Will there be consequences, or is Mr. Boehler all talk?
[IsraelTimes] US President Donald Trump’s hostage envoy Adam Boehler says he is “very disappointed” in Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani for failing to advance the release of Israeli-Russian researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov, who was kidnapped in Iraq two years ago.
“Iraq is a tough country to run,” he writes on X. “That said, I am very disappointed in the Prime Minister who, so far, seems more interested in words than actions. I hope this changes IMMEDIATELY and we can bring Princeton Student Elizabeth Tsurkov home from the hands of Kata’ib Hezbollah.”
Last month, three sources familiar with the matter said Boehler had traveled to Iraq to push for Tsurkov’s release.
“The Trump Administration has done more in just a few weeks than the previous administration did in almost two years,” Emma Tsurkov, Elizabeth’s sister, told Reuters in March.
Normalizing the Jewish presence, especially important during one of the three ancient, Biblical holidays of pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the harvests: Passover (barley), Shavuot (wheat) and Sukkot (fruit).
[IsraelTimes] Police today allowed a group of some 180 Jews to ascend the Temple Mount, a first, Haaretz reports. Groups are usually smaller, around 30 at a time.
The newspaper notes that the move joins a broader departure from the traditional status quo at the Temple Mount in recent years, which has seen authorities allow previously forbidden Jewish worship at the site.
Police tell Haaretz that they “secured visits to the Temple Mount as usual, in accordance with visitation rules and the number of visitors. The number of people allowed in each group is determined based on various circumstances, including the overall number of visitors at the site and, in particular, police’s ability to secure and maintain public order for the group.”
[HodhodYemenNews] US warplanes launched a barrage of 15 Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on the Raghwan and Madghal districts 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... ’s northeastern Ma’rib governorate. This latest aggression marks a significant uptick in hostilities as US forces also targeted Kamaran Island, located off Yemen’s western coast in the Red Sea.
Reports indicate that overnight strikes resumed with three targeted raids in the al-Jahaf and al-Qadir areas within al-Jawf Governorate. Early Tuesday, additional assaults were reported in Ma’rib Governorate, according to our correspondent on the ground.
The weekend saw intense activity as US warplanes struck the al-Sawari ceramics factory west of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, resulting in a tragic toll of 32 casualties, comprising both fatalities and injuries, as confirmed by Yemen’s Ministry of Health.
The ministry’s spokesperson, Anis al-Asbahi, revealed alarming figures, stating that US airstrikes across Yemen have led to 338 civilian casualties since mid-March, including women and kiddies. Strikes conducted since March 16 alone have resulted in at least 117 civilian deaths and 221 injuries.
This surge in airstrikes follows a series of operations on April 13, which targeted central and northern Yemen, including the governorates of al-Bayda and Saada. In another significant assault, three airstrikes were executed in the al-Sahleen area of the al-Salem subdistrict in Kitaf District, located near Yemen’s northern border—an area that has frequently borne the brunt of US military aggression.
[HodhodYemenNews] An unidentified drone, believed to be American, carried out a double strike on two vehicles in Hadhramaut province, which is under the Saudi-led coalition’s control in eastern Yemen.
Media sources reported that the attack occurred Sunday afternoon on the Al-Abr road. Two missiles directly hit the first vehicle, killing a person inside and completely charring his body. The person’s identity has not yet been determined.
The sources explained that the second car, which was carrying three people, managed to flee towards the Al-Abr-Shabwa Junction, and they were likely to belong to Al-Qaeda.
Another airstrike targeted a person who was walking on foot near one of the hangars in the Al-Amiriyah area after Al-Abr Market towards Old Al-Abr, which led to his immediate death without his identity being identified, according to the sources.
The sources indicated that the area extending from across Shabwah to Bin Aifan Junction has witnessed intense activity of unidentified drones during the past days, which reinforces doubts about the possibility of the United States’ involvement in these operations.
This attack follows a similar attack on Saturday that targeted a car in Ataq, the capital of Shabwah province. The attack resulted in the burning and destruction of the vehicle and the charring of the body of an unidentified person, amidst a continued secrecy surrounding the parties carrying out the raids in these areas.
As reported by the New York Times of Israel, so it might be true. Or it might not. So read with a large grain of salt, dear Reader.
Facing growing protests from reservists calling for an end to the war, the military is quietly reducing its reliance on reserve forces in Gaza, Haaretz reports.
The newspaper cites unnamed military sources, who say the IDF has begun limiting the number of call-up orders issued as well as withdrawing some reservists from active combat zones.
It says senior officers are warning that morale issues and a lack of faith in the mission among reservists could jeopardize key military operations.
Haaretz says the army’s decision to remove Air Force reservists who signed a protest letter demanding an end to the war was meant to deter further such cases but seems to have had the opposite effect, with a growing number of reservists throughout the military joining similar protests.
The report says there is mounting pressure within the military to brief the security cabinet on the full scope of the crisis. Sources say the decision to discipline the airmen came under political pressure and that the situation is more serious than what has been publicly acknowledged.
[IsraelTimes] IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir met with troops in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood earlier today, telling them that the military will not allow political arguments within its ranks, amid mounting letters signed by reservists and veterans calling for a hostage deal with Hamas even if such a deal comes at the cost of ending the war.
“The IDF will continue to operate in a dignified manner and will not allow disputes to penetrate its ranks. Reserve soldiers have a right to express opinions when not in active reserve service, as civilians, on any subject, and in a democratic manner,” Zamir says to reservists of the Jerusalem Brigade.
“There are enough methods and places for civilian protests. Attempting to drag in the IDF, including speaking as a group in the name of a military unit, is unacceptable, and we will not allow it,” he says.
“The IDF appreciates the reserve personnel. The IDF is made up of a variety of people and opinions that work together to achieve the mission and security. The mission is carried out together,” Zamir continues.
“The goal of the fighting in Gaza is first and foremost the defense of the country, returning the hostages, and defeating Hamas,” Zamir adds.
During an assessment with Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor and the commander of the 252nd Division, Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, in Shejaiya, Zamir approved operational plans, the military says.
[IsraelTimes] The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations says that it has received a report of an incident 100 nautical miles east of Yemen’s Aden, the first report by the agency in the area in months.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF says it foiled an attempt to smuggle four assault rifles into Israel from Egypt earlier today using a drone.
The drone was identified crossing the border from Egypt into Israel before it was downed by troops.
The drone and guns were handed over to the police for further investigation.
In recent months, there have been frequent attempts to bring weapons and drugs over the Egyptian border using drones. There have also been attempts to smuggle similar contraband from Israel into Gaza using drones.
[HodhodYemen ...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... News] Abu Omar Riyad al-Nahdi, a former leader in al-Qaeda and a prominent associate of the head of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS) in Iraq, has officially launched a new political movement called "Current of Change and Liberation" in the city of Seiyun, Hadhramaut Valley, well-informed sources reported.
The sources confirmed that al-Nahdi, who defected from the takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... organization in 2018, was previously known by "Rafiq al-Shar’a" due to his close ties with Ahmed al-Shar’a (Abu Mohammed al-Julani), the leader of HTS—a The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... -backed faction that later declared itself the governing authority in Syria after Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... ’s departure from power.
The new movement has reportedly gained significant traction in the valley’s districts, coinciding with humanitarian activities carried out by the Ottoman TurkishRed Islamic Thingy (Hilal al-Ahmar al-Turki) in recent years, facilitated by leaders of al-Islah Party (Yemen’s Moslem Brüderbund affiliate).
Notably, al-Nahdi previously fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq before announcing his defection and undergoing political training, raising questions about his true objectives, regional affiliations, and activities under a political cover in Hadhramaut’s oil-rich areas. These regions are controlled by factions of the First Military District, which is loyal to Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a leading figure in al-Islah.
Observers view the announcement of this movement in Seiyun as a clear message from al-Islah to curb the ambitions of the UAE-backed Southern Translation Council (STC), which has failed since August 2022 to fully control Hadhramaut Valley after declaring "Operation Arrows of the East."
Saudi-led forces blocked the STC’s military advances after the factions seized al-Islah’s camps in Shabwa and Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... .
This comes at a time when Hadhramaut Governorate is witnessing intense political conflicts between the UAE and Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... , carried out through local proxies such as the STC, the Hadhramaut Tribes Alliance, and al-Jami’, the latter two being headed by tribal sheikh Amr bin Habrish al-Ali, who is aligned with Saudi Arabia. His armed forces took control of the oil fields in July of last year and are now moving to encircle the coastal districts controlled by UAE-backed factions, including al-Rayyan Airport and the al-Dhaba oil terminal, which have been under Emirati control since 2016.
[IsraelTimes] Social media pioneers have circulated a picture of a Ottoman Turkish missile used by the Israeli occupation in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... The photo showed the words "MADE BY TURKEY — 2004,"
…back when Israel and Turkey were still pals. Bet nothing like that has been found date-stamped in the last five years…
which sparked shock among activists, considering that The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... , despite its declaration of solidarity with Gaza, is actually participating by supplying weapons to Israel due to military and trade relations.
Comments criticizing Turkey’s contradiction in its support for Gaza poured in on social media.
The "Gaza Now" platform published the photo, criticizing the positions of Turkey, which declares its support for Gaza while supplying Israel with missiles used against the people of Gaza.
[HodhodYemenNews] The oil-rich Hadhramaut province in eastern 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... , affected by the conflict between Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... and the UAE, is witnessing a major escalation.
The UAE-backed Transitional Council (STC) is taking military and civilian action in response to the activity of the Saudi-backed Hadhramaut Tribal Alliance, which has declared "self-rule."
The Islah Party also entered the front line through the "Change and Liberation Movement," led by a dissident leader from al-Qaeda.
A local source reported that the STC is planning a huge event on April 24 to curb hard boy elements under political cover.
Observers expect Hadhramaut to become an arena for regional conflict between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, given the complexity of the crisis due to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... ’s intervention to support local factions. They believe that the confrontation may expand to include armed factions in the First and Second Military Regions.
[HodhodYemenNews] Satellite imagery have shown that the United Arab Emirates has deployed advanced Israeli multi-mission radar systems, the ELM-2084 3D AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array), Radar to northeastern Somalia, specifically to the Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... Maritime Headquarters adjacent to the UAE-operated Bosaso Air Base.
The emergence of the satellite imagery comes amid accusations that the UAE has been conducting suspicious military flights to Somaliland ...Republic of Somaliland is an unrecognised sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, recognised internationally as a de jure part of Somalia. It is located in the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden with approximately 5.7 million residents as of 2021. The capital and largest city is Hargeisa. The government regards itself as the successor state to British Somaliland, which united from 1960 to 1991 with the Trust Territory of Somaliland (the former Italian Somaliland) to form the Somali Republic. Under the Siad Barre regime, Somaliadestroyed ninety percent of Hargeisa Per international law, once you're in, you gotta stay in, no matter how bad it smells.... in recent months.
The UAE aims to use these Israeli radars for early warning and surveillance, to track ballistic missiles and drones launched by 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... i forces toward Israel and Israeli ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
These attacks are part of Yemen’s support and backing operations in solidarity with the people of Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... The UAE has taken responsibility for establishing a military base for the Zionist entity and for deploying its defensive military technology in Somaliland in mid-2024, in an effort to reduce Yemeni military operations against Israel.
It is worth noting that the "ELM-2084" system is produced by the Israeli company "Elta," a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and is widely used in air defense systems, including the Iron Dome system.
In recent years, Abu Dhabi has succeeded in persuading local authorities in Somaliland of the need to establish an Israeli military base in exchange for Israel working toward official recognition of the so-called "Republic of Somaliland," to secure an Israeli military presence overlooking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden.
The revelation of the deployment of Israeli radar systems in Somaliland coincides with new claims made by US President Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... on Saturday, in which he "warned of the Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... infiltration" into Somalia.
He indicated that he had granted US forces the freedom to act in response to threats in Somalia — a statement that signals a possible American inclination to expand the scope of military confrontations in the Horn of Africa.
Not just Brussels or Belgium, but all of Moslem-colonized Europe. Not to mention all the non-Moslem historical facts these colonists refuse to allow to be taught, often with violence or the threat thereof, to terrorize the conquered.
[IsraelTimes] Educators struggle to teach about genocide of six million Jews, feel helpless against pushback; some students avoid showing up for trips to Jewish museum, synagogues
A few months ago in Brussels, Arthur Langerman was telling high school pupils about losing family members in the Holocaust and escaping a Nazi raid himself, when he was cut short by two Moslem teens wanting to talk about Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... "It’s a genocide, and it’s been happening for 75 years," interjected one of the young women, triggering a heated back-and-forth about the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict.
For their history teacher, Olivier Blairon, the scene sums up how hard it is to teach the genocide of six million Jews during World War II since the devastating Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... -led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, that triggered the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
Blairon works in a large high school in the Brussels district of Koekelberg, home to a large community of Moroccan descent, where he said many students "identify with the violence suffered by Gazooks."
"I have heard antisemitic remarks," Blairon said. "Some of my students mix things up" by equating all Jews with Israel, he said. Some are also deliberately "provocative."
"So I take the time to unpick their preconceptions," he said.
Blairon’s students made up the lion’s share of youths present at the encounter with the 82-year-old Langerman, which AFP attended at the Belgian capital’s secular Jewish community center, the CCLJ.
"The October 7 attacks highlighted how hard it has become to talk about the Holocaust," said the center’s co-director, Nicolas Zomersztajn.
"It’s more complicated in the current context," said Zomersztajn, who laments how the Jewish community is constantly being asked to take a stance on the war in Gaza.
At the Brussels Jewish Museum, where four people were killed in a jihadist attack in 2014, a handful of school outings were canceled in the immediate aftermath of October 7.
Some students report sick on the day of a visit or find a way to avoid going on to see a nearby synagogue, said Frieda Van Camp, who works in the museum’s education department.
HATE MESSAGES
Antisemitism has been surging worldwide on a scale unseen in recent memory since the war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians. Over 5,000 Death Eaters burst across the border in a murderous rampage in which they also kidnapped 251 as hostages to Gaza, where 59 are still held captive.
Israel responded with a military campaign to destroy Hamas, remove it from power in Gaza, and secure the release of the hostages.
The Belgian anti-discrimination body Unia recorded 91 antisemitic incidents between October 7 and December 7, 2023 — compared to 57 for the whole of the previous year.
Most involved online hate messages directed at the Jewish community, which numbers around 30,000.
A May 2024 poll found that around one in seven Belgians felt "antipathy" toward Jews.
Antisemitic prejudice was disproportionate among people on the far left, far right, and in Moslem communities, the poll of 1,000 adults found.
When it comes to talking about Jews and the Holocaust in Brussels schools, "you can feel people tense up," said Ina Van Looy, who is in charge of a project combating discrimination at the CCLJ.
"For some teachers, it has become difficult to take their students to any kind of Jewish site," she said.
"Some teachers are completely overwhelmed by the way students get their information and how they talk about the conflict" between Israel and the Paleostinians, she said. "Many of them feel helpless."
During the talk with Langerman, it was Van Looy who stepped in to calm things down after the discussion turned to Gaza.
Afterward, it was agreed that she would visit the Koekelberg school to talk about the notion of genocide.
"These young people are hurt, they are angry. We have to listen to them," she told AFP.
NOT BEING ’SILENCED’
In Belgium, all students are formally taught about the Nazi’s systematic slaughter of Europe’s Jews by the end of high school.
Schools organize trips from primary upwards to Holocaust memorial sites, such as Fort Breendonk near Antwerp or the Kazerne Dossin transit camp in Mechelen, where the country’s Jews were rounded up for deportation.
And pupils in Brussels regularly take part in inaugurating new "stolpersteine" or "stumbling stones" on the city’s sidewalks, in memory of Jews murdered in the Nazi death camps.
Between 1942 and 1944, some 25,000 Jews were deported from Belgium to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland. Fewer than 2,000 survived.
But in the past few months, two primary school headteachers from Anderlecht, another Brussels district with a large Moslem population, decided their students would not take part in unveiling new stones.
They thought "it was not fair to impose that on students and parents" at the height of the Gaza conflict, said Bella Swiatlowski, of the Belgian association for the memory of the Holocaust.
Neither head teacher wanted to discuss the issue when contacted by AFP.
Finally, the mayor of Anderlecht stepped in and found a way for the two schools to be represented at the inauguration ceremony in January.
That same month, dozens of primary and secondary schoolchildren took part in another "stumbling stone" inauguration marking 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, laying a white rose on the ground in a solemn and moving ceremony.
Faouzia Hariche,
…A Moslem moved to Belgium with her family at the age of seven, she embraced the opportunities available to a girl in Western Europe, getting a masters degree in Romance Linguistics and entering local politics quickly thereafter in 1994. She is what people think of when they talk about moderate Moslems…
the Algerian-born deputy mayor of Brussels in charge of public education, paid tribute to the “courage” of teachers who refuse to “be silenced” on teaching the Holocaust.
“A small minority of teachers are fearful of tackling the subject,” she said. “We need to give them the tools to do so.”
As seen on Twitchy.
Eyal Yakoby
@EYakoby
BREAKING: Hamas has instructed its men to run to crowds of civilians when they hear drones flying over Gaza.
This is the definition of using human shields and a war crime. Hamas is a death cult.
Cole
@cole_is_greene
Why would they do this if “Israel indiscriminately bombs civilians”? If I am to believe the claims of “genocide”, this tactic would make no difference.
8:13 AM · Apr 13, 2025
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[PJMedia] A young Englishman named Jason Savage was looking for something in his life, and so he converted to Islam in 2012. That’s not surprising in today’s Britannia, where the far-left Church of England teaches only shadows and vestiges of Christianity, and Islam is essentially the only alternative to the materialistic secularism that has led so many to find life empty and pointless. In a very real sense, however, Savage’s conversion to Islam is when his troubles began. Now he is facing life in prison, although in the UK that is likely to mean that he will spend only sixteen years behind bars. Savage’s story is similar to that of a great many converts to Islam who become jihadis, but this time there’s a twist.
The UK’s Press Association reported Friday that Savage was "found guilty in January of plotting to stab an Islamic holy man who was an outspoken critic of terrorism, after jurors were shown footage of him filming a reconnaissance ’mission’ near a mosque and Islamic bookstore." On Friday, he went to prison "after a judge said messages he had sent showed that he believed he would die while committing a terrorist attack."
And so here we have yet another convert to Islam who somehow got the crazy idea that his new, peaceful religion commanded him to commit violence against those outside the fold. Unlike other convert jihadis, however, Savage didn’t primarily target non-Moslems; instead, he decided to murder a holy man whose view of Islam differed from his own, specifically on the question of the permissibility of Islamic jihad terrorism: "video footage released by West Midlands Police after Savage was convicted showed him filming reconnaissance near a mosque in Wright Street, Small Heath, Birmingham, in March last year."
Savage is caught on the video talking about how he would escape the area after committing his act of jihad. He says: "That seems like the best way to get away — the police will probably come from that way." The Press Association adds that along with "charting different routes into the mosque, Savage, who had adapted the handle of a knife found at his home, was heard to say: ’Just needs the means now. Ask Allah to give man the means, bro.’"
Savage was planning to attack a Moslemholy man, as well as a "bookstore and mosque in the Small Heath area," because the targeted imam’s "approach to the Salafi movement was ’entirely at odds’ with his own." The unnamed imam, as well as his mosque, publishing house, and retail store, "advocated a strand of Salafism that stresses the importance of non-involvement in social or political activism." The imam whom Savage wanted to send to Allah was "an ’outspoken critic’ of Islamist terrorism, arguing that it was entirely incompatible with the true essence of Islam."
Why don’t we see more genuine Islamic reformers? The answer lies in Jason Savage’s choice of targets. There are smooth deceivers by the bucketload, but genuine reformers are exceedingly thin on the ground. One reason is that even to assert that Islam needs reforming after Allah has "perfected" it (Qur’an 5:3) makes one a heretic or apostate, and thus deserving of the death penalty . As it is fundamental to the Islamic religion to "strike terror in the enemies of Allah" (Qur’an 8:60), many jihadis would regard a holy man who spoke out against terrorism as a heretic or apostate. And so Jason Savage decided to murder a holy man of his acquaintance who did just that.
