[KhaamaPress] The U.S. envoy for Afghan peace Zalmay Khalilzad said the U.S. government assessment reveals that the ISIS terrorist group carried out the recent deadly attacks in Afghanistan.
"The USG has assessed ISIS-K conducted the horrific attacks on a maternity ward and a funeral earlier this week in Afghanistan. ISIS has demonstrated a pattern for favoring these types of heinous attacks against civilians and is a threat to the Afghan people and to the world," Khalilzad said in a Twitter post.
Khalilzad further added "The USG has assessed ISIS-K conducted the horrific attacks on a maternity ward and a funeral earlier this week in Afghanistan. ISIS has demonstrated a pattern for favoring these types of heinous attacks against civilians and is a threat to the Afghan people and to the world."
He also added "Rather than falling into the ISIS trap and delay peace or create obstacles, Afghans must come together to crush this menace and pursue a historic peace opportunity. No more excuses. Afghans, and the world, deserve better."
This comes as the Afghan government blamed the Taliban ...Arabic for students... and ISIS groups for the deadly attacks on maternity ward in Kabul, funeral bombing in Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. and the attack on Afghan forces in Laghman ...Afghan province with a population of about 445,600, which is multi-ethnic and mostly a rural society. During the invasions of Alexander the Great, the area was known as Lampaka, wich is apparently Olde Macedonian for Laghman.The city of Mihtarlam serves as the bucolic capital of the province. The population is half Pashtun, the remainder Tadjik and Pashai. It had a repution for great wealth until it was conquered in the tenth century by Abu Mansur Sabuktigin.
He conquered it and set fire to the places in its vicinity which were inhabited by infidels, and demolishing the idol-temples, he established Islam in them, He marched and captured other cities and killed the polluted wretches, destroying the idolatrous and gratifying the Musulmans. After wounding and killing beyond all measure, his hands and those of his friends became cold in counting the value of the plundered property.
After that it was mostly notable for the production of dirt, rocks, and holy men... , ordering the Afghan forces to launch offensive operations against the bully boys.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/16/2020 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg created an uproar when in an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica on Thursday he said NATO was ready to support Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood government led by Fayez al-Sarraj, as reported by Greek City Times some hours earlier.
“NATO is ready to give its support to the government of Tripoli” as it is the “only one recognised by the UN,” he said.
According to La Repubblica, he completely ignored that the Muslim Brotherhood Government of National Accord (GNA) was founded in 2015 under a UN-led political deal, and had only a two year mandate which expired in 2017, and is directly backed by Turkey and has the support from many jihadist organisations in Libya.
Responding to a reporter’s question regarding Stoltenberg’s comments on Libya, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Gennimata said “the Secretary General of NATO is fully committed to the common positions of the Alliance, which are known to be adopted unanimously.”
...it appears that unanimity is not actually unanimous...
“The content of his recent interview in an Italian newspaper, as it was published, obviously does not express the positions of the Alliance,” he added.
“Greece has already made the necessary remarks through its Permanent Mission to NATO and has received assurances that the Secretary-General’s specific statements were not been properly transmitted,” the spokesman concluded.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman failed to question or answer why the NATO chief has not personally clarified the comments and say himself that they were taken out of context. For full clarity, Stoltenberg or an official NATO statement should be made to clarify the situation.
Turkish media had an influx of articles about what Stoltenberg allegedly said to the Italian daily.
If what Stoltenberg said is true according to La Repubblica, this would effectively mean that NATO is backing a jihadist government that aims to steal maritime space of NATO-member Greece.
Doubt still exists and only Stoltenberg or an official NATO statement on their position on Libya can bring clarity to the issue.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/16/2020 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
D.C. lobbying firms the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs are the unnamed companies in the grand jury indictment of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates.
[Breitbart] A grooming gang victim has spoken out after encountering her rapist out with a young child in a local supermarket, even though he was supposed to be deported.
The victim is said to have encountered 50-year-old Adil Khan in a branch of Asda — one of Britannia’s largest supermarket chains — in Rochdale, England, which along with Rotherham and Telford is one of the country’s most infamous hubs of grooming gang activity.
"Oh my God, he’s been in Asda. I’ve never been so scared in all my life. I feel like my heart just stopped beating," the victim told a friend after her encounter, in comments reported by the Manchester Evening News.
