[ToloNews] The Afghan government rejected reports on Wednesday that Pakistain handed over 27 Taliban ...Arabic for students... and Haqqani network prisoners to Afghanistan last year.
"Pakistain has not handed over any members of these groups," a credible source told TOLOnews.
This comes after a front man for Pakistain’s Foreign Office Mohammad Faisal claimed on Tuesday that Pakistain handed over 27 individuals suspected of having ties to Taliban and Haqqani network to Afghan officials last year.
According to a Dawn News report, Faisal said Pakistain continues to push any suspected Afghan Taliban and Haqqani elements with a view to "prevent them from using our soil for any terrorist activity in Afghanistan."
The suspected bully boyz were handed over to Afghanistan in November 2017, he said.
Peace could not be achieved in Afghanistan in the past 17 years despite the use of all sorts of weapons and ammunition, Faisal said, adding that the Afghan conflict can only be addressed through dialogue as the military strategy has failed.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] An Egyptian court on Wednesday gave 15 people one-year suspended jail sentences over a December attack on an unlicensed Coptic Church in a village south of Cairo, judicial sources said.
The perpetrators were each fined 500 Egyptian pounds ($28) on charges of inciting sectarian strife, harming national unity and vandalizing private property. They can appeal.
Owner fined The Giza misdemeanor court also fined the owner of the building, a Christian man, 360,000 Egyptian pounds ($20,500) for turning his residency into a church without a license.
Dozens of Moslems from the village of Kafr al-Waslin attacked the church after Friday prayers on Dec. 22, smashing windows and breaking everything inside.
The Archdiocese of Atfih had applied to legalize the church, which housed worshippers for 15 years after a church building law was passed in 2016.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/01/2018 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Grieving parents testified Tuesday at the first trial stemming from the 2015 Gay Paree attacks, moving the two defendants to tears as they described losing their children to bombs and bullets.
Among them were relatives of the 90 people massacred at the Bataclan concert hall in the attacks that also targeted the national stadium, bars and restaurants.
Jawad Bendaoud and Mohammed Soumah, accused of harboring jihadists in the aftermath of the carnage that left 130 people dead, wept as a mother spoke of her pain.
"Every time I talk about my son, the tears start flowing," said a woman named Iordanka, who like others testifying requested to be identified by only her first name.
"My life is hard now," she said, describing how her 37-year-old son was shot seven times.
And she said the two suspects -- along with a third defendant on trial for failing to report the jihadists -- deserved to be "punished severely."
"It's not them who killed my son, but they more or less contributed to it," she said.
- 'Street performance' -
The court has been packed since the trial opened Wednesday, with La Belle France closely watching the proceedings as the only survivor among the 10 attackers, Salah Abdeslam, prepares to go on trial in Belgium on Monday.
Bendaoud, a 31-year-old drug pusher, is accused of renting his apartment to senior 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 Abdelhamid Abaaoud -- the suspected coordinator of the attacks -- and his accomplice Chakib Akrouh.
Anti-terror police potted Abaaoud, Akrouh and Abaaoud's cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen in a ferocious assault on Bendaoud's flat in Saint-Denis north of Gay Paree on November 18, five days after the attacks.
Bendaoud became a national laughing stock after a now-notorious television interview outside the apartment in which he insisted, "I didn't know they were terrorists."
His apparent lack of curiosity about the men, at a time when the country was on lockdown in the hunt for runaway jihadists, spawned endless jokes and internet memes.
He again told the court Monday that he did not know the men's identity, and that he would not have hosted turbans "even for 150,000 euros" ($190,000).
Bendaoud, who has a long criminal record, said he had previously rented the grubby flat to Eastern European gangsters without asking questions.
Parents expressed anger over Bendaoud's behavior during the trial, which has in recent days seemed more like a sketch show due to his theatrical antics.
On Friday he complained that most men forced to stay in their cell for as long as him would "cut off their testicles", and accused one of the lawyers of being "psychologically unhinged."
"What shocks me is the lack of seriousness with which Mr Bendaoud and Mr Soumah are taking this trial," said a man called Abdallah, who lost both of his sisters.