Savage also intended to carry out the Qur’an’s command to "kill the polytheists wherever you find them" (9:5), with polytheists being pretty much anyone who isn’t a Moslem. He "had taken screenshots of the West Midlands Police headquarters, cop shoppes in Perry Barr and Stechford and various military locations in Birmingham, and told the undercover officer he was putting his neck on a ’chopping block.’" Nevertheless, he was clearly willing to take the risk.
In prison, Savage has shown himself to be a deeply committed jihad terrorist: "prosecutor Peter Ratliff said Savage had in the past set fire to furniture in his cell and posted social media messages saying he was delighted to hear prison staff had been ’stabbed up’ after what he claimed was a plot against Moslem inmates." But don’t be concerned: he’s really the victim. Savage, it seems, "has also been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following childhood trauma, the court was told." Oh, well, then! Set him free at once!
Seriously, though, what is it about converts to Islam? To write the stories of all the converts to Islam who have turned to terrorism would make for a good-sized book, and yet it remains an iron dogma of American public discourse that Islam is a religion of peace that has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. Every religion has its hard boys, we’re told again and again, and yet there are literally hundreds and possibly many more converts to Islam who have joined terror groups, while there are vanishingly few, if any, converts to Christianity or other religions who have done so.
Authorities remain resolutely indifferent to this phenomenon, and not a single law enforcement or intelligence agency anywhere in the world is studying why so many converts to Islam end up in terror groups. To look into this and try to devise ways to prevent it would apparently be "Islamophobic." Yet this only ensures that ever more new Moslems will find their way into terrorism, as Jason Savage can attest.
“Pay attention to MEEEEE!!!!!” It is interesting though, that while the list of letters gets longer, only a tiny percentage of each category is signing on, or of the approximately 575,000 of those total currently wearing the uniform.
[IsraelTimes] Petitions signed by thousands pan ongoing fighting for allegedly serving political interests, straying from war goals; warn operation endangers lives of hostages, Gaza civilians
A wave of public petitions calling for the return of hostages from Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... even if it means an immediate end to the war continued on Monday, representing several more sectors of Israeli society, with thousands signing on to back the call originally made by Israeli Air Force reservists last week.
Separate letters were published Monday in the name of some 3,500 higher education academics, 3,000 education officials, 1,500 armored corps soldiers, 1,000 parents, dozens of former Foreign Ministry officials, and IDF Spokesperson’s Unit reservists.
As quoted by the Haaretz daily, academics signed on to a demand for the return of hostages without delay, "even at the cost of ending the war immediately."
"The war serves mainly personal political interests," the petition charged. "Continuing the war will bring death upon hostages, IDF soldiers, and innocent civilians and will wear out reservists. As has been proved in the past, only an agreement can bring hostages back to Israel safely."
In a separate letter, education officials emphasized their belief that "only a diplomatic agreement can save lives, and that every passing moment without one" endangers the hostages.
It asserted that "this is not a call for refusal" to show up for military duties, but "a call to save lives."
However, when war erupted in Gaza with the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks and massacres, nearly 300,000 reservists showed up for duty, marking the largest-ever call-up of reservists in Israel’s history.
Critics of the petitions signed by military reservists, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of the government, have characterized them as calls to refuse to serve, although the letters have not issued a threat to ignore calls to duty over the hostage talks impasse.
Around 1,000 parents also published a letter in which they said they refused to agree to an "eternal war" and refused to "shut our eyes at the killing of children," as quoted by Haaretz.
"We will not cooperate with this dangerous concept that there are no innocents in Gaza. We will not allow the hostages to be abandoned, and we will not accept dehumanization."
Armored Corps reservists and retirees, including former prime minister and IDF chief of staff Ehud Barak, signed on to a petition charging the fighting "no longer serves the war goals defined by the IDF," demanding the immediate return of the hostages.
Additionally, dozens of former Foreign Ministry employees, including former director generals and ambassadors, signed onto a letter backing previous petitions, calling for the immediate return of hostages.
"The recent return to hostilities has not resulted in the release of a single hostage. We therefore demand immediate action to release the hostages, in one phase, even at the cost of ending the war," they wrote.
IDF Spokesperson’s Unit reservists and retirees signed onto a letter similarly demanding the return of hostages at the price of ending the war, charging that the war no longer served security interests. It was not immediately clear how many signed onto that petition.
"As proved in the past, only a deal will return the hostages safely, while military pressure leads mainly to the killing of hostages and endangering their lives," they said.
The latest petitions came after some 1,000 veterans of the Israeli Air Force published a letter last week demanding the return of the hostages in Gaza, even if it comes at the cost of ending the war against Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... entirely. The military has moved to dismiss every active duty reservist who signed it, saying soldiers cannot use the "Israeli Air Force brand" to protest political matters.
"The continuation of the war doesn’t advance any of the declared goals of the war, and will bring about the deaths of the hostages, of IDF soldiers and innocent civilians," read the original air force letter, which was published as an ad in several Israeli newspapers.
"As has been proven in the past, only an agreement [with the Hamas terror group] can return hostages safely, while military pressure mainly leads to the killing of hostages and the endangerment of our soldiers," it added. "We call on all citizens of Israel to mobilize for action."
After the IDF moved to dismiss all active Air Force reservists who signed the letter last week, Netanyahu expressed support for the decision in a statement, in which he argued that even if it wasn’t explicit, they had in practice threatened to refuse to serve.
"Refusal to serve is refusal to serve, even if it’s only hinted at in whitewashed language," he said. "Statements that weaken the IDF and strengthen our enemies in a time of war are unforgivable."
The military said that only 60 of those who signed that letter were active reservists. Among those, only a handful were competent pilots, while the rest have been serving in headquarters roles, according to an IDF examination of the signatories.
The military recently dismissed at least two reservist officers for refusing to serve, including Air Force combat navigator Alon Gur, who said he told his superiors that "a line was crossed" and the government was "again abandoning its citizens in broad daylight."
According to reports, those incidents were seen by the IDF as isolated cases, but a number of senior IDF officials were reportedly concerned that refusal to serve could become a larger phenomenon among reservists.
At the height of the 2023 protests against the judicial overhaul, hundreds of IDF reservists signed declarations saying they would no longer show up for reserve duty to protest the government advancing its plans to curtail the judiciary.
However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... when war erupted in Gaza with the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks and massacres, nearly 300,000 reservists showed up for duty, marking the largest-ever call-up of reservists in Israel’s history.
The only vote that counts — all the rest is empty wind.
More attention-seeking by goldfish swallowing faddists.
[IsraelTimes] One thousand seven hundred artists and cultural figures have signed a statement calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and the return of the hostages. The signatories included Keren Mor, Rivka Michaeli, Rona Kenan, Achinoam Nini, Dana Berger, Assaf Amdursky and others.
The petition states that the war serves a political interest and is not contributing to any of its stated goals, while and endangering soldiers and the hostages, with ongoing daily loss of human life, thousands of victims, months of upheaval and human suffering on both sides of the border.
“We, as creators who act, study, and explore the human soul, look on with pain and concern at the severe erosion of people and values, and cry out, for the sake of Israeli society and in the name of the human spirit, to break the cycle of horror, to immediately return the hostages, and to stop the war.”
In addition, 600 architects, engineers and urban planners signed another petition, demanding the return of the hostages without delay, even at the cost of an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Dan Caldwell @dandcaldwell, one of the top advisors for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth @PeteHegseth, was escorted out of the Pentagon today after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense.
[IsraelTimes] The documentary chronicles the Hamas massacre at the desert rave, using footage taken by festival attendees and by the terrorists themselves.
For information, in case you would like to know more, dear Reader. It sounds like considerably more reality than I can handle, so I won’t watch it.
I rented it and it's rather tame, I've seen horror films with more gore in them.
All the dead bodies are blurred out, some so blurred one couldn't be sure there's a body there.
The film started with a butch of people dancing then at the 7 minute 40 seconds mark, the film shows the Hamas driving/riding/flying in. then the missiles stared hitting, etc.. most of the rest is people running and seeking shelders and recording last statements on their phones to their parents.
There is a couple scenes where the terrorists threw grenades into a bomb shelter and shooting at a guy running away, although the film didn't show any actual deaths.
The focus apparently is the Nova music festival Nova music festival and not the other locations That the terrorists invaded.
This Wikipedia link gives a way better description of the evens as well as a couple videos that shows the gory details.
So TW, I don't think there's anything in this video to keep you awake at night, if anything, the struggle is to keep myself from dying of sheer boredom!
🚨 Breaking: Following president of Lebanon's 🇱🇧 order to fully disarm Hezbollah, Lebanese military has started to remove all signs and banners of Hezbollah from Beirut 👇pic.twitter.com/wzTr08cLMx
BREAKING: A federal judge in Boston has reportedly blocked the Trump administration from revoking the legal status of over half a million migrants who flew into the U.S. via President Biden’s CHNV mass parole program. Biden admin created the program out of thin air using his… https://t.co/PY21f3vLEb
#2
Yeah this ball of twisted shit covered yarn is gonna have to be untangled by the Supreme Court. Biden did it on shaky legal ground and Trump undoing it needs to be legally validated.
[IsraelTimes] Military also announces killing of commander who participated in October 7 attack and hostage release ceremony; airstrike reportedly hits Kuwaiti Field Hospital, killing one
An Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... City on Sunday killed the latest commander of Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... ’s Shejaiya Battalion, Muhammad al-Ajlah — the fifth leader of the battalion to be killed by the Israel Defense Forces in the ongoing war against the terror group.
The IDF announced Ajlah’s killing on Tuesday, after earlier announcing the killing of another Hamas commander who had participated in the group’s October 7, 2023, attack as well as in a propaganda ceremony surrounding the release of three Israeli hostages.
The Shejaiya Battalion commander, Ajlah, had replaced his predecessor Haitham Khalil less than a week ago, after the latter was killed in an Israeli airstrike on April 9.
Khalil’s direct predecessor, Jamil Omar Jamil Wadiya, was killed in March. Wadiya had taken over the battalion after his two predecessors were killed in December 2023.
It’s a very dynamic unit — lots of opportunities for advancement for the ambitious young jihadi.
Before taking the helm of the battalion, Ajlah headed its combat support company, where he was responsible for "arming the battalion’s bully boyz with weapons used to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops," the IDF said in a statement. The military said it took steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strike.
The IDF also announced early Tuesday that an airstrike conducted some two weeks ago killed a Hamas terrorist who invaded Israel during the October 7 onslaught. Hamza Wael Muhammad Asafah was the commander of a cell in the Nukhba force in Hamas’s Deir al-Balah Battalion, according to the military. The IDF said that Asafah also participated in the "cynical" release ceremony for hostages Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy in February. In announcing the strike that killed Asafah, the IDF again said that it took steps to mitigate civilian harm.
Also Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike hit the northern gate of the Kuwaiti Field Hospital in Gaza, killing a medic and wounding nine people, according to Saber Mohamad, a front man for the hospital. The hospital is located in the Mawasi area, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter in sprawling tent camps.
There was no immediate comment from the IDF.
Hospitals have become sites of fighting on numerous occasions throughout the 18-month war between Israel and Hamas, with terror operatives hiding in them or using them for military purposes, including holding and transferring hostages. The IDF has allowed mass evacuations of civilians prior to major raids on hospital sites.
On Sunday, an Israeli strike hit the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. The IDF said the attack targeted a Hamas command center housed inside the hospital used by bully boyz to plan and carry out terror attacks. The al-Ahli Arab Hospital has been the last hospital providing critical care in northern Gaza, which has been subject to broad evacuation orders for almost the entire war as Israeli forces operated against Hamas there.
A front man for United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... Secretary-General António Guterres ...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years... said Tuesday that he was "deeply alarmed" by the strike on al-Ahli, saying the attack dealt "a severe blow to an already devastated healthcare system in the Strip" and adding there was strong concern that medical supplies were running low as well as food and water. The front man also noted that hospitals have protection under international law. Though humanitarian law grants hospitals protected status, much of that protection is lost when the facilities are used for active military purposes.
Mahmoud Ibrahim Hassan Abu Hisirah had served as the right hand of the commander of Hamas’s Gaza Brigade, Izz ad-Din Haddad, according to the military, including during the war and during the preparation for the October 7, 2023, onslaught.
On July 28, 2014, during the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge, Abu Hisirah, as a member of Hamas’s Nukhba force, infiltrated Israel with other terrorists via a tunnel from Gaza, and attacked an army post near Nahal Oz, killing five soldiers.
The attack killed Sgt. Daniel Kedmi, Sgt. Barkai Ishai Shor, Sgt. Erez Sagi, Sgt. Dor Deri, and Sgt. Nadav Raymond.
3-year-old spaniel abducted on Oct. 7 found in Gaza, to be returned to family
[IsraelTimes] A dog abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack was found in southern Gaza in recent days by Israeli ground forces. Billy belongs to Rachel Dancyg, the divorcee of Alex Dancyg who was taken hostage and murdered in captivity. The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is three and a half years old.
Forces who encountered Billy in Rafah brought her back to Israel with them, where she was identified thanks to her microchip implant.
[IsraelTimes] 16 suspects linked to country’s largest opposition group said to have been trained and financed in Lebanon
Jordan said Tuesday that it had arrested 16 people linked to the Moslem Brüderbund who were trained and financed in Leb ...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?... and had plotted attacks on targets inside the kingdom involving rockets and drones.
Authorities said at least one rocket was ready to be launched as part of an operation that had been under surveillance by security forces since 2021.
A security source said the suspects were connected to the Moslem Brüderbund, a Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... ally and Jordan’s largest opposition group, while the head of the cell who trained some of its members was based in Lebanon.
Hamas and the Brotherhood have been accused of fomenting anti-government street protests in Jordan amid the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , which was sparked when thousands of forces of Evil stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages. The US-backed Hashemite Kingdom has a significant Paleostinian population.
In a statement released on social media, Jordan’s General Intelligence Department said the kingdom’s security forces found a rocket manufacturing facility alongside a drone factory, both of which were part of "the plot aimed at harming national security, sowing chaos and causing material destruction inside the kingdom."
Jordan’s government also published a video of confessions by the suspects, who had been referred to the state security court for trial.
Jordanian government front man Mohammad Momani said the country’s security forces found rockets in a secret hideout on the outskirts of Amman that were being manufactured with a range of 3-5 kilometers (1.8-3 miles) for use against targets inside the kingdom.
A security source said dozens of rockets were found.
Amer Al Sabaileh, a prominent security analyst, told Rooters that the thwarted plot involved "new tactics, rockets and drones."
"This means a complete change in the way the Moslem Brüderbund are dealing with Jordan and targeting its security," said Al Sabaileh.
Jordan, which expelled Hamas in 1999, enjoys relative stability compared with other countries in the region but has previously announced arrests on national security charges.
Last May, Jordanian officials said the country had thwarted an arms transfer from Hamas benefactor Iran, via Syria, to the Moslem Brüderbund in Jordan.
So the Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has sold itself to Iran, joining Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as Iran’s Sunni proxies against Israel. And like the others training with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Have they been issued their special purchase beepers yet?
Israel has also thwarted several arms-smuggling plots from Jordan, announcing in February that security forces had detained nine Israeli citizens and one West Bank Paleostinian on suspicion of running one smuggling route. Iranian officials also told The New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... last year that Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... employs Bedouins to smuggle arms from Jordan to Paleostinian terror groups in the West Bank.
[IsraelTimes] BBC says offer requires terror group lay down arms, includes no Israeli commitment to end war; Hamas claims it ‘lost contact’ with hostage Edan Alexander’s handlers after IDF strike
Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... has turned down an Israeli offer for a ceasefire in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip under which the terror group would have been required to disarm, according to a Tuesday report.
Ok. No truce, then.
According to the BBC, Israel is demanding the release of half of the remaining living hostages in exchange for a six-week truce and Hamas’s disarmament.
"The Israeli proposal relayed to the movement through Egypt explicitly called for the disarmament of Hamas without any Israeli commitment to end the war or withdraw from Gaza. Hamas therefore rejected the offer in its entirety," an official in the terror group was quoted as saying.
Israel has repeatedly demanded that Hamas relinquish civilian and security control of Gaza, while the terror group insists that any ceasefire deal must end the war and achieve a full Israeli pull-out from the enclave.
Hamas has long rejected talk of disarmament, though its officials have expressed willingness to give up control of the Strip to a transitional body of independent technocrats, such as the one envisioned in the Egyptian plan for the post-war reconstruction of Gaza that was unveiled last month.
Responding to recent reports of progress in ceasefire talks, an official from one of the Arab mediating countries told The Times of Israel on Monday that no breakthrough was currently on the horizon and that "the same elements that have prevented a deal until now are still in place."
"Hamas is not going to agree to a complete surrender, but that is still what Israel is demanding," the Arab official said, echoing an earlier statement from senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri ...a senior spokesman for Hamas. Zuhri gained notoriety in 2006 when he dropped his money belt containing somewhere between 640,000 and 900,000 euros, which was confiscated by Paleostinian security and customs officials at a routine border crossing from Egypt to Gaza. The news brought competing Hamas and Fatah forces to the crossing checkpoint for an epic face-making and hollering contest... "Handing over the resistance’s weapons is a million red lines and is not subject to consideration, let alone discussion," Abu Zuhri said.
However,
man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... he insisted that Hamas is "ready to hand over the hostages in one batch" in exchange for the end of the war and the withdrawal of the Israeli military from Gaza, confirming what a senior Hamas official told The Times of Israel earlier this month.
Israel and Hamas signed onto a phased ceasefire deal in January that fell apart after its first stage. Hamas wanted to transition to the second phase as stipulated in the agreement, but Israel sought to rework the terms to free additional hostages without committing to a permanent end to the war, as envisioned in the second phase. After Hamas refused, Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza on March 18.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long refused to end the war before Hamas’s military and governing capabilities have been dismantled. He is backed by many of his hardline coalition partners who have threatened to collapse his government if he agrees to end the war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.
HAMAS: WE LOST CONTACT WITH EDAN ALEXANDER’S HANDLERS
They’ve tried that before but eventually the “lost” hostages were “found”. Hopefully this time they’ll be smart enought to stop playing stupid games more quickly.
Hamas, meanwhile, claimed on Tuesday to have lost contact with the bandidosLions of Islam holding Israeli-American hostage soldier Edan Alexander in Gaza.
"We announce that we have lost contact with the team guarding soldier Edan Alexander following a direct Israeli bombardment targeting their location. We are still trying to reach them," said Hudhaifa Kahlout — known by the nom de guerre Abu Obeida — the front man for Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades.
"It seems that the occupation army is deliberately trying to kill him and hence relieve themselves from the pressure caused by the dual-citizen prisoners in order to continue its genocide against our people," Abu Obeida said.
The IDF has said that it does not carry out strikes in areas where it suspects hostages may be held by Hamas. Military officials have repeatedly said that every strike and ground operation in Gaza is carefully planned out not to endanger Israeli hostages. However,
man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... the IDF has admitted in the past that the deaths of some hostages may have been linked to nearby Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s.
Alexander, a dual US-Israeli citizen, was stationed near the Gaza Strip on the morning of October 7, when he was taken captive by Hamas terrorists.
As the last remaining US citizen held hostage in Gaza, Alexander has been a key focus of the US-mediated ceasefire negotiations, with US President Donald Trump ...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried.... ’s special envoy Steve Witkoff saying last month that gaining his release was a "top priority for us."
Last month, Hamas claimed it was willing to release Alexander along with the bodies of four other dual US-Israeli citizens, an offer that Israel slammed as "manipulation and psychological warfare" and said it would not agree to a deal that only saw Americans freed.