"She walked into an aisle and was face-to-face with him. He had a seven or eight-year-old child with him. How can he have a child in his care? She just left her trolley and ran out in tears and called me," reported Maggie Oliver, the detective-turned-whistleblower who helped to lift the lid on Britannia’s grooming gangs scandal after the authorities failed at length to do anything about the abuse — due to fears that they would be accused of "racism" for tackling the overwhelmingly Moslem, Pak-heritage abusers.
Theresa May, as Home Secretary, and her left-liberal successor Amber Rudd had both promised that a group of Rochdale predators including Khan would, as Pak dual nationals, be stripped of their British citizenship and deported.
But despite winning a series of expensive, taxpayer-funded appeals against the decision, the Home Office appeared to quietly drop their removal efforts under Sajid Javid, predecessor to the current Home Secretary, Priti Patel — who is yet to address the situation.
Khan therefore remains on the lam in the same community where he perpetrated his abuse, despite losing his British citizenship, having received only a meagre eight-year-sentence for his crimes in 2012 — only a fraction of which was actually served in jug, as is usual in the United Kingdom, with early release on licence being granted in 2016.
"These are the consequences of these sentences. These men should have had longer sentences," Ms Oliver explained.
"This is not the only incident where one of the survivors has come face-to-face with their abuser. This isn’t unique," she added.
"The government must now finally act to have these men removed from the country," commented Allen Brett, who leads Rochdale Borough Council.
"[O]nly the Home Secretary [Priti Patel] can provide further closure by fulfilling the previous promises that have been made to deport the offenders whose citizenship has been removed," he added.
The Manchester Evening News reports that the Home Office "refused" to explain why they had failed to do so, however, providing only a stock response that the department is "committed to removing foreign national offenders wherever possible [and they] should be in no doubt of our determination to remove them" — despite the fact they have clearly not done so in the case of Khan and his accomplices.
LOLGF
[Breitbart] The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has called on Hungary to release migrants kept in transit zones on the Serbian border, claiming the illegal aliens were being kept in unlawful detention.
The subject of the ECJ ruling was two border transit zones which were both closed in early March due to the spread of the Chinese coronavirus. 321 migrants were in the zones at the time of the closure.
Three weeks prior to the ECJ ruling, an expert affiliated with the EU court stated the camp in Röszke violated Freedom of Movement laws and constituted detention, Die Welt reports.
The background of the case came after legal action was launched by four asylum seekers from Iran and Afghanistan who had been rejected for asylum in Hungary, after the Hungarian authorities noted that all of them had come from safe countries such as Serbia and Bulgaria where they did not face persecution.
When Hungary attempted to send the migrants back to Serbia, the Serbian authorities rejected the migrants, and they instead stayed in the Röszke transit zone.
The transit camps on the Serbian border have been in operation since 2017 and asylum seekers are only allowed to leave their assigned areas under police supervision.
Prior to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, Hungary reported a fresh surge in migrants attempting to cross the Serbian border, releasing CCTV footage in late January showing a group of around 50 to 70 migrants trying to storm a border checkpoint at Röszke.
Just weeks later a group of around 500 migrants gathered on the Serbian border holding various signs, many of which were in English, bearing slogans such as "We are only refugees, not criminals".
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán commented on the situation at the border at the end of February, saying: "We must expect another migratory wave and mass attack on the Hungarian border fence, [and] the Hungarian border must be protected."
[IsraelTimes] Yacine Mihoub, Alex Carrimbacus plead not guilty to 2018 slaying of Mireille Knoll, which prosecution alleges was aggravated by hatred of Jews.
Two men who allegedly killed and robbed a Holocaust survivor in her Gay Paree apartment will stand trial for murder that was aggravated by anti-Semitic hatred, Gay Paree prosecutors said.
The charred body of Mireille Knoll, 85, was discovered in her apartment on March 23, 2018.
Yacine Mihoub, 28, a son of Knol’s neighbor who had known her all his life, and his friend Alex Carrimbacus, 22, were indicted Thursday. Carrimbacus has a history of psychiatric problems.
Carrimbacus had said during questioning that he and Mihoub targeted Knoll for robbery because she was Jewish, a claim denied by Mihoub. Both men have pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." , AFP reported.
Sammy Ghozlan, the head of the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism, said his group was "satisfied" with the indictment.
