ROE changing?
[FoxNews] Border Patrol agents patrolling the Rio Grande Valley Sector were fired upon from across the Mexican border on Wednesday, multiple law enforcement sources told Fox News.
The Special Operations Group, part of Border Patrol Tactical Operations (BORTAC), were shot at from beyond the border, and then returned fire – nobody on either side was hit.
In a statement to Fox News, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed that agents responded to a report of suspected migrants near Fronton. The statement also confirmed that the incident is being reviewed by both the FBI and CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
Fox is told that the Mexican military had engaged with cartel members in a shootout on the Mexican side, at which point a man fled and tried to cross into the U.S. via a nearby river. When a BORTAC agent jumped into the water to rescue him, the agent was fired upon.
It occurred in the same area where Texas National Guard members were shot at from Mexico just last month. The suspected shooters were believed to be gunmen from a drug cartel, but it was not clear. No National Guard members were hurt.
It is also where Fox News personally witnessed tracer fire from a cartel machine gun coming into U.S. territory.
That area in Roma is viewed as cartel land and is where the Gulf cartel and Cartel Del Noreste fight for control of the city in Mexico across from Roma – Ciudad Miguel Aleman.
Heavily armed groups are becoming a more common sight along the Texas-Mexico border, authorities said. Last month, Texas Department of Public Safety officials told Fox News that suspected cartel members involved in human smuggling were wearing tactical gear and armed with AK-47s while taunting National Guard soldiers across the Rio Grande.
Mexican cartels have been known to commit acts of violence on migrants traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is rare for them to confront American law enforcement or military troops.
There were more than 178.840 migrant encounters in December, and Republican lawmakers have warned that the continuing crisis at the southern border is only serving to encourage cartels and criminal organizations that facilitate much of the human smuggling, trafficking and the drug trade at the border.
#4
There was a time, in the distant past of the 1950s I believe, when entering the sovereign territory of the United States illegally was a felony, and failure to stop when confronted by a Border Patrol agent could be grounds for the use of deadly force.
Fast forward to the late 80s, and it had changed to essentially make enforcement a form of tackle football. We have been overrun by millions of people, many nice enough, but most of whom essentially want to enjoy the better life America provided by just sneaking their way in. Far too often bringing ignorance, crime, poverty, disease and frankly a demand for services and welfare from our collective wallets. Not content to dishonestly share in the gift of our national prosperity, created by the genius of our founders, they send billions of dollars back to their native states to support families ther, removing that commerce from our own economy. Called remittances, along with the drug trade, it is the largest sector of the Mexican economy for example. There was a time when our prosperity was so great and our treasures so vast this was tolerable. That time has long passed!
It now an epidemic you see everywhere, but especially in the hospital emergency rooms and in the shifted cost of indigent healthcare as a form of hidden tax, making healthcare enormously expensive. I remember reading how a General Motors Senior Executive one described GM as a Healthcare Network that made automobiles.
The breaking point has been reached and the policies of this administration represent criminal malfeasance at the highest levels. This must stop...
#5
The law is still on the books. It's one thing to ignore the law, it's another to aid and abet those breaking the law. That is obstruction of justice. I look forward to the tribunals.
A Deputy Commander of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), Mallam Ibrahim Maliya Saidu has died after his patrol vehicle rammed onto a planted Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) while on duty along Biu -Mandaragirau- Damboa -Maiduguri Road axis of Borno State.
The deceased was said to have been very supportive in the fight against Boko Haram/ISWAP.
The incident took place between Biu- Mandaragirau communities on Wednesday afternoon. It occurred about 40km from Biu council area also caused various degrees of injury to other occupants of the patrol vehicle.
The road had remained closed for motorists and passengers for many years due to activities of insurgency, even though there are some villages still occupied by the civilian populace, especially within the Biu local government area of the state.
The Deputy Governor of the state, who hails from Biu, Umar Usman Kadafur, in an interview, described the death of Maliya Saidu as a great loss in the fight against Boko Haram.
He praised the deceased for his dedication and commitment towards restoring peace in the state.
Since the death of JAS leader, Abubakar Shekau, ISWAP has been consolidating its grip in locations around Lake Chad.
In 2021, it appointed Wali Sani Shuwaram, a 45-year-old as the new leader (Wali) of ISWAP in Lake Chad.
The terror group has caused over 100,000 deaths and displaced millions of people mainly in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states.
Bandits on Thursday morning stormed Daddara village in the Jibia Local Government Area of Katsina State where they killed six people, including the village head.
The assailants also abducted five other residents, Daily Trust reports.
Katsina and other North-West states are being terrorised by bandits and other criminals.
Similarly, in August 2021, some bandits attacked villages in Musawa and Matazu local government areas of Katsina State, killing a village head and some others, while several houses were burnt.