Hamas has published two propaganda videos of Alexander, the latest on Saturday, in which the captive, visibly gaunt, said that he heard the terror group was ready to release him three weeks ago and that the government and Netanyahu "refused and left me here." The statement was almost certainly dictated by his captors.
PM VISITS GAZA, VOWS HAMAS WILL SUFFER ’MORE AND MORE BLOWS’
On Tuesday, Netanyahu visited soldiers stationed in the northern Gaza Strip, where he told them that the terror group will suffer "more and more blows" by the IDF.
"We insist that it release our hostages, and we insist on achieving all our war aims," Netanyahu told assembled soldiers as drones flew overhead.
Holding a printout of a post by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> , Netanyahu said that he was again calling for Israel’s destruction.
"He is doing this during negotiations with the Americans," Netanyahu said, referring to the ongoing Iran-US talks over Tehran’s nuclear program, a process of which Israel is extremely wary.
Standing alongside Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel will never allow Hamas "to threaten our communities and our citizens, and therefore, the operation that is currently taking place is pressuring Hamas to first release the hostages."
"The more it persists in its refusal," Katz continued, "the more we will intensify the blows it will suffer until it is defeated and all the hostages are returned."
[IsraelTimes] Military and nuclear experts say any US-Israeli attacks on Iranian atomic sites would be risky and would only set program back a few years, unless their real aim is regime change.
They said the same thing about Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s, but neither has restarted the work. They’ve also been saying the same thing for years about attacks on Iran’s program, but Iran was supposed to be able to shoot nukes at Israel years ago, and they somehow have not yet got to the finish line. Israel’s short to medium term goal is not to be eradicated. Permanently solving the problem is the stretch goal.
The times, they are a-changing. This is the fastest and most effective way to ensure people understand — both the universities and visa holders and those interested in getting visas for whatever reason.
[IsraelTimes] At least 790 students at over 120 schools have had visas canceled or legal status terminated in recent weeks, according to review; advocacy groups say hundreds more could be caught up
I saw a claim of over 1,000 yesterday, but there was no corroboration.
At first, the bar association for immigration attorneys began receiving inquiries from a couple students a day. These were foreigners studying in the US, and they’d discovered in early April their legal status had been terminated with little notice. To their knowledge, none of the students had committed a deportable offense.
In recent days, the calls have begun flooding in. Hundreds of students have been calling to say they have lost legal status, seeking advice on what to do next.
"We thought it was going to be something that was unusual," said Matthew Maiona, a Boston-based immigration attorney who is getting about six calls a day from panicked international students. "But it seems now like it’s coming pretty fast and furious."
The speed and scope of the federal government’s efforts to terminate the legal status of international students have stunned colleges across the country. Few corners of higher education have been untouched, as schools ranging from prestigious private universities, large public research institutions and tiny liberal arts colleges discover status terminations one after another among their students.
At least 790 students at more than 120 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated in recent weeks, according to an News Agency that Dare Not be Named review of university statements and correspondence with school officials. Advocacy groups collecting reports from colleges say hundreds more students could be caught up in the crackdown.
STUDENTS APPARENTLY TARGETED OVER MINOR INFRACTIONS
Around 1.1 million international students were in the United States last year — a source of essential revenue for tuition-driven colleges. International students are not eligible for federal financial aid, and their ability to pay tuition often factors into whether they will be admitted to American schools. Often, they pay full price.
Many of the students losing their legal status are from India and China, which together account for more than half the international students at American colleges. But the terminations have not been limited to those from any one part of the world, lawyers said.
Four students from two Michigan universities are suing Trump administration officials after their F-1 student status was terminated last week. Their attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, Ramis Wadood, said the students never received a clear reason why.
"We don’t know, and that’s the scary part," he said.
The students were informed of the status terminations by their universities via email, which came as a shock, Wadood said. The reason given was that there was a "criminal records check and/or that their visa was revoked," Wadood said, but none of them were charged or convicted of crimes. Some had either speeding or parking tickets, but one didn’t have any, he said. Only one of the students had known their entry visa was revoked, Wadood said.
Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration... said the State Department was revoking visas held by visitors who were acting counter to national interests, including some who participated in anti-Israel protests and those who face criminal charges.
But many students say they don’t fall under those categories. Students have filed lawsuits in several states, arguing they were denied due process.
In New Hampshire, a federal judge last week granted a temporary restraining order to restore the status of a Ph.D. student at Dartmouth College, Xiaotian Liu. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Wisconsin issued a similar order, ruling the government could not take steps to detain or revoke the visa of a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student.
IN A BREAK FROM PAST, FEDS CANCEL STUDENTS’ STATUS DIRECTLY
At many colleges, officials learned the legal immigration status of some international students had been terminated when staff checked a database managed by the Department of Homeland Security. In the past, college officials say, legal statuses typically were updated after colleges told the government the students were no longer studying at the school.
The system to track enrollment and movements of international students came under the control of Immigration and Customs Enforcement after 9/11, said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators. She said recent developments have left students fearful of how quickly they can be on the wrong side of enforcement.
"You don’t need more than a small number to create fear," Aw said. "There’s no clarity of what are the reasons and how far the reach of this is."
Her group says as many as 1,300 students have lost visas or had their status terminated, based on reports from colleges.
The Department of Homeland Security and State Department did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Foreigners who are subject to removal proceedings are usually sent a notice to appear in immigration court on a certain date, but lawyers say affected students have not received any notices, leaving them unsure of next steps to take.
Some schools have told students to leave the country to avoid the risk of being detained or deported. But some students have appealed the terminations and stayed in the United States while those are processed.
Still others caught in legal limbo aren’t students at all. They had remained in the US post-graduation on "optional practical training," a one-year period — or up to three for science and technology graduates — that allows employment in the US after completing an academic degree. During that time, a graduate works in their field and waits to receive their H-1B or other employment visas if they wish to keep working in the US.
Around 242,000 foreigners in the US are employed through this "optional practical training." About 500,000 are pursuing graduate degrees, and another 342,000 are undergraduate students.
Among the students who have filed lawsuits is a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student who is supposed to graduate on May 5, with a job offer to join the faculty. His attorney Charles Kuck said the student was likely targeted for termination because of an unpaid traffic fine from when the student lent his car to a friend. Ultimately, the violation was dismissed.
"We have case after case after case exactly like that, where there is no underlying crime," said Kuck, who is representing 17 students in the federal lawsuit. He said his law firm has heard from hundreds of students.
"These are kids who now, under the Trump administration, realize their position is fragile," he said. "They’ve preyed on a very vulnerable population. These kids aren’t hiding. They’re in school."
Some international students have been adapting their daily routines.
A Ph.D. student from China at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said she has begun carrying around her passport and immigration paperwork at the advice of the university’s international student office. The student, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted by authorities, said she has been distressed to see the terminations even for students like her without criminal records.
"That is the most scary part because you don’t know whether you’re going to be the next person," she said.
#1
So, do these "academics" enroll in US schools not so much for a degree as Naturalization?
A four-year (may be six) college commitment (read "$$$$" or "$$$$$$") completes the bingo card without the long-term "implications" of marrying a US citizen?
They only care because he’s in the Scotland Yard hate crimes unit, not because they think he’s done anything really wrong. No-one would blink at it were he a village policeman somewhere.
[IsraelTimes] One of the images showed Hitler morphing into Netanyahu amid other ‘antisemitic and grossly offensive’ posts to Instagram in the wake of Hamas onslaught
A London police officer has been sacked for posting “antisemitic and grossly offensive” messages on Instagram in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, police announced Friday.
One of DC Ibrahim Khan’s posts contained an image of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler morphing into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the text “the irony of becoming what you once hated.”
In the summary of his hearing, police said the probe into Khan centered on messages the officer posted on an Instagram account to around 250 people between 17-23 October, 2023.
“Individually and collectively, these messages are antisemitic and grossly offensive, and in reposting them, DC Khan’s actions amount to gross misconduct,” police said.
Other images posted by Khan included a photo of a mass grave from 1945 next to what purported to be a mass grave in Gaza, while a third post contained the text “Gazans have none of this. It’s a concentration camp.” Multiple other images were cited in the police statement, including one in which Khan had added the text: “Every day they invent some new bullshit lie to try gain Western sympathy” and “fuck them.”
The officer in charge of the investigation said that the posts “all draw explicit comparisons between contemporary Israeli policy and the Nazis,” and were therefore in violation of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
The officer additionally said that other posts “suggest that the events of 7 October 2023, in which over a thousand people were killed by Hamas, were a fabrication. I find that this assertion, made in the days after the attack, to be grossly offensive.”
The report concluded that while Khan was not responsible for the offensive comments posted to his account, his “conduct was deliberate and sustained over a number of days, over a number of separate posts. In one case, he took the opportunity to add further offensive comments to the image, which he re-posted.”
Khan worked in Scotland Yard’s Community Safety Unit, which, according to The Standard, has a remit that includes the investigation of hate crimes, including those motivated by race and faith.
The investigation into his conduct cited Khan’s work in that unit, saying it was therefore “inconceivable… that he did not consider that these posts could be antisemitic or highly offensive.”
The October 7 assault — in which thousands of terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault — sparked immediate demonstrations worldwide, even before Israel’s response.
London’s Metropolitan Police service has come under criticism for its policing of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests in the British capital.
Officers have been accused of turning a blind eye to antisemitic chants and posters at the demonstrations, while the routes of some marches have disrupted Shabbat services at central London synagogues.
The London police force has struggled to manage tensions sparked by the Israel-Hamas war, with Jewish residents saying they feel threatened by repeated pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel marches.
#1
We still 'knock on doors', but we already know the farmers whose woods we want to visit.
Too many of the small farmers are no longer there and subdivisions (usually McMansion types) are rapidly taking hold of the tillable land and uncut woods, though.
So 'nearly ended' in more ways than one, B.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/16/2025 8:06
Comments ||
Top||
#2
/\ Yep, sometimes referred to as economic progress. In Ga. you had better have dated, written permission.
[TheSun] Russia’s chilling doomsday radio station ‘The Buzzer’ wakes up & sends four cryptic messages in just 24 hours. Some believe it would automatically trigger a military response in the event of an attack on Russia
MYSTERY has deepened over Russia's doomsday radio station called "The Buzzer" after the Soviet-era relic sent out four cryptic signals in just 24 hours.
Known to be used by the KGB during the height of the Cold War, Radio station UVB-76 has been continuously buzzing since the late '70s to allegedly exchange secret military messages.
On April 15, the doomsday radio signalled four words: Neptune, Thymus, Foxcloak, and Nootabu, according to Telegram channel UVB-76 logs, which constantly monitors its activity.
The radio signal buzzed the cryptic messages within 24 hours, understood to be a rare occasion.
While one knows what these eerie signals indicate, speculations are that they are linked to secret military operations or even nuclear protocols.
UVB-76 transmits on the frequency 4625 kHz and is characterised by an eerie sound that buzzes 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The shortwave station usually emits nothing but a static buzz — until something huge like a nuclear attack is about to happen, it is said.
In February, the radio station sent out 25 messages within 24 hours.
Some of the words broadcast were Synopsis, Boulevard, Coarsening, B*******, Optoshum, Elecbase, Shtatognome Commissar and Volkokran, according to Russian state media.
Many believe it is a military communication tool - possibly used to communicate with remote stations or to activate certain military units.
Some even believe it is part of a "dead man's switch" system, which would automatically trigger a military response in the event of an attack on Russia.
Professor David Stupples, a senior researcher in electronic warfare, first heard about the mysterious Russian radio frequency in the 1990s.
He explained to The Sun that the UVB-76 is a high-frequency band, known as HF, and is available to listen to across the entire Russian territory, from its Indochina end all the way to its European cities.
The advantage, the expert says, is that such a signal can be transmitted and heard without satellites or the internet.
This makes it easy for Putin and his spies to send military intelligence quite literally “under the radar”.
Professor Stupples said: "What that means is that the signal never leaves the atmosphere.
"It just bounces along what is called the ionosphere. It would cover basically the whole of Russia."
And in the event of a nuclear war where most communication would be wiped out, Putin’s high-frequency signal could still operate "as normal", he said.
The reason behind the continuous broadcast is simple, the researcher said.
If they stopped broadcasting and the 4625 kHz frequency became free to use, anyone could "snatch" the signal from the Russians.
"The only way that you can make certain that the band is available is to keep broadcasting on it," Professor Stupples explained.
“So what Russia is doing is reserving this frequency.
“My own speculation is that they are reserving this channel for emergencies.
"Either because of a worldwide conflict using nasty weapons or in case other things go wrong, like they’ve lost all their satellite communications."
#3
"Odd transmission from Buzzer," sez source,
"To Ma Russia's whole nuclear force
Sent by senior official
(or brain artificial)
Who'd recently read 'correct horse.'"
[TaskAndPurpose] Leg day: Army cuts down on number of paid parachutists
The Army is reclassifying 20,000 paid parachutist positions to prioritize limited airborne resources for soldiers who would be the first to jump into combat.
Since World War II, the number of soldiers the Army has trained to be able to jump into combat has more than doubled. But as the service prepares for a future war, it worries there are too many soldiers who need to maintain their jump status, especially those who would not actually be jumping directly into combat.
The Army is reclassifying around 20,000 paid parachutist positions to manage limited resources and prioritize airborne training for soldiers who would be the first ones on the ground, officials said. Paid parachute positions include paratroopers in airborne units as well as soldiers in other staff units.
Those soldiers who are coded as paid parachutist positions will still receive jump pay and need to maintain their jump status, according to Army officials. All soldiers are still able to go to airborne school. The change was first reported by Army Times.
“It’s not about the money, per se. It’s literally about — for the forces that will jump in the alpha echelon and fight off a potentially contested drop zone. We want them at the highest level of readiness,” Commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps Lt. Gen. Greg Anderson said on an episode of the From the Green Notebook podcast on Wednesday. “Three jumps, most of those currency jumps, is not going to get us the readiness we need.”
Soldiers are required to jump once every three months to maintain their status.
Anderson said that maintaining “collective proficiency” across the airborne force under current conditions is “unsustainable” due to “dwindling resources.” Those resources range from a limited number of aircraft, to riggers who pack and inspect chutes for all jumps and the need to maintain highly proficient jump masters.
“All these things are contributing to a decline in the collective proficiency of our forces,” Anderson said. “For the last three fiscal years, the 82nd Airborne per capita is jumping less than four times — somewhere in the two-and-a-half to three jumps per paratrooper. That doesn’t even meet airborne currency, let alone airborne proficiency.”
The changes will go into effect Oct. 1, said Col. Mary Ricks, a spokesperson for the XVIII Airborne Corps.
After the Army realized that hundreds of soldiers were not able to meet the requirement to jump four times a year, the Pentagon amended its policy in 2018 for commanders to waive one jump per year in certain cases, such as a lack of available jump equipment or aircraft, bad weather or a soldier’s need to attend a military education course. Because of the lack of resources, in fiscal year 2016, some 780 service members were forced to pay back more than half a million dollars for not meeting the requirement, according to the Army.
The service has more than 56,000 paid parachutist positions, a number that’s grown by over 13,000 since fiscal year 2002 without an increased demand for airborne assault, according to the Army. To put that in perspective, in 1945 during World War II, the U.S. military had nearly 24,700 parachutists across five airborne divisions.
“We have tens of thousands of soldiers who are on airborne status and getting paid to be on airborne status that’s ballooned over time and not realistic to combat,” said Col. Dave Butler, a spokesperson for the Army. “Admin personnel at a division level, even in an airborne division, probably aren’t going to jump into combat.”
However, all soldiers can still go to airborne school.
“You’re in a parachutist position, you just won’t jump and you won’t get paid jumping because you’re not jumping,” Anderson said. “At some point, you may be transferred to an alpha or bravo battery or back and forth, and so you can come in and out of there. That’s just simply an administrative task of going to basic airborne refresher, and then you’re back on jump status.”
The changes were decided after an analysis by 25 organizations across the Army and Air Force which looked at adjustments to the service’s airborne force in order to meet the readiness requirements over the next five to 20 years. U.S. military wargames suggest that the Army would need its airborne forces to be ready to deploy without notice and early on in the event of a crisis, according to the Army.
Officials are looking at increasing jump pay for paid parachutists, which is currently an extra $150 per month although it has not been finalized, according to the Army.
The Army is also looking at new “proficiency” pay for jump masters in order to retain their experience in airborne formations for longer periods of time. Jump masters are experienced paratroopers who help plan the jumps, handle personnel inspections of soldiers’ equipment and the aircraft itself, and make sure everything goes smoothly up until the moment a soldier jumps out of the aircraft.
The reclassifications could include soldiers from the following commands, however Army officials said the numbers are not final: 3,500 from Forces Command; 9,000 from Special Operations Command; 1,000 from Army Pacific; 850 from Army Europe-Africa; 3,600 from the Army National Guard; And 1,900 from the Army Reserve.
#3
Army Times: As a result, assets used to maintain the jump status of the more than 56,000 positions has come at the expense of keeping the assault force — the combat troops in immediate response missions — at a high level of readiness, the three-star said.
“We started to assume risk with the high-end forces that have to be ready to go tonight,” Anderson said. “This is not about saving money; it’s about getting readiness to where we need it.”
#4
The Government shall not have a large standing military in peace time.
Hence why the 2nd amendment exists and reads....
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
With that said, I am sure it never envisioned an enemy with airplanes and missiles traveling at 400+ MPH. Something that would taken weeks to do at 7 to 10 miles a day back in 1776
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Dutch medics have revealed that sperm from just 85 donors was used to father thousands of children, leading to fears of accidental inbreeding among the country's population.
The country's gynaecology and obstetrics organisation, the NVOG, said that at least 85 men have become 'mass donors', defined as having fathered 25 or more children each.
The organisation revealed that Dutch fertility clinics have been breaking strict rules around donations for decades.
In some cases, clinics had deliberately used sperm batches from the same donors multiple times, exchanged sperm without the necessary paperwork or even the donor's knowledge, and allowed some donors to give their sperm at multiple clinics.
Most of these mass donors were the biological fathers of between 26 and 40 children, though several had been 50 and 75 each.
The most famous mass donor was Jonathan Meijer, a notorious Dutch YouTuber who has so far fathered 550 children and was the star of Netflix documentary 'The Man with 1,000 Kids.'
At least 10 of these mass donors were fertility doctors themselves.
'The number of mass donors in the clinics should have been zero,' said Marieke Schoonenberg, the head of the Dutch professional association of gynaecologists (NVOG), after an investigation by the NOS public broadcaster.
'We want to offer our apologies on behalf of the profession. We did not do it right.'
Ties van der Meer, of Stichting Donorkind, a foundation that helps children trace their donor fathers, said the revelation was a 'medical calamity', as the new data suggests that there are at least 3,000 people in the Netherlands with 25 or more half-siblings.
In a small, dense country like Holland, this increases the likelihood of accidental incest, he said: 'Once they start dating someone, they're going to have to do DNA tests to make sure they're not going out with a close relation.'
'The harm done to people's trust in the medical system, and in the governments that allowed all this to happen, is just the beginning,' van der Meer said, adding that both children and some of the donors would inevitably suffer more stress.
The issue of mass donation came to the forefront of public imagination in the Netherlands after Jonathan Jacob Meijer, a 43-year-old YouTuber from the Netherlands, was revealed to have fathered at least 550 children.
He faced a lawsuit in 2023 requesting court action over fears of unintentional incest and inbreeding between his children, and because he had gone well past the Dutch limit of fathering 25 donor children.
The donor was found to have fathered at least 102 children in 2017 before a court ruled in 2023 that he must stop making donations or face fines of 100,000 euros (£88,0000) per infraction.
Clinics were also ordered at the time to destroy the samples they had. Meijer continued to donate abroad regardless, including to a Danish sperm bank that operates around the world.
