the transitional authorities.
The Central African Republic is struggling to recover from a 2013 coup that ousted president Francois Bozize and plunged the impoverished, landlocked country into a spiral of violence pitting the country's Christian and Moslem populations against each other.
The Seleka militia seized power in March 2013 and put rebel leader Djotodia in power, making him the country's first Moslem president.
Djotodia stepped down in January 2014 under strong international pressure for his failure to rein in the rogue ex-rebels who relentlessly murdered, raped and stole from civilians.
In response, largely Christian communities formed "anti-balaka" -- or anti-machete -- vigilante forces who hunted down Moslems in Dire Revenge attacks.
Many critics have viewed the Nairobi talks with skepticism and questioned the ability of the groups to enforce any deal on the ground.
[AnNahar] Al-Qaeda is offering a bounty of gold for the killing or capture of Yemen's ex-president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... and Shiite rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Huthi, in a message posted online Wednesday.
The Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000... (AQAP), classified by the United States as the network's deadliest franchise, said the two men were "heads of evil."
"In support of the jihad of our Moslem brothers in Yemen," AQAP said it was offering a "reward of 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of gold to whoever kills or captures" Saleh or Huthi.
It posted the pictures of both leaders, who belong to the Zaidi sect of Shiite Islam -- a minority in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... where almost 70 percent of the population is Sunni.
The offer came as a Saudi-led coalition of nine Arab, mostly Sunni states, completed its second week of air strikes against Shiite Houthis and their allies, troops loyal to Saleh.
Huthi is believed to be based in the northern Shiite stronghold of Saada. But the whereabouts of Saleh, three years after he resigned following an Arab Spring-inspired uprising, remain unknown.
As fighting rages on the ground between rebels and forces of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, AQAP last week seized much of Hadramawt scenic provincial capital Mukalla in southeastern Yemen.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/09/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Ah, the old 'lead bars spray painted with gold paint' trick...
[Tolo News] The Red Thingy warned of a "catastrophic" situation in Yemen's main southern city Aden, as forces loyal to the president battled Iran-backed Iranian catspaws in the streets.
The Houthis and their allies made a new push on a port in the central Mualla district of the city, but were forced back by militia supporting President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, witnesses said.
Naval forces of the Saudi-led coalition, which has carried out nearly two weeks of air strikes in support of Hadi, shelled rebel positions across the city, the witnesses said, though the coalition denied launching a naval combat operation.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/09/2015 00:00 ||
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#4
I'm sure the rich of the Gulf and oil will be rushing aid to their brethren as we talk. See - PA gets a $100 million USD from our allies in Qatar (above)(Do I need to put a /sarc on that?)
Two pairs of B-52H Stratofortress bombers, from Barksdale AFB and from Minot AFB, streaked north last week on a long-range exercise dubbed "Polar Growl." One set of bombers would end up over the far reaches of the North Sea, while the other would cruise high above the Polar Icecap, both areas where Putin's Russia is increasing its presence. This doesn't seem like a coincidence.
The whole affair had three main objectives. First, to test and see how US Strategic Command could handle two separate missions, heading into two separate areas, at the same time. Second, to inter-operate with allied air forces and give crews familiarity with mock foreign intercepts. And third, to give B-52 crews experience navigating the extreme northerly latitudes. STRATCOM boss Admiral Cecil Haney described the value of the exercise:
#11
At night, in EMCON blackout, they would use stars and charts to navigate. There's still a need in case the GPS network is compromised or down or damaged.I hope they still teach that. Otherwise it's dead reckoning and redneck IFR (I Follow Roads)
SEOUL -- North Korea has deported a U.S. citizen as she was suspected of plotting and propagandizing against the communist regime under the name of doing humanitarian works, the North's official media said Wednesday.
How schtoopid you gotta be to go to North Korea in the first place?
The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that Suh Sandra was accused of doing anti-Pyongyang propaganda abroad with photos and videos about the North through her frequent visits under the pretense of "humanitarianism" since 1998.