Ghozlan was among many critics of a 2019 court ruling that found the killer of another Jewish woman, Sarah Halimi, unfit to stand trial.
The suspected killer, Kobili Traore, was a Moslem who shouted about Allah and called Halimi, his neighbor, a "demon" as he pummeled her to death in her apartment in 2017. Halimi’s daughter said that in 2015, Traore had called the daughter "dirty Jewess" in the building’s elevator.
A judge accepted the prosecution’s position that anti-Semitism motivated Traore to kill Halimi, but found him unfit to stand trial, citing a "psychotic episode" shortly before the incident that was deemed to be caused by smoking too much marijuana. The decision was upheld on appeal.
#BREAKING EU Foreign Ministers joint statement: Turkey should avoid making threats and taking actions that damage good neighbourly relations. It should instead respect the international law, including the law of the sea, and in particular the sovereignty of all EU Member States.. pic.twitter.com/BVbgOlCYRo
[PJMedia] After disappearing in Egypt, a Coptic Christian wife and mother appeared in a video, dressed in all-black Islamic attire (niqab), saying that she had willingly converted to Islam and no longer wants anyone—her husband, children, family—to bother about her anymore.
Ranya Abd al-Masih ("servant of Christ"), 39, was a high school teacher of English in al-Minofiya, just north of Cairo. She has three daughters, the youngest about 9. On April 22, she disappeared. A few days after her family contacted state security, the aforementioned video, which is just over one minute, appeared.
In it, and in between tears, Ranya insists that she has finally and formally converted to Islam, which—"praise be to Allah"—she had been secretly following for nine years. She also adds that she took her jewelry and belongings the day she left home, and therefore it should be obvious that she disappeared of her own accord and was not kidnapped.
Her family argues that such claims are for public consumption—likely being made at gunpoint and/or even under the effects of drugs: she did not, they say, take her jewelry and belongings on the day she disappeared; moreover, it is clear in the video that she is surrounded by and getting cues from others.
On May 1, the Coptic Orthodox Christian Church in al-Minofiya added its voice to the family’s by issuing a statement asking President Sisi to intervene and prompt state security "to return our daughter Ranya Abd al-Masih, who suddenly disappeared from her home under unknown circumstances, and whose three young daughters are heartbroken at her absence, as is her husband and her entire family."
"We’ve no problem for her to go [to Islam] of her own free will—based on conviction—but not as a person who is threatened and coerced into doing so," her brother, Remon, said in a full-length interview. "She was definitely kidnapped and forced to make that video, due to threats against her or her husband and children if she refused to comply." He said the idea that she had "secretly" embraced Islam was ludicrous.
Remon, her brother, insists that this seems to be an elaborate scheme perpetrated by the "Moslem Brüderbund"—the politically correct way of indicating any "Moslem radical" in Egypt, considering the government’s open conflict with the Brotherhood. In reality, and based on ample precedent, if any group is responsible, it is likely the Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... , with implicit help from security organs.
Remon himself made this clear by lambasting state security, which, to date, has been unresponsive to the family’s pleas, citing the video as "proof" of no wrongdoing. "I am calling on President Sisi and every other official," he said; "We need to see and speak with her; but nobody cares and nobody wants to help. Is she even alive?"
If Ranya had in fact converted of her own will, well and good, her brother and family emphasized; however, it is only right that they be allowed to independently confirm this on their own—not least since the abduction of Coptic Christian women and girls who later appear on video as converting to Islam of their own will is an ongoing phenomenon in Egypt; this is to say nothing of the straightforward kidnapping or luring of Coptic women (four in the same month that Ranya "converted").
"We want to take care of our women and kiddies. They will no longer be able to leave the house!" Ranya’s brother lamented, adding that this incident is establishing a bad precedent: "Whoever steps out can be kidnapped and no one will ever be able to reach them.... What will we do about our Coptic mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters? We are in an era when such things should not happen. "
"If you can hear me, Ranya, know that we will never abandon you until we see you," her brother concluded: "Because you are a victim of a terror."
[IsraelTimes] An ancient shrine revered by Iranian Jews as the burial place of the biblical Esther and Mordechai was reportedly set on fire overnight, US Jewish groups said Friday.
The Simon Weisenthal Center human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... organization said it had received confirmation of the arson attack from Iranian activists.
Continued on Page 49
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.
...Arabic for 