Meijer slammed the Netflix documentary - 'The Man With 1,000 Kids' - when it was released last summer.
He said the docuseries was 'misleading'. It included claims from parents who said they felt 'betrayed, sad and angry' when they learned how many other children he had fathered.
Meijer said most of the families knew and were happy with him.
He told the Independent at the time that he 'never had the idea to have 100 children or 500 children'.
'It happened step by step. Many donors want to be in the news, but for me if nobody knew about me that would be absolutely fine. Now they do know about me, so I want to explain my side of the story.'
#6
Given all the Sperm donations in the voter plantations, with roaming donors that result in in the highest single parent (mother only) family births of any group in the USA.
One has to wonder the number of 1st cousin mating/births or related hook-ups there.
[BBC] France's Justice Minister said the government would not give in to "acts of intimidation" after a wave of attacks targeting prisons across the country.
On Monday night, vehicles were set alight outside several French prisons and one jail was hit by gunfire, in what Gérald Darmanin described as "terrorist attacks".
Seven prisons have been targeted, in Toulon, Aix-En-Provence, Marseille, Valence and Nîmes in southern France, and in Villepinte and Nanterre, near Paris.
Darmanin suggested the attacks which began on Sunday were a response to the government's crackdown on drug trafficking. France's anti-terrorism prosecutor's office has launched an investigation.
On Tuesday, Darmanin visited Toulon's La Farlede prison where gunmen opened fired on the prison gate with a Kalashnikov.
"I am delighted that the national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office has taken action because this is extremely serious," he told reporters. "These are terrorist attacks."
He added that "significant means" were being employed to find the perpetrators and they would be given "extremely severe sentences".
Darmanin indicated that the "acts of intimidation against prison workers" were related to government efforts to tackle drug crime.
"It might also be because we hit them where it hurts," he said, "and for the first time in decades, France is taking extremely serious measures against drug trafficking."
Earlier on Tuesday, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said the government's response must be "relentless".
"Those who attack prisons and officers deserve to be locked up in those prisons and monitored by those officers," he posted on X.
He added that he had instructed police to immediately strengthen security at prison facilities.
The prison guard union, FO Justice, expressed its "deepest concern and anger" following the "extremely serious" attacks overnight.
The union posted updates from the aftermath of several attacks on X, including images of burnt-out vehicles in prison car parks and bullet holes in the Toulon prison entrance gate.
It called for urgent government action to protect prison staff.
Another union, Ufap-Unsa Justice, said there were not enough officers to secure prison perimeters "24/7".
Ufap said that staff vehicles were among those set on fire outside the jails in Villepinte, Aix-Luynes, Nanterre and Valence.
The union condemned the "cowardly and heinous attacks [that] aim to terrorise those who embody the authority of the state".
In Nancy, a prison officer was reportedly threatened at their home, while in Marseille, an attempted arson attack targeted prison officers' accommodation.
Monday night's attacks come after seven vehicles were set on fire in a similar attack on France's national school of prison administration on Sunday, according to FO Justice.
"It is worrying to note that some people no longer hesitate to directly attack the prison's property, a symbol of state authority," it said in a statement.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Parisien reports that the letters DDPF - meaning "French prisoners' rights" - were found inscribed on damaged vehicles. The AFP news agency says anarchist slogans were found at some sites.
AFP quotes a source close to the case as saying the attacks appeared to be coordinated and "clearly linked" to the government's strategy against drug trafficking.
Darmanin and Retailleau have vowed to tackle the scourge of drug trafficking and drug-related violence in France amid a rise in gang-related crime.
In February, the interior ministry announced a record number of cocaine seizures in the first 11 months of 2024 - 53.5 tonnes, a rise of 130% on the 23.2 tonnes seized in 2023. Retailleau said France had been hit by a "white tsunami".
Darmanin has proposed a number of measures to tighten prison security, including establishing dedicated high-security prisons to isolate the drug lords who run their empires from behind bars.
A law is passing through the French parliament which creates a special prosecutor's office to deal with drugs crime, with new powers for investigators.
[RedState] White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller is exactly who conservatives have always thought he was—the right guy for the job when it comes to deporting criminal aliens from our country. All the right people hate him. The bureaucracy. The media. The Democrats. The deep state. I believe those on the far left would spit on his grave, a reality I’m sure he revels in. Is Miller Trump’s greatest asset? You could make the argument that no one is more effective.
For true conservatives who have always wanted to see a secure southern border and mass deportations, he’s a dream come true. I’m frankly grateful he’s finally getting some time in the spotlight. Regardless of if you love or hate him, you have to respect his ability to get things done for the president.
To be clear, I’ve never met Miller. While I worked at DHS, we never directly crossed paths. What I’m stating comes strictly from being in the staunch conservative world for a very long time—I can tell you, behind the scenes, he’s been methodically working towards this moment. You may ask yourself, how do you know that? My answer is simple: Look at the results we are getting. Yes, Trump is leading the effort, and I give him all the credit. Since the moment he came down that escalator at Trump Tower, he’s made immigration a major issue. But, what we’re doing, in the way we’re doing it, does not happen without Stephen Miller. He has a steel spinal cord. He can dish it out and take it. He can embarrass the media at a moment's notice.
[ZERO] Following the release of his new book, The Dark Sides of Migration, Swiss forensic psychiatrist Frank Urbaniok has called for European asylum policy to finally take migrant crime statistics into account, claiming that certain migrant groups are "disproportionately criminal" due to cultural factors.
Urbaniok, one of Switzerland’s most prominent forensic experts with over three decades of experience analyzing violent offenders, suggests that cultural influences from countries such as Afghanistan, Morocco, and Tunisia contribute significantly to higher crime rates among migrants from these regions.
"Afghans are reported more than five times, Moroccans more than eight times, and Tunisians more than nine times more often than Swiss nationals for serious violent crimes," Urbaniok stated in an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung, citing his analysis of crime data from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
"The disproportionate crime rate has a lot to do with cultural influences. It is about how violence is dealt with, the image of women, or the role of the rule of law in these countries. I have been dealing with criminals for 33 years and have seen thousands of cases at close range. That’s why I know how strong and relevant these imprints can be. Sometimes, they persist for generations," he said.
The cover of his book has drawn some criticism for prominently featuring a knife, which he insists is a "good symbol" as it "reflects the growing sense of insecurity in public spaces."
[X] China has issued directives to its airlines, prohibiting the acceptance of new Boeing aircraft deliveries and stopping the purchase of U.S.-made aviation parts. This move is seen in the context of escalating tensions due to tariffs imposed by the U.S. government on Chinese goods. The decision reflects a broader strategy in the ongoing trade negotiations between China and the United States, impacting both aviation industries.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/16/2025
01:27 ||
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[11158 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
#7
Today's China does NOT have 5,000 years of history. Mao very intentionally and systematically destroyed it. Today's China has less history than the US.
#10
The loss of factory jobs will lead to massive unrest, which Xi will mercilessly put down. Further economic loss will have him purging his Mil to avoid a coup. Hilarity ensues
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/16/2025 11:03
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#11
I just heard Trump saying once again: "They (Germany) don't take our cars. There are no Chevrolets in Munich."
You know, this annoys me to no end. Chevrolet mostly withdrew from the European market because they were incompetent to build the type of cars Europeans prefer (non gaz-guzzling sleek sedans) in acceptable quality. German importers of Japanese and even Korean cars pay 10% tariff just like importers of U.S. cars do, but they have no problem selling millions of them. Chevrolet only sells Camaro and Corvette in Germany and you do see some of them in Munich. And as you know I drive a Cadillac.
Stop blaming tariffs for what is actually incompetence.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/16/2025 18:53
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[FoxNews] The officer 'sustained lacerations and puncture wounds,' WMATA says
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy unexpectedly came across a violent incident against a police officer in the middle of Washington, D.C., Tuesday afternoon.
In an X post, Duffy explained that he was walking to the Navy Yard Metro Station when his staff told him a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) police officer had just been stabbed in the face. Duffy said he was about to talk about transit safety when he learned of the incident.
The WMATA later confirmed the incident to Fox News Digital, saying an officer was stabbed "with a sharp metal object" by a suspect who did not pay fare at the station.
"The officer sustained lacerations and puncture wounds to the face," a WMATA official said. "The suspect was detained by additional officers nearby. The suspect has been placed under arrest, and the weapon has been recovered."
The Leopard is a fine armored vehicle equal to anything the Russians can field. Their problem is how they were used in combat in Ukraine.
[Regnum] German Leopard 2 tanks are facing serious difficulties in the Ukrainian theater of military operations. This is reported by the British newspaper The Telegraph, citing a secret transcript of a conversation between the German military attaché in Kiev and Bundeswehr servicemen.
It is noted that the vulnerability of German tanks to Russian drones forces the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to use these vehicles not for their intended purpose, but as artillery installations,
As indicated in the material, the main problem of the Leopard 2, like other tanks, is their weak protection against attacks by Russian drones, which significantly limits the possibilities of their combat use in Ukraine.
The publication emphasizes that due to the complex design of the tanks, their repair in combat conditions is practically impossible. Damaged vehicles have to be transported to repair centers in western Ukraine or even sent to Poland for restoration and maintenance.
These limitations have led to the Ukrainian Armed Forces using the Leopard 2 primarily for artillery support, The Telegraph notes.
The transcript also points to difficulties with other types of German weapons. Even highly reliable systems, such as air defense systems, are facing shortages of ammunition, which reduces their effectiveness.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, earlier the Redaktions Netzwerk Deutschland (RND) media group reported that the head of the German Ministry of Defense Boris Pistorius expressed surprise at the reports of significant shortcomings in the military equipment of the FRG, revealed during the military operations in Ukraine. As the publication wrote, citing an internal document of the Bundeswehr, the Ukrainian army is experiencing serious problems with weapons systems. Thus, it is indicated that the Leopard tank requires large expenses for repairs, which are often impossible at the front, and the German self-propelled artillery unit Panzerhaubitze 2000 often fails to work.
Earlier, former American intelligence officer Scott Ritter
…very former. He’s had some impressive roles since then, but also managed to become a convicted pedophile which definitely harmed his career prospects. His record as a pundit is sometimes insightful and sometimes so wrong he might as well be on another planet…
said that Western military equipment supplied to Ukraine is worse than the old Soviet one. He called it "100% garbage" that is transferred to Kiev without being provided with the means to modernize it. In his opinion, such an approach is disastrous for the Ukrainian military.
In February 2024, the American publication National Interest called the Challenger 2 tanks, as well as the American Abrams and German Leopard 2, highly overrated. Journalists noted that the participation of this equipment in battles in Ukraine showed how vulnerable it is.
#1
If the engine conks out, it has to go all the way back to depot for replacement. The German design was for German defense. Your distance to depot is a lot closer within Germany. American tanks were designed around worldwide deployment.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Mikhail Kucherov
[REGNUM] On the night of April 15-16, 1945, the sky to the east of the German capital was illuminated by the light of 140 anti-aircraft searchlights. Then the roar of 20,000 artillery guns and Katyusha rockets fell on the Germans' first line of defense. This was the beginning of the Berlin Offensive Operation - victorious for the Red Army and fatal for the Third Reich.
Earlier, in February–March, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front under the command of Georgy Zhukov and the 1st Ukrainian Front, commanded by Ivan Konev, carried out several successful operations in the area from mountainous Silesia to the Baltic Sea. Thus, during the Vistula–Oder Operation, our armies in less than a month, with heavy fighting, advanced from the outskirts of Warsaw to the Prussian city of Küstrin, from where no more than 60 kilometers remained to Berlin.
By that time, Anglo-American troops had crossed the Rhine and surrounded a large German group in the Ruhr, which opened the way to the Elbe. There was no doubt that the attack on Berlin would soon begin from the west or the east. But it was not clear which of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, the Soviet Union or the Western Allies, would send troops there first.
"THE REAL AIM OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ARMIES"
On 1 April 1945, Winston Churchill wrote to Franklin Roosevelt, saying:" I believe that politically we should push as far east as possible in Germany and that if Berlin were within our reach we should certainly take it." The British and American General Staffs must coordinate their armies "before any commitment to the Russians is made," the Prime Minister insisted.
After the war, in his memoirs, Churchill bluntly recalled his plans from the spring of 1945: together with the Americans, “to immediately create a new front against its (Soviet Russia’s) rapid advance.”
“The main and real goal of the Anglo-American armies is Berlin; the liberation of Czechoslovakia and the entry of American troops into Prague are of the utmost importance,” Churchill reconstructed his plans.
In his memoirs, Zhukov cites the phrase of the commander of American forces in Europe, Dwight Eisenhower, at a meeting of the Allied headquarters on April 7: “If, after the capture of Leipzig, it turns out that it is possible to advance to Berlin without major losses, I want to do it.”
For his part, Joseph Stalin was clearly afraid of a separate conspiracy between the Nazi elite and the Anglo-Americans. He believed that the Nazis were amassing forces against us, exposing the Western Front. Thus, Zhukov cites details of one of the meetings with the Supreme Commander before the start of the Berlin operation:
"Silently extending his hand, he (Stalin), as always, as if continuing a recently interrupted conversation, said: - The German front in the West has finally collapsed, and, apparently, the Nazis do not want to take measures to stop the advance of the allied forces. Meanwhile, in all the most important directions against us, they are strengthening their groups."
Given Soviet internal history, it was quite reasonable for the Nazis to be more afraid of them than of the Allies.
Further, “having lit his pipe, the Supreme continued: “I think that a serious fight is coming… ”
All expected the next war of the free world vs. totalitarianism to be the Allies against the Soviet Union, et al, and so it was. It just turned out to be a cold war instead of a hot one, because America got nuclear bombs first.
ZHUKOV OR KONEV?
During another meeting with the commanders of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts, Stalin read out intelligence data (the Anglo-Americans were preparing to attack Berlin) and asked the military leaders a leading question about who would actually take it. "Of course we will, Comrade Stalin," Konev replied. Zhukov then repeated the same thing.
The Supreme Commander took a large operational map and drew a dividing line between the fronts, stopping at the town of Luben, several dozen kilometers from Berlin.
The marshals, competing with each other, got the hint: they needed to begin the operation quickly, with the honor of the winner going to the one who managed to break through to the city first. However, the troops of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front were in a more advantageous position, so Konev and his 1st Ukrainian Front had no choice but to assist their bureaucratic rival and focus on other tasks, including reaching the Elbe.
The honorable but extremely difficult task of taking Berlin fell to Zhukov.
"I'VE NEVER HAD TO TAKE CITIES LIKE THIS BEFORE"
The enemy was indeed able to concentrate very serious forces on the eastern approaches to the capital of the "thousand-year Reich". Zhukov noted: as a result of the operation, it turned out that the fascists had deployed against us no less than a million "bayonets" (this is without counting the 200-thousand garrison that was being formed in Berlin itself), about 1.5 thousand tanks and assault guns, 10.4 thousand artillery pieces and mortars, more than three thousand combat aircraft.
Yes, for the first time in the war years we had an overwhelming, not just significant, superiority over the enemy. In aviation - 2.5 times, in tanks and artillery - four times. The offensive involved 2.5 million soldiers and officers, 6,300 tanks, 7,500 aircraft. In addition, our military already knew the upcoming battlefield well: our reconnaissance aircraft took 15 thousand photographs, on the basis of which they created a detailed map
But the 1st Belorussian was facing the toughest urban battles of the entire war. It had to break through three lines of defense and minefields (in some areas the density reached 2 thousand mines per square kilometer).
"During the war, we had never had to take such large, heavily fortified cities as Berlin. Its total area was almost 900 square kilometers. The metro and widely developed underground structures gave the enemy troops the opportunity to carry out a wide covert maneuver," Zhukov explained. The Nazis equipped the city with at least 400 pillboxes and bunkers and erected barricades on the streets. Residential and industrial areas, highways and bridges were transformed into a huge fortified area.
It was also necessary to take into account that 2.5 million residents remained in the city. There was no talk of evacuation - the authorities forbade them to leave the city, believing that the people should perish together with the leaders of the Reich. Gauleiter and imperial leader of the defense of Berlin Joseph Goebbels explained the refusal to evacuate civilians from the city by saying that he "did not intend to plunge the capital into panic."
One should also not forget about Goebbels' main specialty - propaganda. Thanks to it, the garrison and the city's population, in fact, did not have a defeatist mood.
On the one hand, Goebbels’ department kept repeating about the “war crimes” that the “Bolsheviks” allegedly committed in occupied East Prussia, Eastern Pomerania, Silesia, Austria and other lands of the Reich.
On the other hand, the Germans were called upon to fanatical (Goebbels' favorite word) resistance. The last radio speech of the Reich Minister of Propaganda on April 21 is indicative: "The walls of our city must be broken and stopped by the Mongolian hordes! Our defense will become a beacon for the selfless struggle of the entire nation!.. With fanatical determination we will not allow our capital to fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks!"
As Ivan Konev recalled, during the battles on the approaches to Berlin and in the city itself, German soldiers surrendered only when they had no other choice. “The same should be said about the officers. But their fighting spirit had already died out. All that remained was a gloomy, hopeless determination to fight until the order to capitulate was received,” noted the military leader who commanded the 1st Ukrainian Front.
LESSONS FROM MOSCOW
Hitler's main mouthpiece, Goebbels, brought the military and civilians to a hopeless determination to die rather than surrender to the "Asian hordes." And he himself was inspired by the example of Moscow in the fall of 1941. In the multi-volume diaries of the Minister of Propaganda, there remains a note from March 1, 1945 about a conversation with the traitor under his patronage, Andrei Vlasov:
"Vlasov describes the situation in Moscow that arose as a result of the threat of encirclement in the late autumn of 1941. The entire Soviet leadership had already lost its head; only Stalin continued to persist, although he was already very exhausted. The situation was approximately the same as we are experiencing at the present time. And we have a leader who demands resistance at any cost and who again and again incites everyone else to this cause."
It should be noted that our military leaders also drew parallels with the defense of Moscow from September 1941 to April 1942 from a military-strategic point of view.
“I have returned more than once to the greatest battle near Moscow, when powerful enemy hordes, concentrated on the approaches to the capital, dealt powerful blows to the defending Soviet troops,” wrote Zhukov. “ I wanted to take into account the experience of this difficult battle in detail, in order to use all the best for the upcoming operation.”
"CHRISTMAS TREE" ON "FAUSTNIKS"
The first chord of the operation was the assault by Zhukov's troops on the last obstacle on the way to the city - the Seelow Heights. It began on April 16. The fighting was fierce, and the advance of the Soviet troops was complicated by the landscape - there are many rivers, lakes and forests around Berlin. Three days later, this line was broken, and on April 25, the encirclement ring around the city was closed.
The first street battles confirmed that the Germans were not going to surrender without a fight. Windows and doors were filled with concrete, buildings were turned into strongholds with machine guns and Faustpatrones.
“The Faustpatrone is one of those means that can create in people who are not physically prepared and not trained for war a sense of psychological confidence that, having become soldiers only yesterday, they can actually do something today,” recalled Marshal Konev.
The old men of the Volkssturm and the boys of the Hitler Youth were not to be underestimated.
“The Faust soldiers, as a rule, fought to the end and at this last stage showed significantly greater resilience than the seasoned German soldiers, who were broken by defeats and many years of fatigue,” the marshal pointed out.
Here is the testimony of a direct participant in the battles, who went from the outskirts to the center of Berlin.
"Tanks were burning from Faustpatrones. When a shell hit a vehicle, small red-hot fragments hit the crew. Our guys, when they found this weapon, actively used it: they put it on their shoulder, took aim and pulled the trigger. This big blank flew right to the target," recalled Colonel Lev Yasnopolsky.
In order to suppress the enemy's resistance, our heavy and super-heavy artillery of 203 and 305 mm calibers hit the firing point, and then tanks moved in a "herringbone" pattern on different sides of the streets, destroying barricades and suppressing the remnants of resistance. Only after that did the infantry advance.