They stole hundreds of animals and burnt down some houses, and then proceeded to Dugul village where they killed the village head, Mallam Rabiu and four others.
A Nigerian soldier was killed on Wednesday after being forced into a burning military vehicle in the southeastern part of the country, an official told Peoples Gazette.
The soldier, whose identity has been withheld to give military authorities enough time to convey the news to his loved ones, was on a patrol with his colleagues in Edema, Ebonyi, when they were ambushed by yet-unidentified gunmen.
A military source said the assailants then set the soldiers’ patrol truck alight and pushed the slain officer into the raging inferno. Charred remains of his body and the vehicle were shared amongst service members on Thursday afternoon.
Two other soldiers who took part in the patrol were still missing in action as of Thursday afternoon, the source said under anonymity because the military was still evaluating the situation.
Nigerian troops have faced pushback from residents in Ebonyi and other states across the South-East after repeated attacks on the civilian population in the region. The military said the campaign was aimed at rooting out those responsible for violent attacks believed to have stemmed from the ongoing separatist agitation.
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has repeatedly denied ties to the attacks, but federal authorities said its members were linked to the violence and arrested.
The group’s leader Nnamdi Kanu was abducted by Nigerian authorities from Kenya in June 2021 and has remained in the custody of the Nigerian government in Abuja.
Shafaq News / On Thursday, the security forces foiled an attack targeting the Global Coalition in southern Iraq.
A security source told Shafaq News Agency that the Iraqi forces had found an explosive device on the highway west of the city of Nasiriyah that was prepared to target the Global Coalition convoys.
No causality was reported.
Earlier, the Iraqi authorities issued warnings of repeated targeting of foreign forces and diplomatic missions in the country.
On January 5, the Iraqi parliament voted by the majority to end the foreign military presence on the country's territory, following the killing of the Iranian Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy head Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, in an American airstrike near Baghdad International Airport.
Washington accuses armed Iraqi factions linked to Iran of being behind the attacks.
[IsraelTimes] Prosecutors say suspect was persuaded to drive two button men near Homesh outpost, where they killed Yehuda Dimentman in December
Military prosecutors on Thursday filed an indictment against a Paleostinian minor accused in the killing of yeshiva student Yehuda Dimentman last year.
According to the Shin Bet security agency, a cell belonging to the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
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[BenarNews] Security forces have killed two Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... -linked turban suspects and captured two others during a clash in the southern Philippines, the military said Thursday.
The shootout broke out when government troops ran into a unit of the Daulah Islamiyah-Maute Group (DI-MG)
...that branch of ISIS in the Philippines founded by two brothers of the Maute family who helped lead the siege of Marawi City in 2017 under Abu Sayyaf/ISIS-Philippines head Isnilon Hapilon. All three were killed there, but their followers carried on under the Maute name...
while on patrol Wednesday in Lumbac, a village in the town of Balabagan in Lanao del Sur province, the military’s Western Mindanao Command (WestMinCom) said.
"Based on the reports from the ground, Marine troops were conducting focused military operations when they chanced upon the group of Polo Alim, a Daulah Islamiyah-Maute Group member," said Lt. Gen. Alfredo Rosario Jr., the commander of WestMinCom.
"A firefight ensued after which [the] enemy withdrew, leaving behind the dead body of one of their slain comrades," he said, adding that Alim escaped but two others were caught.
The military identified the slain fighter as Saipoden Bangka Ayok and the two captured suspects as Datu Saida Abikan and Alimusa Ayon Bagol.
Alim is believed to be a commander of the DI-Maute Group, which in 2017 made up the majority of the Filipino Lions of Islam who took over the southern city of Marawi during a five-month siege.
Maj. Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of the Joint Task Force Central and 6th Division, confirmed that another DI-MG member was killed during the clash.
"The fleeing enemies brought along with them the remains of the other slain comrade," Uy said in a statement.
Four marines were maimed and brought to a hospital for treatment, he said. They are believed to be in a stable condition, he added.
Police operatives and marines who conducted a clearing operation said they recovered assorted weapons left behind by the turbans, including high-powered rifles and a grenade launcher. They also seized "war materials" from a shallow bunker where the button men were believed to have holed up, the military said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the buffalo wallow, Standing Buffalo drew a bead on his old enemy and squeezed the trigger... military intelligence officials earlier told BenarNews that a few IS Lions of Islam who had beat feet from troops in Marawi in 2017 were in the process of rebuilding their ranks.
However, denial ain't just a river in Egypt... recent military victories in the field have disrupted their command structure, with the overall leader of Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan’s group under assault farther south on Jolo Island, officials added.