"She admitted that her acts are ones that seriously insulted the absolute trust of the people of the DPRK in their leader and indelible crimes that infringed on its sovereignty in violation of its law," the KCNA said in its English dispatch.
"She apologized for her crimes and earnestly begged for pardon," it added.
The KCNA said that North Korea decided to deport her, rather than hold her custody, by taking into account her old age and the "generosity" of the North's law. But it did not elaborate on her age and the period of her recent stay in North Korea.
Last year, North Korea release three American citizens -- Jeffrey Edward Fowle, Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller -- who had been detained for years due to unspecified anti-state crimes.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2015 00:00 ||
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SEOUL -- Hwang Pyong-so, the top political officer of North Korea's military, has been promoted to a member of the politburo presidium at the country's political party, making him again the North's de facto No. 2 man, Pyongyang's media reported Wednesday.
The (North) Korean Central Television described Hwang as doubling the posts of a member of the political bureau presidium of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK)'s central committee as well as a director of the general political bureau of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in its report.
It confirmed speculation that Hwang has become the second-most powerful man in the communist regime, replacing Choe Ryong-hae, the WPK's secretary. Their rankings have changed back and forth since May last year when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un named Hwang the military's top political officer, making him the de facto No. 2 man by replacing Choe.
But Choe restored the No. 2 post in October, less than one month after making a surprise visit to South Korea to attend the closing ceremony of the Incheon Asian Games on Oct. 4 with Hwang.
So it's still a horse race...
Analysts said that Hwang's promotion might have been decided when Kim presided over a meeting in February to deal with personnel reshuffling.
The political bureau presidium of the WPK central committee is a key organ in North Korea that previously consisted of the three members -- the North's leader Kim, figurehead leader Kim Yong-nam and Choe.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
So, which one of these guys gets fed to the pack of wild dogs first?
[AnNahar] The U.S. State Department has approved the sale of almost a billion dollars' worth of advanced helicopters and missiles to Pakistain to help its counter-terror operations.
The sale, which requires approval by Congress, would see Pakistain acquire 15 Viper Attack Helicopters and 1,000 Hellfire II Missiles, along with associated hardware and training, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement released on Monday.
Identifying Pakistain as a country "vital to U.S. foreign policy and national security goals in South Asia", the agency added the proposed sale, valued at $952 million, would not adversely affect the regional balance of power.
Pakistain's principal rival in South Asia is India, a fellow nuclear power with which it has fought three wars. Washington has sought to boost its ties with New Delhi since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year.
Islamabad has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency since 2004 and has deployed about one-third of its forces in its restive tribal areas along the Afghan border where they are engaging Taliban and al-Qaeda linked myrmidons.
"This proposed sale will provide Pakistain with a precision strike, enhanced survivability aircraft that it can operate at high-altitudes," the agency said.
"By acquiring this capability, Pakistain will enhance its ability to conduct operations in North Wazoo Agency, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and other remote and mountainous areas in all-weather, day-and-night environments."
Pakistain also maintains a state of high readiness on its heavily militarized eastern border with India and provides training and assistance to Middle Eastern allies such as 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... .
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/09/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
These are the items the Paks will loan to the Saudis for the ISIS control project?
ISLAMABAD -- A Pakistani judge on Tuesday ordered that criminal charges be filed against a former CIA lawyer who oversaw its drone program and the one-time chief agency operative in Islamabad over a 2009 strike that killed two people.
Typical. Go after the field operatives and leave the leadership alone.
Former acting general counsel John A. Rizzo and ex-station chief Jonathan Bank must face charges including murder, conspiracy, terrorism and waging war against Pakistan, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court ruled. A court clerk and a lawyer involved the case, Mirza Shahzad Akbar, confirmed details of the judge's ruling. Abbottabad UBL polio vaccination surveillance operators excluded from charges of course. Their activities were approved and pre-paid.
Rizzo and Bank could not be immediately reached for comment.
First smart thing the CIA has done in a while...
The CIA will have no comment, spokesman Chris White told The Associated Press.