Unlike the storming of Vienna, there was no goal to preserve the architecture – Berlin had already been destroyed by British and American air raids.
The Red Army treated ordinary Berliners, first intimidated by propaganda and then by battles, humanely. The story of Sergeant Nikolai Masalov is widely known: under machine gun fire, he carried a three-year-old German girl out of a destroyed house. Based on this story, sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich developed a design for a 40-ton statue installed in Berlin's Treptower Park.
"THIS IS COLONEL ZINCHENKO SPEAKING! I AM IN THE REICHSTAG!"
The first ten days of fighting showed that, despite stubborn resistance, the position of the Wehrmacht and the SS troops was hopeless. This was understood by all officers who retained common sense, but the inhabitants of the Führerbunker clearly did not understand.
The story of artillery general Helmut Weidling is indicative. On April 23, he was to be shot as a traitor on a false denunciation. Weidling reached the bunker, waited for an audience with Hitler, and convinced the Fuhrer of his innocence. As a sign of trust, Hitler appointed the general commander of the defense of Berlin. Leaving the Fuhrer's office, Weidling uttered the famous phrase: "I would prefer to be shot."
After almost two weeks of fighting, on April 30, Soviet units approached the Reichstag building, which had long since lost its real political significance, but remained a symbol of German power, and in April 1945 became a serious "fortification" of the enemy. The Reichstag was defended by 1,000 people, including SS men, anti-aircraft gunners, and naval school cadets.
In essence, Hitler's "new Europe" fought its last battle here. The SS men from the Danish-Norwegian "Nordland" division, the French from the SS "Charlemagne" division, Latvian and Estonian legionnaires and even Spanish "volunteers" were driven out of the Reichstag. The building was crammed with machine gun crews and artillery pieces.
A recording of a conversation with the commander of the 756th rifle regiment of the 1st Belorussian Front, Fyodor Zinchenko, who was one of the first to break through to the besieged building, has been preserved:
"I appoint you, Comrade Zinchenko, as commandant of the Reichstag. You will receive written confirmation later. I set the task: clear the Reichstag of the enemy, immediately install the Banner of the Military Council of the Army on its dome and organize the protection of valuables located in the building. Convey the gratitude of Marshal Zhukov to all participants in the storming of the Reichstag.”
Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantaria were tasked with installing the Victory Banner, which had to be in a prominent place. It was impossible to climb the dome with a ladder under heavy fire, but Kantaria saw a pediment from which the banner would be clearly visible. "Come on, Misha, let's install it there," he suggested to Egorov. Later, the banner was moved to the dome, and on May 3, the famous photograph of it was published in the newspaper Pravda.
"TODAY IS OUR HOLIDAY"
On the same day, April 30, the Führer and Reich Chancellor Hitler committed suicide, having previously read out his political testament. He expelled the "traitors" Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, who had fled Berlin to negotiate with the Anglo-Americans, from the party, after which he appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (who remained in Flensburg in northern Germany) as Reich President, and Goebbels, who was in the Führerbunker, as Chancellor.
The latter, however, soon followed the example of the Reich leader and committed suicide along with his family. The last commandant of Berlin, General Weidling, breathed a sigh of relief after the Führer's death - and issued an order stating: "The Führer has committed suicide, leaving to the mercy of fate all who swore allegiance to him."
After the war he recalled:
"I gave the order to the units, those who could and wanted to, to break through, and the rest to lay down their arms. All the staff supported me, and on the night of May 2, I sent Colonel von Dufing as a parliamentarian to the Russians... The situation was such that after I had made my decision, I felt safe only with the Russians."
On May 1, a delegation headed by Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces General Hans Krebs arrived at the headquarters of the commander of the 8th Guards Army Vasily Chuikov. "Today is May Day, a great holiday for both of our nations," Krebs began. "Today is our holiday. And how things are going for you, it's hard to say," Chuikov answered bluntly.
Krebs reported Hitler's death, and when it was passed on to Stalin, he expressed regret that the Fuhrer could not be captured alive. The general also proposed a truce, while Moscow demanded complete capitulation. Zhukov promised that "nothing but ruins" would remain of Berlin if the Germans did not fulfill their main demand. At 10:40 a.m., heavy artillery fire was opened on the government quarter that remained in Nazi hands.
At about 1 a.m. on May 2, Wehrmacht officers with white flags were spotted on the Potsdam Bridge, and at 6 a.m. Weidling finally ordered his troops to surrender. Soviet tanks drove around the city with loudspeakers broadcasting their commander's appeal to the Nazis. Groups of German soldiers and officers with their hands raised emerged from the ruins and basements. By three o'clock in the afternoon, the city was silent.
In the first "peaceful" hours and days, new tasks had to be urgently solved. "The possibility of epidemics in Berlin posed an exceptional threat to the troops and the population. The weather was hot, and corpses were lying around everywhere - in every house, basement, attic," recalled one of the commanders of the military rear, General Nikolai Antipenko (from September - the commander of the rear in our group of troops in Germany). "Many destroyed and contaminated reservoirs and springs, mass diseases among Soviet and foreign citizens liberated from concentration camps, spoiled food in warehouses, stores, etc."
There were many to bury: the Soviet troops lost 80 thousand soldiers irretrievably during the operation, Germany lost 380 thousand. About half a million Germans were captured.
Although the act of final capitulation was signed six days later, and German units were still holding the line near Prague, the fall of Berlin meant the long-awaited end of the war. The capture of the German capital by Soviet units also became an important factor in world politics: it gave the USSR a powerful argument in negotiations on the formation of a post-war world order.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 19:30 Ukrainian Armed Forces dronescontinuestrikes in the Belgorod region. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties.
In the village of Plotvyanka in the Volokonovsky district, a drone dropped an explosive device on the territory of a private home - windows were broken in the house, outbuildings were damaged. A car in the yard was also destroyed by fire.
In the Belgorod district, in the village of Krasny Oktyabr, two parking lots of agricultural enterprises were attacked by FPV drones - five vehicles were damaged. In the village of Yasnye Zori, a drone attacked an administrative building - the glazing and facade were damaged.
In the city of Shebekino, a drone detonated in the air, as a result of which windows were knocked out and the roof of an outbuilding was damaged. In the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka, Shebekinsky District, two passenger cars were cut by shrapnel from the detonation of an FPV drone.
In the Borisovsky district, in the village of Borisovka, the roof of a commercial building was damaged as a result of the detonation of an FPV drone.
Another UAV attack was recorded in the village of Rakitnoye - two trucks were damaged in the enterprise parking lot.
19:22 Drone of the Russian Armed Forces destroyed an M-113 armored personnel carrier with an assault group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of the settlement of Lukyanovskoye in the Orekhov direction.
17:59 Well-coordinated joint work of operators of the separate special forces detachment "Viking" and the 392nd Motorized Rifle Regiment to destroy the M-113 armored fighting vehicle and a pickup truck of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Zaporizhia direction -video.
17:24 Captured serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Yuriy Gladchenko told that the Ukrainian command is abandoning its subordinates to certain death:
"People are not valued. They are thrown to be slaughtered. People are knocked out like flies. If you know there is danger, they still send you to your death."
16:51 Artillerymen from the howitzer division of the 380th Motorized Rifle Regiment found and covered the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine —video.
16:28 Another Polish self-propelled gun was destroyed in the Khar'kov region —video.
15:52 A Molniya UAV crew from the 1st Guards Tank Army of the Zapad group destroyed a stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Khar'kov region. Intelligence revealed a concentration of Ukrainian Armed Forces militants.
The drone crew successfully hit the target, allowing the attack aircraft to continue their advance —video.
15:25 An FPV drone operator of the Sever group destroyed an enemy vehicle intended for the rotation of Ukrainian Armed Forces militants on the combat contact line in Sumy Oblast —video.
14:57 Summary of Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation as of April 15, 2025
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue to conduct a special military operation.
– Units of the North group of forces in the Belgorod direction inflicted losses on concentrations of manpower and equipment of four mechanized brigades, a coastal defense brigade, an assault regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and a territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Miropolskoye, Malaya Rybitsa, Petrushevka, Krasnopolye and Yamnoye in the Sumy region.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 90 servicemen, three combat armored vehicles, four cars and four field artillery guns. Two ammunition depots and a warehouse of material resources were destroyed.
- Units of the "West" group of forces have taken up more advantageous lines and positions. They have defeated formations of three mechanized brigades, an assault brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a territorial defense brigade and a national guard brigade in the areas of the settlements of Kamenka, Doroshovka, Radkovka, Moskovka, Podoli, Senkovo, Boguslavka, Novaya Kruglyakovka in the Khar'kov region, Karpovka, Redkodub, Kirovsk and Yampol in the Donetsk People's Republic.
The enemy lost more than 250 troops, a UK-made Snatch armoured fighting vehicle, four vehicles and five NATO-made field artillery pieces, including two Polish-made Krab 155mm self-propelled artillery pieces, a UK-made Braveheart 155mm self-propelled artillery piece and a US-made M198 155mm howitzer. Four electronic warfare stations and three ammunition depots were destroyed.
- Units of the "Southern" group of troops improved their tactical position. They defeated the manpower and equipment of three mechanized, mountain assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, two territorial defense brigades and a national guard brigade in the areas of the settlements of Seversk, Minkovka, Markovo, Chasov Yar, Kurdyumovka, Ivanopolye, Yablonovka, Tarasovka, Ulyanovka and Valentinovka of the Donetsk People's Republic.
The Ukrainian armed forces lost over 285 servicemen, a Swedish-made CV-90 infantry fighting vehicle, an M113 armored personnel carrier, and a US-made HMMWV armored car. Nine vehicles, 10 field artillery pieces, including two UK-made 155mm FH-70 howitzers and a US-made 155mm Paladin self-propelled artillery unit, as well as five ammunition depots, two supply depots, and a fuel depot were destroyed.
- Units of the "Center" group of forces occupied more advantageous lines and positions. They defeated the formations of two mechanized, assault, ranger brigades, a brigade of unmanned systems, an assault regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and a brigade of the National Guard in the areas of the settlements of Lysovka, Zverevo, Kotlino, Udachnoye, Preobrazhenka, Bogdanovka and Alekseyevka of the Donetsk People's Republic.
The enemy lost more than 335 troops, four armored combat vehicles, including an M113 armored personnel carrier and two US-made HMMWV armored vehicles, two pickup trucks and seven field artillery pieces, including US-made 155mm Paladin and Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery pieces.
- Units of the "East" group of forces continued to advance into the depths of the enemy's defense. They defeated the manpower and equipment of the mechanized, airmobile, airborne assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Bogatyr, Otradnoye, Burlatskoye and Shevchenko of the Donetsk People's Republic.
The enemy's losses amounted to 155 servicemen, two armored vehicles, a pickup truck and two field artillery pieces, including a US-made 155mm Paladin self-propelled artillery unit.
- Units of the Dnepr group of forces improved their tactical position. They defeated formations of a mechanized, mountain assault brigade, two coastal defense brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and two territorial defense brigades in the areas of the settlements of Novodanilovka, Stepnogorsk in the Zaporizhia region, Tokarevka, Sadovoe, Antonovka and Dneprovskoe in the Kherson region.
Up to 100 servicemen, nine vehicles, three artillery pieces, two electronic warfare stations, a US-made AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery radar station and three ammunition depots were destroyed.
Operational-tactical aviation, strike unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups damaged the infrastructure of a military airfield, workshops for assembling multiple launch rocket systems and strike unmanned aerial vehicles, a training center for drone operators, as well as temporary deployment points of Ukrainian armed formations in 144 districts.
Air defense systems destroyed four JDAM guided aerial bombs and five US-made HIMARS multiple launch rockets, as well as 304 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.
13:42 Russian Armed Forces advance near Razdolnoye and Burlatskoye, –MAP.
13:19 Airborne 122mm D-30 howitzer crews destroyed platoon strongholds with manpower and a field ammunition depot of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border area of the Kursk region —video.
12:53 Rubicon Center specialists are hitting manpower, communications equipment, drones and armored vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Sumy direction —video.
12:27 Russian Ministry of Defense:
Around 08:00 Moscow time, air defense systems on duty destroyed Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle of the airplane type over the territory of the Belgorod region
11:56 Governor of Belgorod Region Vyacheslav Gladkov:
Information about the strikes carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on our region over the past 24 hours:
– In Belgorod, as a result of falling debris from a downed drone, the roof of a private house was damaged.
– In the Belgorod district, the village of Malinovka, the villages of Varvarovka, Golovino, Nikolaevka, Nikolskoye, Pushkarnoye and Yasnye Zori were attacked by 12 drones, five of which were shot down by the air defense system.
In the village of Yasnye Zori, a building of a social facility was damaged, in the village of Nikolaevka, a private house was destroyed by fire, and in the village of Maysky, a passenger car was damaged as a result of falling debris from a downed UAV.
Tonight in the village of Varvarovka, after explosive devices were dropped from a drone, three private houses, an outbuilding and 4 vehicles were damaged.
– In the Borisovsky district, the village of Tsapovka and the village of Klimovoye were struck by four drones. In the village of Klimovoye, a private home was damaged.
– In the Valuysky municipal district, attacks by six drones were carried out in the settlement of Urazovo, the villages of Borki, Dolgoe and Karabanovo, of which two were suppressed. In the village of Borki, a car, a private house and an outbuilding were damaged. In the settlement of Urazovo, tonight, as a result of the drops of 4 explosive devices from a UAV, two vehicles and seven private houses were damaged.
– In the Volokonovsky district, the villages of Volchya Aleksandrovka, Novoye and the farmstead Bochanka were shelled with four munitions and attacked by two drones.
In the farmstead Bochanka, a woman was wounded as a result of explosive devices dropped from a drone on the territory of a household. The victim received medical care at the Valuyskaya Central District Hospital, and continues to receive treatment on an outpatient basis. In addition, in this farmstead, a private house was partially destroyed and a passenger car located in the yard was completely destroyed by fire. In the village of Novoye, three private houses were damaged, and in the village of Volchya Aleksandrovka, a truck.
– In the Grayvoronsky municipal district, 11 munitions were fired during three attacks and 18 drones were attacked in the settlements of Gorkovsky, Chapaevsky, the villages of Bezymeno, Glotovo, Golovchino, Gora-Podol, Mokraya Orlovka, Poroz, Spodaryushino, as well as the Masychevo farm.
Near the village of Glotovo, a civilian was wounded as a result of an explosive device dropped from a drone. The man received the necessary medical care, and further treatment continues on an outpatient basis.
In the village of Bezymeno, a passenger car was damaged, in the village of Gora-Podol - three vehicles, a private house and outbuildings. Last night, as a result of explosive devices dropped from a UAV, three apartments in an apartment building, a private house and seven cars were damaged in the village of Chapaevsky;
in the village of Golovchino, an apartment building, two cars and a social facility were damaged;
in the village of Glotovo, the fences of two private houses and two outbuildings were damaged.
– In the Krasnoyarsk region, the settlements of Krasnaya Yaruga, Prilesye, the villages of Vyazovoye, Grafovka, Demidovka, Kolotilovka, Staroselye and Terebreno were subjected to 10 attacks with the use of 53 munitions and attacks by seven drones, one of which was shot down. In the settlement of Krasnaya Yaruga, a car was damaged, in the village of Vyazovoye, a private house was destroyed by fire.
– In the Rakityansky district, five drones attacked the village of Rakitnoye, the village of Ilek-Koshary and the farmstead of Novy Put.
In the village of Rakitnoye, a civilian was killed when a drone struck a truck. The man died at the scene from his injuries.
In the village of Rakitnoye, 2 trucks were destroyed by fire, a commercial facility and one car were also damaged, in the village of Ilek-Koshary, a passenger car and a truck were damaged, in the farmstead of Novy Put, a private house and a car were damaged.
– In the Shebekinsky municipal district, the city of Shebekino, the villages of Voznesenovka, Murom, Novaya Tavolzhanka and Rzhevka were attacked by 27 drones, of which 26 were shot down and suppressed. No casualties or damage.
11:25 Russian Ministry of Defense:
FPV drone operators of the Southern Group of Forces destroyed two enemy dugouts with personnel —video.
Aleksandro-Kalinovskoe direction.
10:53 Criminal Kyiv regime continues to shell civilian infrastructure of populated areas of the left bank of the Kherson region, yesterday during the day the Ukrainian Armed Forces released:
– Five rounds in the village of Novaya Kakhovka;
- According to n.p. Kakhovka two rounds;
– Three rounds in the village of Velikaya Lepetikha;
– Two rounds to the settlement of Tsarskoye;
- Four rounds to the village of Aleshki.
As a result of shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a civilian was killed in Novaya Kakhovka. In Oleshky, a civilian was wounded.
During the night, the Kiev regime continued to shell civilian infrastructure in the villages of Kakhovka, Kazachi Lagerya, Korsunka, Proletarka, and Dnepryany, firing a total of 15 rounds from cannon artillery. Civilian casualties and infrastructure destruction are being clarified.
10:27 Telegram channel «Fisherman»:
Chronicle of the SVO for April 12-13
- In the Sumy direction, Russian troops are pushing through the defense of Protvino on the Belovody-Loknya line, having entered the last populated area. Also, fighters of the 22nd Motorized Rifle Regiment are advancing on Gornal from the Guevo side, having reached the territory of the local monastery.
– On the southern flank of the Dzerzhinsk direction, the Russian Armed Forces liberated Kalinovo after a two-week operation and made significant progress in the vicinity of the settlement. The offensive went practically unnoticed by the media, which largely helped to organize several small "cauldrons" for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Russian troops also drove the enemy out of private buildings in the north of Dzerzhinsk.
– In the Andreevsky direction, Russian troops are gradually advancing toward Alekseyevka and Bogatyr along the banks of the Volchya River, and from the direction of Constantinople they have managed to pass through the area of irrigation canals north of the N-15 highway. At the same time, the situation north of Volchya remains difficult.
09:50 Moscow-controlled FPV strike drone flies for the first time at ultra-long range struck Ukrainian Armed Forces facility in Chasovy Yar.
The strike was carried out by the FPV drone "Ovod" using the new control system "Orbita".
A UAV crew from the Espanyola brigade, located near Chasovy Yar, prepared the drone for takeoff.
The drone was then controlled by a UAV operator located in Moscow City.
The drone flew more than 11 km from the take-off point to the target and successfully hit it.
09:00 The Russian Armed Forces are advancing in the direction of Vodolagh, and are also fighting for Vladimirovka and Belovody, –MAP.
08:13 FPV drone operators of the "Southern" group of troops destroyed two enemy dugouts with personnel in the Aleksandro-Kalinovsky direction.
07:36 Changes on the map over the past 24 hours:
- Preobrazhenka was liberated;
– The Russian Armed Forces entered Novomikhaylovka;
– Advance in the Belogorovka area;
– Control zone west of Makeyevka has been expanded;
– Russian Armed Forces occupied the western part of Valentinovka.
07:12 During the past night, air defense systems on duty intercepted and destroyed 115 Ukrainian aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles:
109 UAVs over the territory of the Kursk region,
Three UAVs over the territory of the Voronezh region,
One UAV each over the territories of the Moscow region, Bryansk and Oryol regions.
06:21 Remote calculation of the engineering system "Agriculture" of the "Center" group mined approaches to the positions of Russian troops in the Krasnoarmeysk direction.
Having received information about a possible counterattack by the enemy, the ISDM "Zemledeliye" crew moved to a prepared position. The servicemen remotely mined the area where the armored vehicles and infantry of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were supposed to move.
05:09 Servicemen of the "East" military group liquidated two combat armored vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of the settlement of Bogatyr in the South Donetsk direction.
[NY Post] Deep State or Just Media Suck Up? Dan Caldwell, a key adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was “escorted” out of the Pentagon Tuesday after being implicated during a leak investigation.
Caldwell was put on administrative leave for “an unauthorized disclosure,” a US official told Reuters, adding that “the investigation remains ongoing.”