Sawadjaan himself may have been killed in a clash in 2020, but the military could not confirm his death because no body was found. Philippine officials accuse him of orchestrating a suicide kaboom of a Catholic church in Jolo in 2019 that left 23 dead, including an Indonesian couple who were the bombers.
The following year, his nephew, Mundi Sawadjaan, criminal masterminded another bombing on Jolo that left 14 dead.
[Rudaw] Ottoman Turkish drones targeted a vehicle transporting members of the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) in the Syrian border village of Kharza, al-Darbasiyah, on Thursday. One woman was killed and the others, including the driver, are at death's door according to a rights monitor. The injured were reportedly transferred to a hospital in Qamishli.
Shortly before the attack on the vehicles, reports had emerged stating that a kaboom struck a Ottoman Turkish vehicle on the Ottoman Turkish side of the border, opposite al-Darbasiyah. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), ambulances were seen rushing towards the site of the earth-shattering kaboom, indicating that casualties may have been inflicted.
The latest developments come after Tuesday’s intense Ottoman Turkish aerial bombardment targeting the PKK and YPG in both Iraq and Syria.
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – On Thursday, the Turkish forces and the Turkish-backed opposition factions bombed the village of Qaramel in Shahba area in the northern countryside of Aleppo, northern Syria.
An elementary school in the village was hit with eight rocket-propelled grenades by Turkey, causing significant material damage.
Thousands of families, who displaced from the city of Afrin and its environs following the Turkish invasion in 2018, have been living in Shahba areas.
For two consecutive days, the Turkish army has been continuing to bombard villages in Shahba area with rocket-propelled grenades. The villages of Qaramel, Ghurata, Umm Hosh, Harbel, Smouqa, Sad Shahba, Hassya, Sheikh Issa, Tel Rifaat and Neirabiyah, located on the contact lines with Turkey, have been hit with artillery and Grad rockets by Turkish forces.
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The killed ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi aka “Hajji Abdullah” was heavily involved in the slave trade of Yezidi women from Iraq, the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) said in a statement on Thursday.
In an investigation that has been conducted sin 2015, the CIJA said their “investigations on the ground in Syria and Iraq showed his potential criminal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and other offenses such as human trafficking.”
Today, the US President, Joe Biden, announced the killing of Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi, the leader of ISIS in Idlib, northwest Syria.
The CIJA reported that Abdullah served as ISIS’s senior judge and Sharia law official in Iraq from 2014, exercising religious authority over all ISIS activity across that country.
“Hajji Abdullah had enormous power to persecute and punish ISIS enemies as far back as 2014. Not only was he one of the key architects of the Islamic State slave trade in Yezidi women and children, he personally enslaved and raped captive women,” said Nerma Jelacic, Deputy Director of CIJA.
The CIJA statement added that Hajji Abdullah was responsible for all Yezidi prisoners held in Iraq after they had been captured during ISIS Sinjar military operation in August 2014.
“He oversaw the distribution of Yezidi women, together with young children, to ISIS members as sabaya (female spoils of war).”
It pointed out that he was also responsible for the massacre of hundreds of Yezidi men and boys.
The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to furthering criminal justice efforts through investigations, in order to prevent the loss and destruction of vital evidence for the purpose of supporting prosecutorial efforts to end impunity, whether at the domestic or international level.
[Rudaw] Iraqi intelligence provided the US with "accurate" information in the overnight operation against ISIS leader in Syria, leading to his location and death, military spokesperson for Iraqi prime minister claimed late Thursday.
The US operation killed the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in Idlib, northwest Syria. The US has not acknowledged the role of any force or government in the operation but has said the country will continue working with the Kurdish forces in Syria as well as Iraqi army and Peshmerga in the fight against ISIS.
"The operation ... was carried out after the Iraqi National Intelligence Service provided the global coalition with accurate information which led to his location and killing," Yehia Rasool, military spokesperson for Iraqi PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who is also the commander-in-chief of armed forces, said in a tweet.
The killing of the high-ranking ISIS leader took place on a property in Atmeh, north of Idlib and just east of the border with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... The death of Qurayshi comes three years after US special forces killed former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a similar-style attack in 2019 in the same area.
[IsraelTimes] Jerusalem, which was familiar with al-Qurayshi because he once held ‘Israel file’ in IS, was reportedly notified in advance of raid to take him out, helped track his location
Israel reportedly provided intelligence used in the US operation to kill Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in northern Syria early Thursday.
Channel 13 news quoted foreign sources who claimed Israel assisted in the intelligence tracking of al-Qurayshi, utilizing sources inside Syria who helped create an intelligence window that allowed the US to act.
“Without the information on his location, there is obviously no possibility for such an operation to take place,” one source told Channel 13.