The legal action comes as the number of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan has fallen precipitously from their 2010 high, amid signs that the U.S. and Pakistan have been more closely cooperating on counterterrorism issues after years of tensions. It is unclear how the criminal charges will affect that cooperation, even though the defendants will almost certainly never see the inside of a Pakistani courtroom.
The only way the case could go forward is if U.S. officials cooperate with the Pakistani court, which is inconceivable given that the drone strikes were carried out under a program ordered by two successive U.S. presidents.
Don't put it past Champ...
The case recalls legal charges brought by an independent magistrate in Italy against CIA officers involved in the 2003 kidnapping of a terror suspect. Nine Americans were convicted but none returned to Italy to face the charges.
Bank was sent home from Pakistan in 2010 after his cover was blown when a Pakistani man named Kareem Khan initially threatened to sue the CIA and others for $500 million over the deaths of his 18-year-old son, Zaenullah Khan, and his brother, Asif Iqbal, in a purported Dec. 31, 2009, strike on the North Waziristan tribal region.
Wherein Zaenullah and Asif were purportedly members of a purported group of hard boyz purportedly committing purported acts of violence in purported Wazoo...
The AP and other media organizations reported at the time that three people were killed in a missile attack that day in Mir Ali in North Waziristan. Pakistani intelligence officials said then that the men were militants, but offered no proof.
The bodies were in a bit of disarray...
As the outrage over the lawsuit grew, protesters in Islamabad began to seethe carrying placards bearing Bank's name as listed in the lawsuit, urging him to leave the country. The CIA didn't move Bank, who had previously served in Baghdad, until he began receiving death threats.
The station chief's outing spurred questions at the time of whether Pakistan's spy service might have leaked the information, something the Pakistanis denied.
"No, no, certainly not!"
The disclosure didn't prevent Bank from landing another sensitive job: He became chief of the Iran operations division at CIA headquarters at Langley. He later was removed from that post after CIA officials concluded he created a hostile work environment in the division. He has since been detailed to the Pentagon's intelligence arm.
Is he creating a hostile work environment there?
Rizzo was the CIA's acting general counsel overseeing its drone program. He retired in 2010 and later wrote a book about his experiences at the agency.
The CIA's drone strike program has killed al-Qaida leaders, Pakistani Taliban fighters and other militants hiding in its tribal regions even as it has evoked anger across Pakistan over allegations of widespread civilian casualties. Since 2004, the U.S. has carried out nearly 400 suspected drone strikes in the country, according to the New America Foundation's International Security Program, which tracks the American campaign. The foundation says the last U.S. drone strike in Pakistan happened on Jan. 29 and killed at least six suspected militants.
But the number of strikes has declined from 122 in 2010 to 22 last year, the foundation shows. There have been only four reported so far this year, and many observers believe the program is winding down.
While Pakistan's civilian government often decries the strikes, U.S. officials long have said the country's military tolerates them and occasionally cooperates closely with them. At the height of tensions in 2010, protests against the drone program blocked a land route for months used by NATO forces to resupply troops in neighboring Afghanistan.
Under the judge's order, Pakistan's federal police force must file the charges against the two former CIA officials, though they've so far refused over what lawyers describe as a reluctance to upset the country's diplomatic relations with the U.S. Pakistani police officials could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday.
"Go away. Leave me alone. Please."
Pakistani lawyer Khawaja Naveed Ahmed, who is not involved in the case, said the government also could appeal the judge's order to a higher court to try and stop having to file the charges.
In a statement after the ruling, Khan said he hoped the order would help those affected by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan "get justice for the wrongs being done to them."
"Today's order is a victory for all those innocent civilians that have been killed in U.S.-led drone strikes in Pakistan," he said. "I sincerely hope that authorities now will do their job and proceed against the culprits."
I can think of at least one more drone strike needed...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
I'm sure a little cash will see to the judge being found dead from spontaneous human combustion (aided by thermite).
[AnNahar] 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 has freed more than 200 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority it held captive for months, a commander in the Kurdish peshmerga security forces said Wednesday.