A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed to The Post that Caldwell had been removed from his post.
Caldwell was “escorted” out the Pentagon Tuesday, a DOD spokesperson confirmed.
It’s unclear what material Caldwell, a senior adviser in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, is accused of leaking and to whom.
Caldwell’s removal comes less than a month after Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, ordered the director for defense intelligence (counterintelligence, law enforcement, and security) to assist in a probe into “unauthorized disclosures of sensitive and classified information across the Department of Defense.”
“Recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) demand immediate and thorough investigation,” Kasper wrote in the March 21 memo.
The directive noted that polygraph tests could be administered “in accordance with applicable law and policy” as part of the hunt for the leaker.
It’s unclear whether Caldwell was subjected to a polygraph test.
A report including a “complete record of unauthorized disclosures within the Department of Defense and recommendations to improve such efforts” is expected to be delivered to Hegseth at the end of the investigation.
“I expect to be informed immediately if this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure, and that such information will be referred to the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution,” Kasper wrote.
It’s not yet known whether Caldwell will face any criminal charges.
Caldwell previously worked at restraint-minded think tank Defense Priorities and Concerned Veterans for America, a group formerly led by Hegseth. A foreign policy realist, he has argued that the U.S. should dramatically reduce its footprint in Europe and pull out forces from Iraq and Syria.
#2
At some point, I suggest getting rid of people involved in authorized leaks as well. Those are usually shady. Canning the people that authorize leaks ought to tick off all the right people.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/16/2025 5:41
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Sounds like, He may have just signed and did not actually read FORM 4414.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 22.25 The White House praised the visit of Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. This is stated in a statement by White House press secretary Caroline Levitt.
21.39 The Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence will consider on April 16 the Russian attack on the center of Sumy on Palm Sunday, which took the lives of 35 people. This was reported by the representative of this committee, People's Deputy Fedir Venislavsky.
21.22 The protection of the skies over Odessa from Russian attacks will be strengthened because the city was better protected before. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this today at a meeting with business representatives of the Odessa region.
20.49 President Volodymyr Zelensky held a coordination meeting in Odessa on air defense, the regional economy, and the situation with displaced persons. Commanders and officials reported on air defense, grain exports, and regional security.
18:57 NATO will not comment on the intermediate stages of the US-Russia negotiations on "inclusion of five Ukrainian territories into the Russian Federation". The discussion was about the scandalous statement by US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff.
18.46 The occupiers accused a resident of Energodar, an employee of Zaporizhzhya NPP, of so-called "treason". The woman was sentenced to 14 years in prison. This was reported by the mayor of Energodar, Dmitry Orlov, on his Telegram channel.
18.28 Ukraine is a sovereign state, and only the Ukrainian people can speak about its territory. This was stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky at a press conference in Odessa. In this way, he hinted that the US President's special envoy Steve Witkoff is discussing the issue beyond his competence.
18.09 In Sumy, the number of people killed due to Russia's missile strike on the city center on April 13 has risen to 36. This was reported by the Sumy City Council.
"The condition of 10 victims is serious (two children and eight adults). Another 35 people are in moderate condition, the rest have minor injuries. Unfortunately, one person died in hospital," the statement said.
In total, 127 people have sought medical help to date: 109 of them, including 18 children. There are 44 patients in hospital, including ten children.
17.43 Ukraine has completed the 2024/2025 heating season despite nine massive attacks by Russia on the energy system, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
17.14 The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine has put on the wanted list a suspect in the large-scale theft of funds for food for the Armed Forces of Ukraine - entrepreneur Tatyana Glinyanaya.
16.36 The first region to reduce payments for contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry was the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. From April 15, Russian so-called "volunteers" will receive 1.9 million instead of 3.1 million rubles.
16:09 Additional restrictions and security measures will be in effect in the Kyiv region on Easter.
Main restrictions and recommendations:
The curfew remains unchanged - being on the streets at night is prohibited;
Night services should be held online;
Visiting churches is permitted after curfew;
It is recommended to create schedules for services and blessing of baskets to avoid crowds;
In case of an air raid, believers must immediately take shelter.
14:55 On April 15, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law allowing military personnel to receive a 50% discount on fines for failure to update data from the TCC. According to the new law, if a military personnel fails to update their data in the TCC, Administrative Service Center or via an electronic account within 60 days after the entry into force of the mobilization decree, this is considered an administrative offense.
14:38 The Cabinet of Ministers has updated the rules for booking military personnel by amending Resolution No. 76 of January 27, 2023, "Some issues of implementing the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On mobilization preparation and mobilization." This was announced by the permanent representative of the government in the Verkhovna Rada Taras Melnychuk. The booking procedure, as well as the criteria and procedures by which enterprises, institutions and organizations that are critical for the functioning of the economy, life support of the population and the needs of the Armed Forces during a special period are determined have been updated. Now the procedure does not apply to military personnel registered with the SBU and intelligence agencies. Adjustments have also been made to the Criteria in accordance with the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On Military Duty and Military Service" regarding intelligence agencies. In addition, a separate procedure has been approved for booking persons registered with the Security Service of Ukraine and intelligence agencies for the period of mobilization and wartime.
13:55 A 20-year-old volunteer from Finland has died in the war in Ukraine, Yle reports. It is noted that the resident of the city of Turku left Finland several months ago to join the Ukrainian troops.
12:37 A drone hit an ammunition depot in Kursk, Russia. This was stated by Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC).
12:29 The source of the baseless statements about the alleged 4.8 thousand servicemen from other countries killed during the military operation in the Kursk region, Russia, are Russian propagandists. This was reported by the Center for Countering Disinformation of the NSDC.
"The propagandists claim that since the summer of 2024, 4,781 servicemen from Poland, Georgia, Colombia, France, Germany, Great Britain, the USA, Australia and Japan have died in the Kursk region. It is emphasized that among the "dead" foreigners, the largest number are citizens of Poland," the report noted.
The CCD emphasized that the purpose of such fakes is to justify armed aggression against Ukraine and promote the narrative that "the whole world is fighting against Russia."
12:13 During the so-called "energy ceasefire," the Russian army killed almost 2.5 times more Ukrainians than during the same period before it was declared. This was reported by the CPD.
Thus, from March 25 to April 15, Russian troops carried out eight massive attacks on Ukrainian cities, resulting in the deaths of 72 people, including 11 children.
11:30 In Ukraine, from May 1, basic general military training (BGMT) will become simpler and shorter for those "of limited fitness." This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It is noted that the updated BGMT program will reduce the workload of military personnel fit for service in support units; security units; territorial recruitment and social support centers (TRSC and SP); higher military educational institutions; training centers; institutions; medical units; logistics units; communications and security.
10:59 As of April 15, 149,987 criminal proceedings have been initiated on the facts of crimes committed on the territory of the country by servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and their accomplices since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. This was reported by the National Police. It is noted that 133 thousand 779 proceedings were initiated on the facts of war crimes. Another 9 thousand 335 proceedings were initiated on the facts of encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine, 4 thousand 398 on the facts of collaboration activities and 317 on the facts of treason. This is almost 28 thousand crimes more than on July 14, 2024, including almost 27 thousand more war crimes.
10:23 Three agents of the Russian military intelligence (better known as the GRU) who were preparing to blow up a Ukrainian Armed Forces vehicle and a police administration building in Vinnytsia have been detained. This was reported by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on April 15.
9:50 Fires broke out in several residential buildings in Kursk on the night of April 15 after a massive drone attack. This was reported by the BBC Russian Service, citing the operational headquarters of the Kursk region. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, air defense systems allegedly shot down 115 drones over different regions at night. Most of the drones were allegedly shot down over the Kursk region (109 UAVs), three UAVs - over the territory of the Voronezh region, and one drone each over the territories of the Moscow region, Bryansk and Oryol regions.
8.54 Over the past 24 hours, 99 combat clashes between the Ukrainian Defense Forces and the Russian invaders have been recorded at the front. This was reported by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on April 15. Aviation, missile troops and artillery of the Defense Forces hit five areas of concentration of personnel, weapons and military equipment, two air defense systems, four command posts, eight artillery systems, three radars/electronic warfare stations and two other important enemy facilities.
8:15 During the day, Russian troops attacked the Nikopol district of the Dnipropetrovsk region with kamikaze drones, there is damage, a woman was injured. This was reported on April 15 by the head of the Dnipropetrovsk OVA Serhiy Lysak.
7:50 In one day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed 1,180 Russian invaders. The total combat losses of Russian troops since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, from February 24, 2022 to April 15, 2025, amount to about 935 thousand 160 people. This was reported by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on April 15.
7:23 Operators of the 413th battalion of the Raid Forces of Unmanned Systems, in cooperation with the combined detachment of the BPS Dzhmil 78th Airborne Assault Regiment, destroyed a Russian Strela-10 anti-aircraft missile system in the Kursk region. This was reported by the press service of the Unmanned Systems Forces, publishing a video .
05:29 The ruling Liberal Party of Canada assured that if it wins the elections, it will provide comprehensive support to Ukraine. In particular, Canada plans to "continue macroeconomic, humanitarian and other support to help Ukraine provide essential services and facilitate its long-term recovery."
03:11 Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that since the beginning of the year, the Ukrainian Defense Forces have destroyed 11,583 units of enemy vehicles and special equipment.
02:14 In the US Congress, representatives of the Democratic Party introduced a bill designed to strengthen support for Ukraine in the war with Russia, as well as introduce tough sanctions against Moscow. It provides for multi-level assistance to Ukraine - from financing needs and post-war reconstruction to enhanced sanctions against Russia.
According to the draft, the first section confirms support for Ukraine and NATO, and also proposes the creation of the position of a special coordinator for the restoration of Ukraine. The second chapter concerns security assistance, in particular direct loans and military financing.
01:10 Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico did not say that Russia was to blame for the attack on Sumy when he commented on the April 13 missile attack. Fico had not previously commented on the Russian attack, and when journalists asked him about the strike during a press conference on April 14, the prime minister replied: "I condemn the murder. I condemn all murders, I have always condemned them and I will do so. But I do not have enough information to say anything right now."
That doesn’t jibe with other reports we’ve seen recently…
[VANGUARDNGR] Nigeria's Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, has confidently stated that the notorious terrorist groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are ''on their last legs.''
In an interview with FRANCE 24, Idris discussed various critical issues affecting Nigeria, including the global trade situation, the political unrest in neighboring Niger, and ongoing security challenges in West Africa.
Idris remarked that the decline of these terrorist groups is imminent, claiming that efforts from Nigeria's military and security forces have significantly weakened the groups' operational capabilities.
He also mentioned the recently formed Lakurawa group, expressing confidence that this new threat would soon be neutralized as part of Nigeria's broader strategy to eliminate terrorism from the region.
The minister also addressed concerns over a potential global trade war, noting Nigeria's concerns while remaining hopeful that governments across the globe would find a balanced solution to avoid major economic disruptions.
Discussing the political crisis in Niger, where a recent coup ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, Idris assured that Nigeria and the regional bloc ECOWAS were no longer seeking military intervention. He stressed that the primary goal now was to restore stability in the region, with an emphasis on diplomatic efforts to secure Bazoum's release from house arrest.
Regarding Nigeria's own democratic institutions, Idris expressed confidence, asserting that the country's strong democratic systems make any attempt at a coup unlikely. He reaffirmed the commitment to maintaining the nation's democratic integrity amidst regional uncertainties.
The minister's statements come at a time when Nigeria is intensifying its efforts to combat terrorism, and his optimistic outlook reflects the government's belief that Boko Haram and ISWAP's influence in the region will soon be eradicated.
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[AFRICANEWS] Monday's attack comes exactly one week after another raid claimed 52 lives.
Gunmen suspected to be cattle rustlers raided two villages in Plateau state's Bassa district before shooting and hacking their victims. At least 51 bodies were recovered by rescue teams.
Dozens more were maimed. A resident interviewed by Rooters said a mass burial was conducted for the victims.
Plateau - in Nigeria's centre - is one of the country's most ethnically diverse states. Inter-communal fights pitting mostly Christian farmers and predominantly Moslem herders are common.
Amnesty International said the button men also destroyed and looted homes. In a statement, the organization blamed 'inexcusable' security failures for Monday's attack.
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] The Ukrainian Armed Forces are engaged in heavy fighting in the east and south of Ukraine.
Russian troops are most active in the Pokrovsky direction, where they have organized assaults in the areas of eight populated areas.
Since the beginning of the current day, 58 combat clashes have occurred on the front in 10 directions. Currently, battles are taking place in five directions, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in an operational report on Tuesday, April 15.
Thus, in the Kupyansk direction, the Russians attacked twice in the areas of the settlements of Zagrizovoe and Novaya Kruglyakovka. One battle is still ongoing.
In the Liman direction, the enemy carried out 10 attacks near Novomikhaylovka, Nadezhda and in the direction of Zelenaya Dolina and Grigoryevka. Four battles are still ongoing.
In the Seversky direction, the invaders are looking for weak spots in the Ukrainian Armed Forces defense near Verkhnekamyanskoye and Belogorovka. Three attacks have been successfully repelled.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the occupiers once unsuccessfully tried to advance forward in the Stupochki area.
In the Toretsk direction , 12 combat clashes have been completed, two more enemy assaults are ongoing. The enemy is trying to advance in the areas of Dachnoye, Dilievka and Toretsk.
In the Pokrovsky direction, the Russians carried out 17 assaults in the areas of the settlements of Sukhaya Balka, Zelenoe Pole, Elizavetovka, Lysovka, Udachnoye, Troitskoye, Bogdanovka and Andreyevka. The defense forces repelled 13 attacks, and four more combat clashes are ongoing.
In the Novopavlovsk direction, the enemy tried to break through the defenses four times near the settlements of Konstantinopol, Privolnoye, Volnoye Pole and in the direction of Odradnoye. One combat clash continues to this day.
In the Orekhov direction, our defenders repelled one assault in the Kamenskoye area.
In the Dnieper direction, the invaders once tried to advance forward and were rebuffed.
Four battles have taken place in the Kursk direction since the beginning of the day.
We remind you that in one day on April 14, Russia lost almost 1,200 fighters killed and wounded. The total combat losses of Russian troops since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine are approaching 1 million people.
[AnNahar] President Joseph Aoun has said that "2025 will be the year of limiting arms to the hands of the state," reassuring that "Hezbollah will not be dragged into a new war."
Speaking to Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... ’s al-Arabi al-Jadeed news portal ahead of a visit to Doha, Aoun explained his vision for integrating Hezbollah’s fighters into the army in the future.
Aoun stressed that "the experience of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces will not be repeated in Leb ...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration.... " and that "no independent unit of Hezbollah fighters will be introduced to the Lebanese Army."
He added that "only the members who enjoy certain qualifications, possess academic certificates and succeed in admission tests will be integrated" into the military institution.
As for the U.S. pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah, the president said he informed U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus of his keenness "not to jeopardize civil peace and risk a civil war," revealing that he called on the U.S. to press Israel to halt its attacks on Lebanon and to leave the issue of resolving the file of Hezbollah’s arms to the Lebanese state.
"The decision of limiting arms to the hands of the state has been taken and implementation will take place through dialogue," Aoun added, noting that the fall of the Assad regime and Iran’s advanced stances regarding 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... ’s Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s and Iraq’s al-Hashed al-Shaabi can contribute to the success of the dialogue with Hezbollah.
Keep throwing that spaghetti against the wall, Tish — sooner or later something's gotta stick.
[NYPOST] New York Attorney General Letitia James' office is scrutinizing whether insider trading took place in connection with President Trump's 90-day pause on customized ''reciprocal'' tariffs announced last week.
The examination is in its preliminary stages and is not yet a full-fledged probe, James' office confirmed to The Post Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear whether specific individuals and companies were subject to the review, which was first reported by CNN.
Shortly before the US markets opened April 9, with indexes in free fall over tariff uncertainty, Trump declared on Truth Social that it was a ''GREAT TIME TO BUY.''
That afternoon, the president announced the postponement of the customized rates while keeping a 10% baseline duty in effect on most imports.
The stock market rebounded sharply, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbing 7.9%, the S&P 500 surging 9.5%, and the Nasdaq spiking 12.2%.
#8
Throughout that case, James repeated her mantra that there would be no exceptions for the rich and powerful.
Unless you're a Dem and a member of two other higher 'castes'.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/16/2025 8:30
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#9
She listed herself and her father as Husband and Wife. Shades of Ilhan Omar
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/16/2025 10:57
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#10
She needs to focus on the upcoming indictment for real estate fraud...
I think this is her strategy to; thing is the insider trader trial balloon didn't fly because that is a can of worms a lot of suddenly rich and legacy politicians do not want to have opened.
#11
Letitia (three syllables, end with vowel - my decoder ring works!) is shining a spotlight on a crime having been committed by a number of Dems in high places.
The ripples caused by her troubles may swamp some interesting boats.
[AnNahar] Leb ...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects.... 's army said a soldier was killed and three others maimed Monday in a kaboom in the country's south, where President Joseph Aoun said they had been dismantling mines in a tunnel.
"While a specialized army unit was carrying out an engineering survey of a site" in south Lebanon's Tyre district, "a suspicious object went kaboom!, killing a member of the unit and moderately injuring three others", an army statement said.
A statement from Aoun's office said the soldiers had been "dismantling mines and kabooms in a tunnel" in the area.
"Once again, the Lebanese army... is paying the price of extending state authority over the south and achieving stability there by implementing Resolution 1701," said Aoun, according to the statement.
United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... Security Council Resolution 1701 ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and formed the basis of a November truce thon the lamly ended more than a year of fresh hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group.
The resolution called for the disarmament of all non-state gangs, and said Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon.
Under the truce, Hezbollah was to withdraw its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel was due to complete its pullout from Lebanon by February 18 after missing a January deadline, but it has kept troops in five places it deems "strategic".
During the war, Israel's army said it uncovered Hezbollah tunnels and tunnel shafts in south Lebanon.
A source close to Hezbollah told AFP on Saturday that the group had ceded to the Lebanese army around 190 of its 265 military positions identified south of the Litani.
Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... -based network Al Jazeera quoted Aoun on Monday as saying that the army had dismantled tunnels and confiscated weapons without objection from Hezbollah, but had not yet deployed across the whole of the south.
[Federalist] Politics is the domain of the president, not the oath-bearing members of the uniformed services.
There is a cancer in America’s military ranks, and it must be expunged before it’s too late. That cancer lies in uniformed service members’ widespread rejection of the uniquely American concept of civilian control of the military and disregard for the absolute necessity that America’s military officers remain apolitical in the face of the constitutional will of the electorate.
Recent events reveal this cancer, and they include the relief for cause of Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield after she reportedly refused to hang photos of President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on her headquarters’ customary "Chain of Command" board and reportedly told her subordinates in a town hall that she would "wait [the Trump administration] out" the next four years. They also include the relief for cause of Col. Sussanah Meyers, commander of the U.S. Space Force’s base in Greenland, after she openly questioned (to all of her subordinates via email) Vice President J.D. Vance’s official pronouncements regarding the United States, Greenland, and Denmark.
Since Trump’s inauguration, numerous other senior generals and admirals have been relieved by President Trump for various publicly unspecified reasons, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown; Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti; Adm. Linda Lee Fagan, the commandant of the Coast Guard; and Air Force Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, director of the National Security Agency and commander of U.S. Cyber Command. Each of these four-star firings is publicly shrouded in a certain degree of mystery, but rumors abound that so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) played a part in one way or another.
Admittedly, a president firing his senior generals is not a new thing. Barack Obama fired his senior general in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stan McChrystal, after a Rolling Stone article revealed derisive comments by McChrystal and his staff regarding Obama’s leadership. Harry S. Truman fired one of America’s most famous and revered military leaders, Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur, after MacArthur repeatedly disobeyed Truman’s orders regarding the Korean War. And Abraham Lincoln famously had no problem firing his senior Army generals in the heat of the Civil War. What made these firings so noteworthy, however, is that they were rare exceptions that proved the rule of America’s senior generals and admirals wholly respecting civilian control of the military.