"Behind those who are on trial today there are families that have been obliterated."
A father called Patrick said Bendaoud was making a mockery of the trial, transforming it into a "street performance."
"I was outraged to hear laughter during these debates," he said. "I'm not laughing. I'm not here to see a show."
Co-defendant Soumah apologized to the victims last week, but Bendaoud has yet to follow suit.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/01/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
I keep picking up suppressed stories about the 90 people massacred at Bataclan, having been tortured & essentially dissected alive by the terrorists. This goes way, way beyond "losing their children to bombs & bullets". But let us not go there.
#6
As I recall they did much the same about Beslan Russia attack. First calling them 'gangsters' and 'hostage takers' and all sorts of twisted names - but never, ever, ever, Islamic. And never mention the rapes and bayonetted babies.
Least it hurt someone's feelings and incite someone who already earnestly wants us dead to want us dead.
And lets not mention the video of 9/11 victims jumping out of windows.
[IsraelTimes] Erel Margalit notes German shipyard that is building vessels for Israel was owned by family of Leb’s former defense minister
A former Knesset member claimed Wednesday that blueprints for submarines that were being built for the Israeli military were stolen in a cyberattack on a German shipyard.
In December 2016, heavy industry giant ThyssenKrupp said it fell victim to a hacking attack in which the perpetrators sought to steal company secrets, but there was no indication at the time that the plans for the Israeli submarines had been taken.
"When Israel is ordering strategic submarines from Germany, a hacker... gets into ThyssenkKrupp and is able to steal the secrets and blueprints of the submarines that were developed in Germany for Israeli use," high-tech entrepreneur Erel Margalit, a former MK, said at a cybersecurity conference in Tel Aviv.
Margalit noted that the shipyard in Kiel, Germany, that is building the ships for the Israel Navy was owned by the family of Samir Moqbel, who was Leb’s defense minister.
"We know that the boats, the Corvettes that Israel is buying to protect... its waters... are bought from a shipyard that is owned by a Lebanese family, one of which was the Lebanese defense minister, who has intimate dealings with Iran," he said. "And so you are asking yourself whether the new blueprint of Israel’s boats is in the hands of Iran."
In announcing the attack in 2016, a ThyssenKrupp front man said hackers believed to be from Southeast Asia were trying to obtain "technological know-how and research results" from the steel conglomerate. He said that the attack was over and had been repelled.
ThyssenKrupp also made headlines in Israel after it was revealed that the Iran Foreign Investment Company held a 4.5 percent stake in the Germany conglomerate.
At the Tel Aviv conference, Margalit also cautioned that "while the world is trying to delay and prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, Tehran has already become a cyberpower, with attacks against Israel, the US, 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... and others."
In any future confrontation with Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, he said, Israel will have to contend with Iranian capabilities "that we have not yet encountered in the cyber arena, especially in light of the lack of protection for civilian infrastructure in Israel."
This article starring:
Samir Moqbel
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/01/2018 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] A Ottoman Turkish court has ordered the release of Taner Kilic, chair of the Ottoman Turkish chapter of Amnesia Amnesty International.
Kilic had been in prison since June 2017, when he was jugged Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! for allegedly having links to a group accused of being behind the 2016 attempted coup.
"It's a great victory for the human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... movement in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... and it's gonna give us more strength to go on and campaign for the acquittal of everyone in this case," Andrew Gardner, senior adviser on Turkey for Amnesia Amnesty International told Al Jazeera.
"We're all incredibly happy. This is what we campaigned for, for the last eight months."
Family members and colleagues were on the way to Izmir, the city where Kilic was being held.
Authorities say Kilic was using ByLock, an encrypted communication software which the government says is used by members of a group led by Fethullah Gülen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... , a US-based, self-exiled religious leader who the government blames for last year's coup attempt.
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02/01/2018 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A Paleostinian teenager from the West Bank tossed in the slammer Book 'im, Mahmoud! by Israel was sent to the Gazoo Strip despite never having been there in her life, an NGO said Wednesday.
Israeli rights group HaMoked said the 14-year-old girl, named only as Ghada, was arrested in Jerusalem on January 13 without a permit while visiting the Israeli-controlled city.