"We have received 227 Yazidis, among them women and kiddies" in the northern province of Kirkuk Wednesday, Major General Westa Rasul told AFP.
"We negotiated for days with tribal sheikhs in Hawijah and were able to free the kidnapped Yazidis," Rasul said, referring to an IS-controlled town in Kirkuk.
The Yazidis were actually freed Monday in Nineveh province, northwest of Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... but did not make their way to a Kurdish-controlled territory until two days later, he said.
The mass release of the Yazidis, kidnapped in Nineveh last year, is the second of its kind, after some 200 mainly elderly people were set free in January.
A sweeping IS offensive overran large areas north and west of Baghdad last June. A second drive in August targeted areas in the north that were home to many of Iraq's minorities.
The Yazidis, who are neither Moslems nor Arabs, practice a unique faith and are considered infidels by the jihadists. They were hit harder than others.
They looked in danger of being wiped out of their ancestral land until a U.S.-led air campaign turned the tide on IS advances in northern Iraq.
The U.N. has said the IS campaign of killings, abductions and rape against Yazidis may amount to genocide.
[AnNahar] Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Wednesday the country's "next battle" is retaking Anbar province from 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.... jihadist group, his most direct statement yet on Baghdad's next target.
"Our next stand and battle will be here in the land of Anbar to completely liberate it," Abadi said from a base in the province west of Baghdad, according to his office.
Abadi announced last week that Iraqi forces retook the city of Tikrit from IS, in Baghdad's biggest victory to date over turbans who overran large parts of the country last June.
The question then became whether the next target would be Nineveh, IS' main stronghold in the country and the first province to fall last year, or Anbar, a massive desert province that stretches from the borders with Syria, Jordan and 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... to the western approach to Baghdad.
While IS has gained further ground in Anbar since June, the government's loss of territory in the province predates the jihadist offensive by six months.
Security forces dismantled the country's main anti-government protest camp near lovely provincial capital Ramadi in late 2013, sparking a crisis that saw anti-government fighters take parts of that city and all of Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperity or a really nice place to raise your kids... to its east.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/09/2015 00:00 ||
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Did't expect that, did you?
After a decade of an agreement to curb its nuclear program, Iran will need no time at all to produce an atomic bomb, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.
Netanyahu spoke just one day after President Barack Obama made a similar statement in an interview with National Public Radio about the framework deal reached in Switzerland last week between Iran and six world powers, including the US.
[AnNahar] Syria said Tuesday it is ready to offer Paleostinians its firepower to support their battle with 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 in a refugee camp devastated by festivities and aerial attacks.
The fierce festivities that began on April 1 have ceased, but regime forces continue to drop barrel bombs on the camp, which lies six kilometres (3.5 miles) from central Damascus.
In the capital, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad met with a delegation from the Paleostine Liberation Organisation headed by Ahmad Majdalani.
"Syrian authorities are ready to support the Paleostinian fighters in a number of ways, including militarily, to push IS out of the camp," said PLO official Anwar Abdul Hadi, who was at the meetings.
The "Syrian government had used all its efforts to present humanitarian and medical aid to Paleostinian refugees and ... it had helped them exit Yarmuk safely," Meqdad said.
"Syria and the PLO are determined to fight terrorism, which has reached Paleostinian camps in Syria, notably Yarmuk," he said, quoted by the official SANA news agency.
Speaking after meeting with Meqdad, Majdalani told Agence La Belle France Presse they had "agreed on the need for a unified position for the Paleostinian forces in Syria, in coordination with the Syrian government."
He said there would be continued cooperation between Syrian and Paleostinian leaders "to defeat terrorism in Yarmuk".
A meeting among Syria's Paleostinian factions is set for Wednesday to discuss a broader consensus.
If achieved, this rapprochement would be significant for Yarmuk, which had seen fierce festivities since the end of 2012 between regime forces and rebels supported by Paleostinian groups.