What we see now is not Obama and McChrystal, Truman and MacArthur, or Lincoln and his failed generals. The widespread nature of the current problem looks and feels like something completely new in the American experience and appears to be pervasive across the force.
I am a retired U.S. Army colonel. My service record runs a typical gamut for an old colonel, with tours in tactical units (including service in Afghanistan and Iraq) interspersed with service at high-level military headquarters in and around Washington, D.C. Nowadays, I run an account on X with a little more than 200,000 followers. I offer commentary on political and social issues, with a particular emphasis on the military. As a result, I have many military followers, including some still on active duty. I offer active-duty service members a conduit to anonymously share disturbing military trends.
Since Trump’s inauguration, I have been flooded with reports of insubordination in the ranks toward Trump and Hegseth. Those reports range from fairly senior officers in the Pentagon showing open disrespect around the E-Ring coffee maker, all the way down to junior enlisted disrespecting their president and secretary of defense in the ship’s galley or the chow hall.
As one active-duty Army officer recently described to me regarding the experiences of a female Army officer colleague:
Women across the unit are coming to [her] asking about what happens to them. It’s in their minds that SECDEF is going to pull them from combat arms and reclass them. Zero evidence of that but doesn’t stop the rumor mill anyway. Those rumors are playing the telephone game across all soldiers, men and women alike. So they are all on this "f*** Trump f*** Hegseth" train.
For over 235 years, the idea of a civilian commander-in-chief has been a sacred premise guiding our military, enlisted and officer alike. I grew up around the Army, joined as a young man, served for 22 years, and have kept my finger on the pulse of the defense establishment since I retired from active duty. I can honestly say that never once in that time was I ever made aware of the political leanings of any officer superior to me.
Rarely would I even hear political thoughts from my peers or subordinates. In fact, I recall that early in my career, senior officers advised me not to vote in elections, as such an act might suggest I was a political partisan. The duty to remain apolitical was simply that important to officers of that bygone age. We saw ourselves as a sort of band of violent monks, bound by sacred oaths.
To me, that bygone commitment was never more evident than when Bill Clinton became president. During Clinton’s 1992 campaign, it came out that as a young man he had avoided the draft, in part because he "loath[ed]" the military. Vietnam was still a raw wound in the minds of many senior officers and senior enlisted, yet despite Clinton being arguably the most anti-military president in U.S. history, he was respected as the duly elected commander-in-chief, and signs of "resistance" in the uniformed ranks were impossible to detect. We honored our oaths.
Somewhere along the way, something changed. I believe that change has taken place within the senior ranks and, by way of example, has spread throughout the force. We must once again make senior officers loyal to their oath, and the rest of the force will follow.
I have heard from some anti-Trump officers that it is acceptable for them to challenge Trump and be "disloyal" to him on political matters because while the enlisted oath of office includes the phrase "that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States," no such words regarding the president appear in the officer oath of office. This idea is highly disturbing.
It suggests that officers are not bound to follow the lawful orders of the president if they disagree politically. Not only is this contrary to the sacred officer tradition of being apolitical, but it is also contrary to the part of the officers’ oath that requires officers to "support and defend the Constitution" (after all, the president’s military role arises in the Constitution). Finally, it is contrary to the actual commission of all U.S. military officers, which states in part: "And this officer is to observe and follow such orders and directions from time to time as may be given by the President of the United States of America."
The trends we are seeing feel dangerously close to an embrace of 1970s South American-style military juntas. Think about Gen. Mark Milley telling China he would warn them about U.S. military activity. Think about Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman using his position on the National Security Council as a springboard for impeaching a president because he did not like the way that president was lawfully discharging his duties. These are not the marks of healthy civilian control of the military. They are instead marks of a military approaching the rationalization of a coup.
I have heard numerous theories as to how we got here, ranging from "Obama purged all the good generals" to "Gen Z are too narcissistic for selfless sacrifice," but I attribute the breakdown quite directly to DEI policies and practices. I do not mean that the advancement of officers for DEI reasons is the cause. Rather, the inculcation of DEI policies as a core ethos of military service has been monstrously destructive. Our military has always been driven by core values, such as, "Don’t give up the ship," "Duty, Honor, Country," and "Always Faithful." Traditionally, those values have been apolitical and solely revolved around the military’s fundamental mission of defeating America’s battlefield enemies.
Somewhere in these early years of the 21st century, however, DEI also became a central ethos. One need only read the policy pronouncements of the likes of C.Q. Brown and Lisa Franchetti to see that they embraced so-called diversity for diversity’s sake and that DEI policies became a core ethos of America’s military — a new "warrior ethos" grounded not in warfighting but in a purely political and public policy doctrine.
So on the one hand you have a president elected to purge the political doctrine of DEI from America’s government, and on the other hand you have a generation of senior generals and admirals who mistakenly view DEI as an apolitical military ethos, every bit as essential to the military’s lineage and traditions as Audie Murphy, the Medal of Honor, and the USS Constitution. Thus, when Donald Trump seeks to exercise his constitutional powers to purge a purely political doctrine, the generals and admirals mistakenly see this as an effort to purge a fundamental, essential, and apolitical military ethos. This gives them license to feel justified in "resisting" the lawful orders of their commander-in-chief and engaging in insubordination as they falsely imagine they are protecting a core competency of our nation’s defense.
Fortunately, fixing this problem is not that hard. It merely requires some extreme intestinal fortitude by Trump, Hegseth, and the military department secretaries in the face of a media determined to discredit their every move. The solution lies in two parts: education and example-setting.
Education will involve reinvigorated training, in every service and at every level, regarding the military’s duty of loyalty to elected civilian leaders and their lawful orders. A standard curriculum must be developed in the Department of Defense regarding those constitutional duties, and that curriculum must be taught in great detail at every level and in every professional development course, from basic training for every recruit up to the "charm school" for new generals and admirals.
Example-setting will mean more of what we have already seen: the relief for cause of senior officers for insubordinate behavior. But that’s not enough. Vice Adm. Chatfield and Col. Meyers will no doubt soon be on MSNBC regaling us all with tales of the illegality of the Trump administration. Trump and Hegseth must take a more drastic approach, and the answer to that approach lies in Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which reads as follows:
Contempt toward officials: Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
This is the tool by which senior insubordinate officers must be made an example. While I doubt any generals or admirals will soon be breaking rocks at Leavenworth, the mere act of initiating a few well-publicized courts martial will drive home the message: Politics is the domain of the president, not the oath-bearing members of the uniformed services.
Good order and discipline must be restored. There is a cancer in the ranks of America’s military, and it must be expunged before it’s too late.
#2
You hold a commission. Your promotions are predicated upon "special trust and confidence". If it is a lawful order, you are bound to carry it out. You resign or retire if you find you can not morally support the chain of command. Period.
You wonder why the commies were out to strike 'Duty, Honor, County'. You have your answer.
[Rudaw] Over 3,700 people were admitted to hospitals across Iraq due to breathing difficulties caused by dust storms, the health ministry said on Tuesday, after a severe dust storm engulfed the country’s center and south.
"The number of suffocation cases recorded due to the dust storm yesterday and to date has reached 3,747 admissions to emergency rooms in Baghdad and the provinces," ministry spokesperson Said al-Badr told state media.
The southern oil-rich province of Basra topped the chart of hospitalizations with over 1,000, followed by Muthanna and Maysan respectively, according to Badr.
“Most of the cases have fully recovered and left after receiving the necessary treatment,” and ministry officials “have not recorded any deaths, and there are no cases admitted to intensive care or elsewhere,” he added.
Officials have urged residents to take precautions to avoid complications from dust inhalation.
Hospitals across the country are also equipped with an ample supply of oxygen and medical supplies, Badr assured.
Dust storms are common in Iraq but have become more frequent and intense due to prolonged drought, desertification, and rising temperatures. According to Iraq’s environment ministry, the country has been experiencing 272 dust days per year over the past two decades. That number is projected to reach 300 by 2050.
Iraq is among the nations most vulnerable to climate change. Poor water management and dam construction in upstream countries have drastically reduced the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The United Nations has called for urgent measures to address environmental degradation and mitigate the worsening climate crisis in Iraq.
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Belgorod direction, the Sever Group of Forces have engaged manpower and hardware of four mechanised brigades, a coastal defence brigade, an assault regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a territorial defence brigade close to Miropolskoye, Malaya Rybitsa, Petrushevka, Krasnopolye, and Yamnoye (Sumy region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 90 troops, three armoured fighting vehicles, four motor vehicles, and four field artillery guns. Two ammunition depots and one materiel depot were eliminated.
Units of the Zapad Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions. Russian units engaged three mechanised brigades, an assault brigade of the AFU, a territorial defence brigade, and a national guard brigade close to Kamenka, Doroshovka, Radkovka, Moskovka, Podoly, Senkovo, Boguslavka, Novay Kruglyakovka (Kharkov region), Karpovka, Redkodub, Kirovsk, and Yampol (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy has lost more than 250 troops, a UK-made Snatch armoured fighting vehicle, four motor vehicles, five NATO-made field artillery guns including two Polish-made 155mm Krab self-propelled artillery system, a UK-made 155mm Braveheart self-propelled artillery system, and a U.S.-made 155mm M-198 howitzer. Four electronic warfare stations and three ammunition depots were eliminated.
The Yug Group of Forces' units improved the tactical situation. The Russian Armed Forces inflicted fire damage on manpower and hardware of three mechanised brigades, a mountain assault brigade of the AFU, two territorial defence brigades, and a national guard brigade close to Seversk, Minkovka, Markovo, Chasov Yar, Kurdyumovka, Ivanpolye, Yablonovka, Tarasovka, Ulyanovka, and Valentinovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 285 troops, a Swedish-made CV-90 infantry fighting vehicle, a M113 armoured personnel carrier, and a HMMWV armoured vehicle made in the USA.
Nine motor vehicles, ten field artillery guns including two UK-made 155mm FH-70 howitzers and a U.S.-made Paladin self-propelled artillery system as well as five ammunition depots, two materiel depots, and a fuel depot were eliminated.
The Tsentr Group of Forces' units took more advantageous lines and positions. Russian troops hit two mechanised brigades, an assault brigade, a jaeger brigade, an unmanned aerial vehicles brigade, an assault regiment of the AFU, and a national guard brigade near Lysovka, Zverevo, Kotlino, Udachnoye, Preobrazhenka, Bogdanovka, and Alekseyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy lost more than 335 troops, four armoured fighting vehicles including a U.S.-made M-113 armoured personnel carrier, and two U.S.-made HMMWV armoured vehicles, two pick-up trucks, and seven field artillery guns including a U.S.-made 155mm Paladin and a Polish-made 155mm Krab self-propelled artillery systems.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces continued advancing into the depth of enemy defences. Russian forces damaged manpower and hardware of a mechanised brigade, an airmobile brigade, an air assault brigade, and a territorial defence brigade near Bogatyr, Otradnoye, Burlatskoye, and Shevchenko (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy's losses amounted to up to 155 troops, two armoured vehicles, a pick-up truck, and two field artillery guns including a U.S.-made 155mm Paladin self-propelled artillery system.
The Dnepr Group of Forces' units improved the tactical situation. Russian formations engaged a mechanised brigade, a mountain assault brigade, two coastal defence brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and two territorial defence brigades near Novodanilovka, Stepnogorsk (Zaporozhye region), Tokarevka, Sadovoye, Antonovka, and Dneprovskoye (Kherson region).
Up to 100 troops, nine motor vehicles, three artillery guns, two electronic warfare stations, a U.S.-made AN/TPQ-50 counter-fire radar, and three ammunition depots were neutralised.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have engaged the infrastructure of a military airfield, assembly facilities for MLRS and strike drones, a drone training center as well as temporary deployment areas of the Ukrainian armed formations in 144 areas.
Russian air defence means have shot down four U.S.-made JDAM guided aerial bombs and five HIMARS MLRS projectiles during the day as well as 304 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 661 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 51,866 unmanned aerial vehicles, 601 anti-aircraft missile systems, 22,846 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,536 MLRS combat vehicles, 23,667 field artillery guns and mortars, and 34,127 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise AFU formations on the territory of Kursk region.
During the offensive, the Sever Group of Forces inflicted fire damage on units of tank brigade, two mechanised brigades, two air assault brigades, two territorial defence brigades, and an assault regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Gornal and Oleshnya.
Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, UAVs, and artillery fire engaged AFU manpower and hardware close to Belovody, Velikaya Rybitsa, Zapselye, Kiyanitsa, Maryino, Miropolye, Mogritsa, Novaya Setch, Sadki, and Yablonovka in Sumy region.
In the past 24 hours, AFU losses amounted to up to 200 troops, a tank, an armoured personnel carrier, two armoured fighting vehicles, 13 motor vehicles, two HIMARS multiple rocket launcher systems with a transport-loading vehicle and an escort vehicle as well as two artillery guns, and a mortar.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk direction, the AFU losses amounted to more than 74,450 troops, 407 tanks, 333 infantry fighting vehicles, 304 armoured personnel carriers, 2,270 armoured fighting vehicles, 2,717 motor vehicles, 612 artillery guns, 57 MLRS launchers including 15 of HIMARS and seven of MLRS made by the USA, 26 anti-aircraft missile launchers, one self-propelled anti-aircraft system, ten transport-loading vehicles, 123 EW stations, 18 counter-fire radars, ten air defence radars, 57 units of engineering and other materiel, including 23 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, five bridge launchers, one engineering reconnaissance vehicle as well as 15 armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] Former photojournalist Natalia Medvedeva, who was among the voluntary hostages of Basayev's detachment after the seizure of the hospital in Budyonnovsk, was arrested for seven days after a conflict with a Moscow metro passenger wearing a niqab.
A group of militants led by Shamil Basayev seized the central hospital of Budyonnovsk on June 14, 1995. As a result of the terrorist attack, 129 people died. After negotiations on June 19, 1995, the terrorists released the remaining people, and the authorities agreed to stop military actions in Chechnya, allowing the militants to leave. The "Caucasian Knot" published a reference material "Terrorist attack in Budyonnovsk".
61-year-old Moscow resident Natalya Medvedeva, a former photojournalist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta and Ogonyok magazine, received seven days of administrative arrest after a conflict with a metro passenger wearing a niqab. The conflict began because Medvedeva considered the woman in a Muslim headdress "suspicious." She later explained that "after the terrorist attack she experienced, people in Muslim clothing in public places frighten her," Lenta.Ru writes.
The video of the incident in the capital's metro was published by the Telegram channel "Beware, Moscow". One of the short recordings shows a woman with blond hair pulling a girl in a niqab and a long dress by the fabric of her headdress. At this moment, the man punches her, and two other men try to calm him down. The Muslim woman steps aside, adjusting her niqab. Her companion, beating the blonde, swears obscenely, shouting, in particular: "This is my honor! Whose hair are you touching?"
According to eyewitnesses, the pensioner's tablet, on which she was filming herself being beaten, was broken. One of the passengers claims that the man beat the elderly woman and dragged her by the hair in the aisle of the train car, threw her to the floor and kicked her.
The court also arrested the man who beat Medvedeva while defending the girl in the niqab. According to sources, the 21-year-old migrant from Tajikistan “admitted guilt and repented” in court and was sentenced to 13 days of arrest.
During her work as a photojournalist, Natalya Medvedeva often went on business trips to Chechnya, where active military operations were taking place at the time. During the seizure of a hospital in Budyonnovsk by militants, she was wounded in the head by a shell fragment fired from a Russian armored personnel carrier, after which she went inside the hospital, and subsequently, along with a number of other journalists, accompanied Basayev and his detachment to Chechnya.
[MTExpress] Students of Wood River High School’s Residential Construction Academy build a home on Monday at the high school campus. According to the Blaine County School District, the construction program—taught by Ian Blacker, pictured in the center of the image with sophomores Tristan Ballis (white hat) and Octavio Hurtado Garcia (blue hat)—"enables students to learn and master a wide variety of construction methods and techniques, from rough framing to cabinetmaking and intricate woodworking." The home built by the students will ultimately be offered for sale and moved offsite by the buyer.
[AnNahar] A month after a wave of Dire Revenge attacks left hundreds of Alawite civilians dead, members of the Syrian religious minority are still living in fear, with dozens killed in smaller attacks since the start of April.
The Moslem minority group was seen as a privileged minority under the rule of the Alawite Assad family, but since Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... 's government fell late last year members have feared Dire Revenge from the country's Sunni majority.
The new government promised to protect minority groups, but when a group of Assad loyalists attacked security forces near the coastal city of Latakia last month, it sparked a counteroffensive that took a brutal toll on the coastal region's largely Alawite population.
Britannia-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that more than 1,700 people, most of them civilians, were killed in March. While no official figures have been released by the government, other human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... groups have given similar estimates. It was the worst violence since an insurgency led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... overthrew Assad last December.
MILITIAS TARGET ALAWITES
Rights groups reported widespread Dire Revenge killings as bandidossnuffies from Syria's Sunni majority targeted Alawites, regardless of whether they were involved in the insurgency.
"Several people told me that when these militia members entered their home, in addition to asking if they were Alawite or Sunni, they blamed them for what happened to them under the former Assad government," said Diana Semaan, Amnesty International's Syria researcher who investigated dozens of killings that took place in Baniyas and spoke to eyewitnesses and survivors.
While there has not been another outbreak of violence on the same scale, Alawites continue to report incidents of harassment, shakedowns and sometimes worse.
An Alawite who lives in the Latakia area said there are still regular attacks targeting Alawites, most of whom had nothing to do with the Assad government or security forces.
"Everyone from the regime or close to it fled a long time ago," he told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered... out of fear for his life.
He said a 20-year-old factory worker who was the breadwinner of his family was shot by guards at a local checkpoint, even though he had not served in the army under Assad.
"He would pass the checkpoints on his cycle of violence every day. He and the guards would even greet each other," he said.
ATTACKS SPREAD ALONG THE COAST
Attacks on Alawites spread from Latakia into the nearby province of Tartus, with some later hitting the major city of Homs inland.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Observatory, said 42 people have died in sectarian killings since the Moslem feast of Eid el-Fitr that marks the end of Ramadan on March 30.
"The killings, did not stop but now they are individual acts," Abdurrahman said.
Mohammed Saleh, an activist from the central city of Homs who spent 17 years imprisoned during the rule of Bashir al-Assad and his father because of his opposition to the government, said victims of the attacks included Alawites who opposed Assad's rule. Saleh said 18 people he knew personally who had previously been detained by Assad's forces were killed in last month's attacks.
Saleh said he is worried that Syria is turning from one dictatorship to another.
"What we want is to have serious national army and security agencies whose job is to protect everyone and that they include everyone and not be made up of one sect or one religion," Saleh said. "There cannot be a state for everyone when security agencies belong to one sect."
One high school in the city of Baniyas in Tartus province, posted a list on Facebook of almost 80 teachers, students and relatives and alumni who were killed in attacks over the past month.
A video widely shared on social media showed the bodies of two young men with their mother standing by them, as the person filming scolded her and said her sons deserved to die because they were Alawite.
TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ALAWITES FLEE TO LEBANON
Alawites and other Syrians from coastal areas are fleeing into Leb ...The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... through unofficial border crossings, some carrying babies and helping tired elderly people and pregnant women as they cross over a river dividing the two countries.
Some 30,000 Alawite Syrians have fled to Lebanon over the past month, the United Nation's refugee agency says, scattered in some 30 towns and villages in northern Lebanon. While there is little assistance for them in Lebanon, many don't feel safe enough to go back.