While she is from a-Ram a few kilometres (miles) north of Jerusalem, her father is originally from Gazoo, the Paleostinian territory about 80 kilometres (some 50 miles) away that is hermetically sealed off by Israel.
HaMoked said the girl was told she would be dropped off at a checkpoint near her home but on her release on January 16 instead was taken to the Erez crossing into Gazoo.
Abir Joubran-Dakwar, HaMoked’s lawyer dealing with the case, said they had not yet received a response from Israel about when she could return.
She said Ghada had never been in Gazoo before and did not know anyone there, though she was now staying with members of her extended family.
"No one told her anything -- they told her they would send her to Qalandia (checkpoint near her home) but they sent her to Erez."
She said Ghada has epilepsy and was concerned the stress could affect her condition.
A front man for the Israel Prison Service said they were examining the case, stressing however that according to official records the girl was a Gazoo resident.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/01/2018 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... has announced a new funding package of 42.5 million euros (nearly $53m) to help the Paleostinians build their new state.
The announcement on Wednesday came as Brussels urged the US to not go it alone in any effort to make peace between Israel and the Paleostinians.
The EU warned that doing so would end in failure.
"Any framework for negotiations must be multilateral and must involve all players - all partners - that are essential to this process. A process without one or the other would simply not work, would simply not be realistic," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.
"Nothing without the United States, nothing with the United States alone," Mogherini told news hounds in Brussels.
Her comments came at an emergency meeting of an international committee coordinating Paleostinian development aid. Government ministers from Israel and Egypt, as well as the Paleostinian prime minister and a US bigwig attended the talks.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/01/2018 00:00 ||
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Next step: a stiff diplomatic note on stiff notepaper, written with the black ink, not the blue.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview Wednesday that he would have a "real problem" with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s intervention against a Kurdish militia in Syria if it turned into an outright "invasion".
"If the operation became more than fighting a potential terrorist threat on the Ottoman Turkish border and turns out to be an invasion operation, we would have a real problem with that," Macron told Le Figaro daily.
The US and La Belle France have repeatedly expressed concern over Turkey’s 12-day cross-border offensive against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... last week threatened to expand.
Terror organization Ankara views the YPG as a terror organization allied to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) inside Turkey but the US has been backing it as an ally in the fight against ISIS.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that if the operation turned into an "occupation" of parts of Syria, it would be "totally reprehensible".
His remarks came after Erdogan threatened to push further east along the Syrian-Ottoman Turkish border, until there was "no terrorist on our border leading to Iraq". He also vowed to "clean up" the YPG-held city of Manbij east of Afrin, where the US has troops.
Macron said Turkey’s operation required Europe ...also known as Moslem Lebensraum... and its allies to "have discussions and take decisions", without specifying what they might be.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/01/2018 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] An Iranian-American dual citizen and his wife have been sentenced to 27 and 16 years in jail respectively, the husband said in a letter from prison published on human rights websites.
“It means my wife and me, and every one of you dual national Zoroastrians who returned to your country to invest in the homeland you love, are always going to be in danger of losing your assets and being forced to leave the country.”
Karan Vafadari, a US citizen, and Afarin Neyssari, a US permanent resident, were arrested in July 2016. They own an art gallery, and they were first accused of hosting mixed-gender parties for foreign diplomats and possessing alcoholic drinks at home.
However, they later faced more serious charges, including “espionage”, “attempt to overthrow the regime” and “conferring to conspire against national security”, their family said in a petition in 2017.
Accusations dropped
In a letter from Evin Prison published on Tuesday by the Center for Human Rights in Iran, Vafadari said the couple were sentenced last week by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran, but the “baseless security accusations” had been dropped. He called the verdict “unjust and tyrannical.”
It was not clear what charges the couple were convicted of. Iran’s judiciary was not immediately available for comment. The couple will have 21 days to appeal the verdict.
Vafadari belongs to the Zoroastrian faith, a religious minority in Iran whose members are allowed to drink liquor discreetly in the privacy of their homes.