Most of the Paleostinian factions in Yarmuk are opposed to the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... , but IS's arrival there sounded alarm bells in Damascus as it is the closest jihadists had ever been to the capital.
Since 2012, Yarmuk has been under a nearly-impenetrable regime siege that has left about 200 people dead due to malnutrition and lack of medication, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
IS began an assault on Yarmuk last Wednesday and was initially repelled by Paleostinian fighters but has since seized large swathes of the district.
At least 39 people, among them eight civilians, have been killed in the fighting, the Observatory said.
The Britannia-based monitor said IS forces were present in the south, west and east of the camp, with Paleostinian fighters largely confined to the north.
The IS attack is just the latest blow for Yarmuk, which was once a thriving, working-class residential district of the capital, home to some 160,000 people, Syrians and Paleostinians.
So, no longer anything remotely resembling a refugee camp full of hopeless, helpless Palestinian refugees, but just inexpensive housing for those who couldn't afford to movemout.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/09/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
So, no longer anything remotely resembling a refugee camp full of hopeless, helpless Palestinian refugees, but just inexpensive housing for those who couldn't afford to move out.
#2
As I recall, g(r)omgoru, any Arab living in Mandatory Palestine at least four years prior to the day Israel was recognized by the UN in 1948 was considered a Palestinian refugee, ignoring completely his/her actual place of birth or citizenship.
My father arrived in Palestine in 1934, served in a number of capacities in Haganah, and has a pin for Haganah Haifa -- I believe for the defence of the city during the excitements of '48. Along the way he accidentally blew up Chaim Weizman's lab one evening, when his explosives got overexcited.
I know where the "Palestinian" "refugees" came from. But it is a useful link.
[AnNahar] U.S. officials insisted Tuesday that a cyber attack late last year did not compromise White House classified systems, but refused to confirm reports Russia was behind the breach.
"There was an event last year," said deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes. "We have classified systems that are secure,"
"We don't talk about where cyber intrusions originate from."
CNN earlier reported that Russia was behind the October attack that originated at the State Department, but was confirmed to have hit the White House too.
National Security Council Spokesperson Mark Stroh told AFP the report was "speculating" on who was behind an attack that affected the unclassified "Executive Office of the President" network.
The Executive Office is made up of President Barack Obama They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them... 's closest advisors, including the National Security Council and Council of Economic Advisors, as well as the Vice President's staff.
While separate from classified systems, that network is used to exchange sensitive information about White House activities, such as detailed breakdowns of the president's movements.
"Any such activity is something we take very seriously," Stroh said. "We took immediate measures to evaluate and mitigate the activity."
Obama recently ordered a new sanctions program that could block assets of U.S. and foreign hackers and of companies that seek to profit from cyber attacks.
Obama said the threat from cyber attacks was a "national emergency."
"Starting today, we're giving notice to those who pose significant threats to our security or economy," he said.
China, Russia and Iran are seen as most active in the cyber warfare arena.
#1
They only use those networks for ordering pizza and drone strikes and the like. For important (political) stuff, they have a special account that the head of Google had set up for them...
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/09/2015 7:20 Comments ||
Top||
#2
a cyber attack late last year did not compromise White House classified systems
Of course not, they were compromised long before then.
#10
If you like your health care and doctor, you can keep your health care and doctor. I wouldn't believe the WH on anything. If they said the sun was shining, I'd check on it to see if it were raining.
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.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
[RFE/RL] The Afghan Taliban unexpectedly published a 
BOSSASO, Somalia -- Yemen crisis spurred smuggling of arms consignment into Somalia’s northeastern state of Puntland according to multiple independent sources, Garowe Online reports.
.png)
Wazoo
ISLAMABAD -- A Pakistani judge on Tuesday ordered that criminal charges be filed against a former CIA lawyer who oversaw its drone program and the one-time chief agency operative in Islamabad over a 2009 strike that killed two people.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[AnNahar] U.S. officials insisted Tuesday that a cyber attack late last year did not compromise White House classified systems, but refused to confirm reports Russia was behind the breach.