The Kan public broadcaster reported that the US notified Israel of the operation ahead of time, likely because of Jerusalem’s familiarity with al-Qurayshi, who held the “Israel file” in IS before taking over as the terror group’s leader in October 2019, when his predecessor was killed in a similar US raid.
Israel has not been a spectator in the global fight against IS. Former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot told the Maariv daily earlier this month that Israeli forces have killed hundreds of the group’s operatives throughout the Middle East.
Oh? Somehow I don’t recall seeing reports on this before.
The predawn raid in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province targeted al-Qurayshi, who took over as head of the group on October 31, 2019, just days after his predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died during a US raid in the same area. Biden said al-Qurayshi died, as al-Baghdadi did, by exploding a bomb that killed himself and members of his family, including women and children, as US forces approached.
US special forces landed in helicopters and assaulted a house in a rebel-held corner of Syria, clashing for two hours with gunmen, witnesses said. Residents described continuous gunfire and explosions that jolted the town of Atmeh near the Turkish border, an area dotted with camps for internally displaced people from Syria’s civil war.
First responders reported that 13 people had been killed, including six children and four women. The Pentagon said no American soldiers were injured in the operation.
Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris and senior national security aides, monitored a live feed of the operation from the White House Situation Room, according to an official.
Golly — just like President Obama and his crew, back in the day.
The operation marked a military success for the United States at an important time after setbacks elsewhere — including the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal — have led allies and opponents to conclude US power globally was weakening.
The house, surrounded by olive trees in fields outside Atmeh, was left with its top floor shattered and blood spattered inside.
President Biden, Vice President Harris and members of the President’s national security team observe the counterterrorism operation responsible for removing from the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — the leader of ISIS. pic.twitter.com/uhK75WeUme
[IsraelTimes] After US raid kills terror chief, one of world’s most wanted men, nearby residents say he lived modestly and pretended to be a taxi driver.
When the landing began, residents thought US forces were targeting an Al-Qaeda leader. US special forces have carried out several operations against high-value jihadist targets in the Idlib area in recent months. The area, the last enclave to actively oppose the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is home to more than three million people and is dominated by jihadists.
Abu Ali, a displaced Syrian who lives nearby who declined to give his full name for security reasons, said the US blasted messages to reassure residents. He heard American forces say, “Don’t worry. We’re just coming to this house… to rid you of the terrorists.”
Atme residents were shocked to hear that their neighbor in the modest two-story house surrounded by olive trees was in fact the leader of Islamic State. One of the world’s most wanted men, he was living there with his family and his sister.
Even his landlord, Mohamed al-Sheikh, was perplexed by the news. He thought he had leased the house to a cab driver. Al-Sheikh said Qurayshi had rented the house about a year ago. He lived on the ground floor with his wife and three children. His sister and her daughter lived on the first floor.
AFP correspondents shot photographs of the house that show a simple room with little more than foam mattresses, blankets, colorful clothes and children’s toys.
“This man lived here for 11 months. I did not notice anything strange about him,” Al-Sheikh said. “He would pay me rent and leave.”
One of the last times he saw his tenant, Al-Sheikh said he was picking olives near the house. Qurayshi brought him a cup of coffee and sat down for a chat. He seemed like an “easygoing, gentle and cheerful person” Al-Sheikh said. He always wore the same clothes, he said — a pair of trousers, a shirt, a vest and a headscarf.
Qurayshi’s moniker was “The Destroyer” and he had a reputation for brutality. He played a major role in the 2014 jihadist campaign to kill and enslave the Yazidis in Iraq. His cool demeanor and even temper shielded him from any suspicion.
IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – The de-escalation zone in northwest Syria witnessed on Thursday mutual shelling between Turkish-backed armed opposition factions and the Syrian government forces.
The opposition factions’ sites in the villages and towns of Kansafra, Fatterah and Kafr Oweid in Zawiya Mountain, south of Idlib, were bombed with heavy artillery by the government forces, military sources of the Syrian opposition told North Press.
The opposition factions’ sites in the villages, al-Enkawi and Khirbet al-Naqus in the Ghab Plain, west of Hama, and Tedil and Kafr Ta’al, west of Aleppo, were also bombed by the government forces, the source added.
Meanwhile, a source of the National Front for Liberation told North Press that al-Fateh al-Mubin Operations Room announced bombing the government forces’ sites in the Regiment 46, Urum al-Kubra and Quptan al-Jabal west of Aleppo with mortars and artillery shells.
Other sites of the government forces in the village of Jobas, east of Idlib, were also bombed by the opposition factions with heavy artillery.
This morning, Russian warplanes launched several air raids on the opposition factions’ sites near the village of Kafr Shalaya in Zawiya Mountain.
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.
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