ATTACKS TEST THE INTERIM GOVERNMENT'S PROMISES
Ongoing attacks have been a major letdown for Syrians who hoped that Assad's sudden fall would spell an end to violence against the country's many religious and ethnic groups after over a decade a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
The new government has promised to create an inclusive state that holds perpetrators of crimes to account, and interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has vowed to hold the perpetrators of recent attacks to justice and set up a committee to investigate the attacks.
A few arrests have been reported, and the committee has said it is continuing its investigation in the coastal province, though they have not yet disclosed their findings.
Right groups say the interim government faces a test.
"What happens now is extremely important because it will literally set the path towards justice. We're no longer talking about addressing past violations and holding those perpetrators accountable, which is already a huge endeavor," said Amnesty International's Semaan. "Now we're looking at how the government at how it will set paths towards justice for the violations that it (has) committed."
[Rudaw] Roughly 40 percent of landmine-contaminated areas in the Kurdistan Region remain uncleared, a mine clearance official said on Monday, warning that vast stretches of the Region’s land remain dangerous for civilians, particularly in Erbil province.
Speaking to Rudaw’s Hiwa Jamal, the director of the Kurdistan Region’s Mine Actions Agency (IKMAA) in Erbil stated that “around 40 percent of areas littered with mines in the Kurdistan Region are yet to be cleared.”
Ali Abdulrahman added that the contaminated area spans nearly 250 million square meters, with 47 percent of it located in Erbil province.
Since the beginning of 2025, several civilians have been killed or injured in landmine explosions in Erbil province.
"Mines remain a significant threat to the citizens of Kurdistan. In previous years, approximately 14,000 people have died or been injured due to mines,” Abdulrahman said.
The Kurdistan Region’s rugged, mountainous terrain still harbors landmines dating back to the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq (1980-1988).
More recent conflicts, specifically between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) along the Kurdistan Region’s borders, have also left behind explosive remnants, with some minefields located just a few hundred meters from villages.
In late March, the head of IKMAA’s media department in Erbil, Rabar Anwar, cautioned people living near mountainous areas “to stay away from dangerous areas riddled with mines.”
He emphasized that landmines continue to hinder “the advancement of the economic, agricultural, tourism, and village reconstruction sectors.
Anwar added that the Kurdistan Region has “many shortcomings in terms of human resources,” noting, “We have nine manual demining teams in Erbil; we need more teams.”
IKMAA’s media representative further pointed out that the agency lacks adequate vehicles as most of its fleet is nearly 30 years old and no longer meet modern safety standards.
Last year, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) rented 48 vehicles for IKMAA, 12 of which were allocated to its Erbil branch, Adularahman detailed.
The Iraqi Directorate for Mine Action (DMA) and IKMAA have been cooperating under a memorandum of understanding signed in 2024, outlining their mutual technical support until 2028.
Iraq and the Kurdistan Region continue to grapple with the legacy of landmines and unexploded ordnance left behind by decades of conflict, including the Iran-Iraq War, the 1991 Gulf War, the 2003 US-led invasion, and the Islamic State’s (ISIS) brutal reign over large parts of the country’s north and west between 2014 and 2017.
[Rudaw] The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Tuesday that they have rescued a Yazidi man who was kidnapped by 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) around 11 years ago, when he was just eight years old. The individual was taken along with his family during ISIS’s brutal assault on the predominantly Yazidi district of Shingal (Sinjar) in the summer of 2014.
In a statement, the SDF said that its military operations units carried out a "special security operation" on March 12, 2025 to free the kidnapped Yazidi individual.
For privacy reasons, Rudaw has identified the young man only by his initials, O.K.
According to the SDF, the Yazidi man "is originally from the village of al-Wardiya in the Sinjar region, which witnessed large-scale massacres committed by ISIS, and where thousands of men, youth, and elders were killed, and more than 7,000 women and girls were kidnapped." O.K. "was one of the victims of that massacre."
Now 19, O.K. was quoted by the SDF statement as sharing the harrowing story of his abduction by ISIS.
"I was born in 2006, and I was just a child when ISIS kidnapped me in 2014. ISIS captured me and my family, but separated me and my brother."
He said that he was held in the northern Iraqi city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , which ISIS in 2014 declared as the capital of its proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq. He remained in Mosul for three months before being separated from his brother and transferred, along with 60 other Yazidi children, to the city of Albu Kamal in eastern Syria.
"After arriving in al-Bukamal, ISIS subjected us to a three-year religious indoctrination course. I was given the name ’Osama al-Sinjari.’ Then we were moved to the Syrian desert for another three years of military training," he recounted.
Following that, he was sent to the Homs desert in western Syria, where he served as an ISIS fighter for four years. During this time, he sustained a landmine injury to his right leg.
O.K. noted that near the end of 2024 and "while I was getting treatment at one of the ISIS hideouts in the Homs desert, the hideout was struck by an intense Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... from the [US-led] Global Coalition [to Defeat ISIS], which resulted in the death of 20 terrorists, including high-ranking commanders."
"I miraculously survived the bombing," he said, expressing his relief and gratitude toward the SDF for "liberating him and thousands of other Yazidis, particularly women, from the grip of ISIS."
During its 2014 assault on Shingal, ISIS kidnapped 6,417 Yazidi women and kiddies, many of whom were subjected to sexual slavery and forced labor. Although the group was territorially defeated in Iraq by 2017 and in Syria by 2019, it continues to pose a security threat in the region.
As of now, 2,590 Yazidis remain missing, according to the Office of Rescuing Abducted Yazidis, which is affiliated with the Kurdistan Region Presidency.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/16/2025
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#1
Probably one of the most pitiful, awful displays by a washed up looser I have seen in my 82 years!
Posted by: Oregon Dave ||
04/16/2025 0:26
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#2
Joey's appeal is about to become 'selective'.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/16/2025 9:07
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#3
BIDEN handlers would do well to remember Racial segregation was DEMOCRAT written, passed and enforced collection of laws called JIM CROW.
I was raised a Dirt Road Young'in the late 50's & early 60's in the rural South.
Blacks families live just a few 100 yards down the dirt road from us.
As kid's we didn't have issues with each other.
It was just a few of the adults and mainly those well or better off types in town.
Floyd Graham was the Black Elementary school, and Hephzibah Elementary school was the other. But we still rode the same school bus. Just different sides of the aisle, and with all girls up front
#5
Dr. Jill wants to feel important again and Hunter needs money, and the usual post-presidency book deals, speech-gigs and MSM slathered ego pieces to keep interest in the name, are all missing. Not even decent speech-writing, just rehash of prior campaign drivel.
The utter indifference, and even outright disgust for a just departed "President" and lifetime public figure would be sad if it wasn't so well deserved!
[AnNahar] Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli strike killed one person in the country's south on Tuesday, the latest such attack despite a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
A "drone strike carried out by the Israeli enemy on a vehicle in the town of Aitaroun killed one person and wounded three others including a child," the health ministry said in a statement.
Israel's military claimed that the man killed was "a platoon commander in Hezbollah's Special Operations Array."
Fair game, then, since the truce required him to be north of the Litani River rather than practically on the Israeli border.
The view from Israel:
IDF says it killed Hezbollah special ops commander in drone strike in south Lebanon
[IsraelTimes] An Israeli drone strike on a vehicle in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed a Hezbollah commander, the Israel Defense Forces said. According to the IDF, the strike killed a team commander in Hezbollah’s special operations unit. The IDF did not name the operative, but Lebanese media identified him as Ali Najib Baydoun.
Lebanon’s health ministry said that one person was killed in the strike and three others were wounded, including a child. Aitaroun is located 2.5 kilometers north of the Israeli border community of Avivim.
According to the IDF, since the ceasefire began more than 120 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in strikes.
How many were Hezbollah in mufti? How many were human shields for Hezbollah units or sites? How many for Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad?
[AnNahar] Israeli forces have killed dozens of civilians in Leb ...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects.... since a ceasefire took effect late last year, including a number of women and kiddies, the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... said Tuesday.
The U.N. rights office reported that Israeli military operations had killed and injured civilians in Lebanon in the four months since the fragile truce between Israel and Hezbollah on November 27.
"According to our initial review, at least 71 civilians have been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon since the ceasefire came into effect," rights office front man Thameen al-Kheetan told news hounds in Geneva.
"Among the victims are 14 women and 9 children," he said, urging that "the violence must stop immediately."
The delicate truce between Israel and Hezbollah came after more than a year of hostilities initiated by the Iran-backed murderous Moslem group over the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... conflict, including two months of all-out war when Israel also sent in ground troops.
But months after the agreed end to fighting, Kheetan warned that people in Lebanon "remain gripped by fear, and over 92,000 are still displaced from their homes."
The rights office noted that Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory had hit civilian infrastructure since the ceasefire, including residential buildings, medical facilities, roads and at least one cafe.
The southern suburbs of Beirut were also hit in early April for the first time since the ceasefire took effect, in two different incidents, Kheetan said, adding that the area targeted was near two schools.
"A strike on a residential building in the early morning of April 1 killed two civilians and caused significant damage to neighboring buildings," he said.
Two days later, "Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s hit a newly established medical center run by the Islamic Health Society in Naqoura in southern Lebanon, completely destroying the center and damaging two ambulances," he said.
He added that "multiple Israeli airstrikes on several towns in the south of Lebanon reportedly killed at least six people" between April 4 and 8.
Israel had also faced attacks since the truce took effect, Kheetan said.
Since last November, at least five rockets, two mortars and a drone were launched from Lebanon towards northern Israel, he said, citing figures from the Israeli army, adding that "tens of thousands of Israelis are still reportedly displaced from the north."
Kheetan demanded that all parties to the conflict "respect international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution."
"There must be prompt, independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian law, and those found responsible must be held to account."
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Mercenaries from Colombia and a number of other countries fighting on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are surrounded in the St. Nicholas Belogorsky Monastery in Gornal, Kursk region. This was stated on April 15 by the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots Viktor Vodolatsky.
He stressed that almost 300 soldiers are hiding in the monastery, and they do not want to surrender because they know what awaits them for punitive actions against civilians. He said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have lost more than one life there.
“There are many mercenaries from Colombia and other countries in this group; their foreign speech can be heard in intercepted conversations,” Vodolatsky said in a conversation with TASS.
He added that the surrounded Ukrainian military do not want to surrender also because they came to the Kursk region to hunt people.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, earlier on April 15, Russian security forces reported that the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers who captured the Gornalsky Monastery refuse to surrender. Ukrainian servicemen have placed mortars and artillery guns on its territory.
Also on April 15, a source in the Russian security forces reported that separate groups of the elite 82nd Separate Airborne Assault Brigade (SAB) of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were trying to escape from the monastery grounds.
One of the officers from the paratrooper group of the 80th brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who also occupied Gornal, began to negotiate with Russian servicemen in early April about the surrender of those who were in the monastery. But the negotiator was killed by his fellow soldiers.
The monastery's resident, military priest Hieromonk Melety, reported on April 12 that Ukrainian soldiers were selling icons and other items stolen from the Gornalsky Monastery. At the same time, the monastery's main relic, the Pryazhevskaya Icon of the Mother of God, found in 1792, had been saved from there in advance.
Separate groups of the elite 82nd Separate Airborne Assault Brigade (SAAB) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are trying to escape from the territory of the St. Nicholas Belogorsky Monastery in the village of Gornal in the Kursk region. This was reported on April 15 by a source in the Russian security forces.
"In the area of the monastery, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are suffering significant losses. Disparate enemy groups are arbitrarily abandoning their positions and trying to escape to the territory of Sumy Oblast," TASS quoted the source as saying.
A representative of the security forces specified that the escape of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade soldiers is being prevented by militants of the 129th separate territorial defense brigade, assembled from former prisoners. They are being used as barrier detachments.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, earlier on April 15, Russian security forces reported that the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers who captured the Gornalsky Monastery refuse to surrender. Ukrainian militants also placed mortars and artillery pieces on its territory.
One of the officers from the paratrooper group of the 80th brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who also occupied Gornal, began to negotiate with Russian servicemen in early April about the surrender of those who were in the monastery. But the negotiator was killed by his fellow soldiers.
The monastery's resident, military priest Hieromonk Melety, reported on April 12 that Ukrainian soldiers were selling icons and other items stolen from the Gornalsky Monastery. At the same time, the monastery's main relic, the Pryazhevskaya Icon of the Mother of God, found in 1792, had been saved from there in advance.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
Gauleiters was the name of civilian rulers of a region appointed by the German Nazis during WWII.
Another swipe at the Nazi insult they so like throwing at the Ukrainians, despite it being equally applicable to both parties in the current era — for white supremacy, anyway, and authoritarianism. Historically the Ukrainians attached to Nazism as a defense against Sovietism, both in my eyes equally vile.
[ColonelCassad] As a result of the secondary information detonation after the missile strike of the Russian Armed Forces on the gathering of the Armed Forces in Sumy on 13.04.2025, the Gauleiter of Sumy Oblast Artyukh was removed from his post.
He once again confirmed that the strike was carried out on a gathering of military personnel, but at the same time denies that he was its organizer. This hints that there is someone else in this story who actually organized this gathering, putting the Gauleiter of Sumy Oblast before the fact. And this someone is clearly higher in rank than the former Sumy Gauleiter, so he does not give his name.
In general, the enemy's attempt to create another "Bucha" failed. And the Sumy Gauleiter also had to be removed.
The US will not sign a statement condemning the Russian strike on the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Sumy.
In addition, Washington informed its G7 partners that it is ready to negotiate with Moscow.
A little earlier, the Trump administration called the incident a "Mistake".
Washington knows very well who was hit, so it sees no reason to make a comedy about "a strike on civilians" now. Under Biden, Washington would certainly join this hysteria.
Of course, the failure of this attempt to create a new "Bucha" only means that the enemy, after the failure of this story, will begin preparing the next one. It will definitely have a large number of killed civilians and this time it will try to make it more plausible.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
[ColonelCassad] The State Department budget may be cut by almost 50%
As reported by The Washington Post, citing an internal document, the Donald Trump administration plans to cut the State Department budget by 48% (relative to the department's budget for 2025).
The cuts will affect peacekeeping programs, international health initiatives, and the Agency for International Development (USAID).
“Y’all want to vaccinate your kids or to celebrate local drag queens, spend some of your own money. Uncle Sugar is closed for business.”
It is proposed to cut funding for international organizations by 90%. As journalists write, citing documents: "funding for the UN, NATO, and 20 other organizations will be terminated." The cuts will also affect international peacekeeping operations.
In addition, it is reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to present a plan to fire "tens of thousands" of State Department employees. The cuts include closing consulates and other diplomatic missions, as well as merging or eliminating some departments. All educational programs under the State Department, including the famous Fulbright, may also be suspended.
Funding may be retained for the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program for Israel and Egypt, and the PEPFAR health program and initiatives related to the fight against AIDS. Funding for the IAEA and the International Civil Aviation Organization is also retained.
A few important details:
1) So far, these are only tentative proposals that will change at each subsequent stage, especially when it comes to congressional committees;
2) Not even all Republicans will be ready to vote for this, which practically guarantees amendments.
3) Based on the above, we can assume that Trump is ready to bargain with congressmen. The logic is familiar to him: raise the demands so that there is a basis for bargaining and achieving real goals.
4) You shouldn't be too happy about the wording about the end of NATO funding by the State Department, because:
a) this will still be negotiated in Congress;
b) the main flows of American funds to NATO go through the Pentagon. And the deductions from the State Department are literally a drop in the ocean
c) the State Department's spending on NATO is more related to everyday and organizational issues than to military-strategic ones.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has sent a request to the United Arab Emirates to seize five apartments in Dubai belonging to a former Moscow traffic police inspector. This was reported on April 15 by Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov.
He arrived in Abu Dhabi on a visit, where he met with the head of the UAE Accountability Office, Humaid Obaid Abushib, and asked that the issue be taken under control.
"At the last meeting, I shared our experience of confiscating property for the benefit of the state, the legality of the sources of acquisition of which was not confirmed by officials. We filed one of such lawsuits against a former Russian policeman who owns five apartments in Dubai," Krasnov was quoted on the Telegram channel of the Prosecutor General's Office.
The head of the Russian department reported that the total cost of these apartments exceeds 3 million dirhams (about 68 million rubles at the exchange rate).
…or US $816,661.29 as of last night…
According to him, at the beginning of 2025, the competent authorities of the UAE have already sent documents to enforce this court decision.
The Prosecutor General's Office clarified that the request concerns former traffic police inspector Sergei Kuznetsov. In December 2022, the Lefortovo District Court granted the agency's claim to transfer his property to the state.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in December 2022, the court ordered the confiscation of Kuznetsov's property worth 129 million rubles, as well as more than 50 million rubles in cash. It was established that he and his relatives acquired more than 20 real estate properties and one car, and also kept large sums of money in bank safe deposit boxes.
None of those questioned could explain where they got the money for expensive purchases.
“The spare change accumulated over the months — and the end of each day I threw it in a jar, and that’s how much there was when I finally counted it up. Anyone could have done the same, really.”
On this basis, the Prosecutor General's Office demanded the confiscation of property and filed a corresponding lawsuit.
[Jamestown.org] PLA Perceptions of and Reactions to U.S. Military Activities in Low Earth Orbit
Executive Summary:
Space industry experts within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have observed and drawn lessons from the United States’s use of space as a warfighting domain since the 1990s. These experts tend to characterize the deployment of proliferated low earth orbit (pLEO) constellations, such as the privately-owned Starlink constellation, as an application of the Department of Defense’s resilient space concept.
The PLA views Starlink as challenging its core operational concept of multi-domain precision warfare due to the decentralized nature of pLEO constellations. It attributes many unconfirmed, hyperbolic capabilities to Starlink, which contributes to the belief that Starlink is creating a strategic imbalance between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in space.
The PRC has begun developing its own comparable megaconstellation, Project SatNet, which PLA analysts see as enabling similar capabilities to Starlink and which they also envision as countering Starlink.
[PREMIUMTIMESNG] Six former refugees repatriated from Chad have regained their freedom after paying a ransom to their Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... kidnappers.
The Lions of Islam kidnapped eight former refugees a fortnight ago while they were fishing on the outskirts of their community in Doron Baga, Kukawa Local Government Area of Borno State.
The incident happened just months after the victims were resettled in the community after spending over ten years as refugees in the Chad Republic fleeing from the Boko Haram krazed killers.
The murderous Moslems had demanded N300,000 as ransom for each of the kidnapped persons,
On Saturday, one of the victims said the murderous Moslems have rel66jmeased six of them.
''They released six of us,'' Bukar Shuib (not his real name) said, adding that their families paid money to the krazed killers.
''Some of us paid N300,000. Others paid between N200,000 and less to secure our freedom,'' Mr Shuib said.
He said the other two were still with the murderous Moslems because their families could not raise the money, narrating how they suffered at the hands of the krazed killers.
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[IsraelTimes] Israel has been kept in the loop about plan that could see troop presence shrunk from 2,000 to 1,000; Jerusalem fears it will increase Turkey’s ‘appetite’ to control Syria.
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04/16/2025
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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.
...
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed...
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
...Republic of Somaliland is an unrecognised sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, recognised internationally as a de jure part of Somalia. It is located in the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden with approximately 5.7 million residents as of 2021. The capital and largest city is Hargeisa. The government regards itself as the successor state to British Somaliland, which united from 1960 to 1991 with the Trust Territory of Somaliland (the former Italian Somaliland) to form the Somali Republic. Under the Siad Barre regime, Somaliadestroyed ninety percent of Hargeisa Per international law, once you're in, you gotta stay in, no matter how bad it smells....
..always the voice of sweet reason...
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration...
[AFRICANEWS] Monday's attack comes exactly one week after another raid claimed 52 lives.
...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration....
...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
There is a cancer in America’s military ranks, and it must be expunged before it’s too late. That cancer lies in uniformed service members’ widespread rejection of the uniquely American concept of civilian control of the military and disregard for the absolute necessity that America’s military officers remain apolitical in the face of the constitutional will of the electorate.
...The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
...
...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