Targeted
Vafadari said he has been targeted by the Revolutionary Guards intelligence agency for his “international activities” in the art world, and his dual nationality.
“It means my wife and me, and every one of you dual national Zoroastrians who returned to your country to invest in the homeland you love, are always going to be in danger of losing your assets and being forced to leave the country.”
Iran does not recognize dual nationality, a position that prevents Western embassy officials from visiting such detainees. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals since 2015, mostly on spying charges, Reuters reported in November.
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02/01/2018 00:00 ||
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[LongWarJournal] The Trump Administration announced a new round of economic sanctions against terror groups in the Middle East on Wednesday, including Harakat as-Sabirin li-Nasran Filastin (The Movement of the Patient Ones for the Liberation of Palestine). As-Sabirin is an Iranian-funded splinter Shia jihadist faction that has operated in Gaza since as early as 2014. The sanctions are the latest indication that Washington is serious about going after various terror groups in the Gaza Strip.
As-Sabirin is a unique organization in Gaza in that it is overtly Shiite. The group’s leader, Hisham Salem, reportedly converted to Shiism and has instructed his followers to proselytize in the predominantly Sunni coastal enclave. Salem is a former commander in Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another beneficiary of Iranian funds. Salem broke with PIJ with the support of Iran after Tehran had a falling out with both Hamas and PIJ as a result of the Syrian civil war. As-Sabirin first appeared in Gaza in 2014 when one of its fighters died in a mysterious explosion at a weapons production facility.
Since then, as-Sabirin has attempted to establish a presence in the West Bank and launch attacks into Israel. The State Department designation says as-Sabirin fired rockets into Israel in Sept. 2015 and detonated an explosive device that targeted the IDF in Dec. 2015. In Jan. 2016, Salem announced that as-Sabirin formed cells in the West Bank, and one month later the Palestinian Authority arrested a five-man cell in Bethlehem. Salem’s Gaza home was also targeted in a bomb attack that year. He has been the subject of repeated assassination attempts.
As-Sabirin receives approximately $10 million a year in assistance from Iran. The group was spawned by Iran as a counterpoint to Hamas at a time when Tehran and the dominant Gaza terror faction were feuding. In recent years, however, relations between Iran and Hamas have improved, with some Hamas officials remarking that Iranian assistance is at pre-fallout levels. Regardless, today’s designation makes it clear that the US government still sees a significant relationship between Iran and as-Sabirin, and that it is serious about breaking up that alliance.
Posted by: 3dc ||
02/01/2018 07:31 ||
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#1
...That name sounds like a bunch of OTC medications. I swear, these people aren't even trying any more.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/01/2018 19:56 Comments ||
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[AlAhram] The US State Department placed on Wednesday two Egyptian terrorist groups, Hasm and Lewaa al-Thawra ...The Revolution Brigade, which along with Hasm (Decisiveness or Determination) is one of the fighting arms of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, established to fight back against the overthrow of President Morsi... , on its terror list, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.
The US also put the head of the Paleostinian Islamist movement Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",, Ismail Haniya, on its terror blacklist and has hit him with sanctions.
The US government also placed sanctions on Harakat al-Sabireen, a small Iran-affiliated holy warrior group that splintered from the Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... and operates in Gazoo, according to the US Secretary of State.
Goodness, that’s four branches of the Muslim Brotherhood getting sanctions all at once. Someone appears to be reading the same sources we are.
"These designations target key terrorist groups and leaders ‐ including two sponsored and directed by Iran ‐ who are threatening the stability of the Middle East, undermining the grinding of the peace processor, and attacking our allies Egypt and Israel," Tillerson said in a statement.
The Egyptian government has linked Hasm and Lewaa al-Thawra with the Moslem Brüderbund group, which is banned and designated a terrorist organization in Egypt.
Hasm and Lewaa al-Thawra have grabbed credit for several terrorist attacks in Egypt that have killed dozens of police and army personnel.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/01/2018 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[AnNahar] Grieving parents testified Tuesday at the first trial stemming from the 2015 
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world...
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
...The Revolution Brigade, which along with Hasm (Decisiveness or Determination) is one of the fighting arms of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, established to fight back against the overthrow of President Morsi...
