[Al Jazeera] UAE says Ghani taken in on 'humanitarian grounds' after he fled Afghanistan as the Taliban took over the country. Sure picked some place to go to. Too bad he wasn't a 'translator'.
Earlier, Afghan media outlets reported that the UAE offered Ghani a residence after his "escape".
Ghani fled Afghanistan on Sunday as the Taliban closed in on Kabul, before the armed group walked into the Afghan capital unopposed.
In a Facebook post, Ghani said the "Taliban have won" and that he fled to avoid a "flood of bloodshed". Mainly, his own.
His whereabouts were unknown until Wednesday, with speculation that he had fled to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan or Oman.
The UAE is one of three nations, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which recognised the previous Taliban regime, which ran Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
On Monday, there were scenes of panic and chaos at the Kabul airport as desperate residents tried to flee the war-torn country. Deaths were reported as some clung to planes flying out of the capital.
Earlier this year, the war between the Taliban and Afghan forces intensified as foreign troops announced their withdrawal from the country by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the attacks that led to the US invasion.
With the collapse of the Afghan government, attention is turning to ensure the safety of civilians and evacuees and an orderly transfer of power.
The Taliban has declared that the war in Afghanistan is over and said efforts to form an inclusive government are under way.
[Arutz 7] - Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, a leading Religious Zionist rabbi and the dean of the Orot Shaul Yeshiva in Tel Aviv, on Wednesday ruled that medical staff may prioritize vaccinated coronavirus patients over those who refused the vaccine.
Discussing a situation in which two coronavirus patients are waiting for medical treatment - one who is vaccinated and one who could have received the vaccine from a medical standpoint but refused - Rabbi Cherlow said it is preferable to prioritize the vaccinated patient.
However, he clarified that his statement does not apply to urgent situations in which every moment matters, emphasizing that in such situations, only the usual medical considerations should be taken into account, and it should go in accordance with the urgency of each person's situation.
..."This stems from natural justice, and from the simple principle that a person is responsible for his actions, and that his personal choice must never harm others."
#1
On the surface it's a reasonable idea. But. If you let people legally smoke and drink alcohol, can you later deny them healthcare they have paid for, via taxes or contract (unless the contract states outright that that's the deal)? Same with vaxx. If it's optional at all, it can't be use as a criterion to deny someone their rights, unless we are talking about "rights" granted by the state.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 9:39
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#2
Well, MM ask any smoker if they pay higher health insurance premiums.
#3
Some do, I'm sure. Some lie and go to great lengths to not smell like ciggies when they go for physicals. Here in America, Obamacare has made a chest x-ray something you see in a 50's movie.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 9:50
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#8
Election fraud. If Biden is the most popularly elected president in history (81 million votes), you would think the left would wouldn't mind a healthy look at the vote to show this.
All the push-back, lying, and lawyering-up by the left would seem to indicate the election wasn't on the up-and-up.
[NY Post] Taliban fighters shot and killed a woman for not wearing a burqa in Afghanistan Tuesday â the same day the group pledged to usher in a new inclusive era in the country that honors "womenâs rights."
A photo emerged of a woman in Takhar province lying in a pool of blood, with loved ones crouched around her, after she was killed by insurgents for being in public without a head covering, according to Fox News.
The killing came amid the outfitâs version of a charm offensive, after its swift takeover of the country in the absence of US troops, who had been propping up allied military groups since shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Insurgents also vowed Tuesday not to interfere with US-led evacuation efforts of Westerners and their Afghan allies, but were instead reported to be controlling the entrances of Hamid Karzai International Airport, and attacking those who were trying to flee.
"There was kids, women, babies, old women, they could barely walk," an Afghan former State Department contractor told Fox. "They [are in a] very, very bad situation, Iâm telling you. At the end, I was thinking that there was like 10,000 or more than 10,000 people, and theyâre running into the airport ... The Taliban [were] beating people and the people were jumping from the fence, the concertina wire, and also the wall."
Elsewhere in Kabul, Taliban fighters were recorded shooting guns as they patrolled neighborhoods home to activists and government workers, according to the report.
Militants were looking for people who had helped the US, and had questioned the former defense contractorâs neighbors about him, according to the report.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/18/2021 8:35
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#2
"We respect your right to die when we shoot you."
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 ||
08/18/2021 8:59
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#3
I know I sound heartless and a SOB, but now is exactly the time to harden yourself against news coming out of AFG about outrages.
Take a step back, learn a little more about the disposition of forces, disassociate from the Pakis completely. Then use a 'WMD's in Kabul!' type alarm to suddenly nuke the shit out of it. Nuke it between May and September when the circulating hot winds will carry radiation into Pakistain too.
Let China pick up the pieces.
Meanwhile put your 'top men' on explaining why. I shall bet the American people will elect you of their own volition next time. The world will walk softly around American interests for another decade, no shit.
#7
I can't help thinking that if the Afghans really wanted to be a civilized, modern democracy they could have. They certainly weren't willing to fight for it. Maybe they just don't know any better but twenty years of our best effort, such as it was, could not convince them otherwise. So now they return to Islam in one of its most barbaric manifestations.
Here is my proposed foreign policy for Afghanistan in particular and the Muslim world in general: No need to nuke them. We don't go there and they don't come here. None of them. No exceptions.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 11:41
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#8
Oh, and if the Chinese want it, they can have it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 11:43
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#9
It is not a contradiction, at least in their eyes. They promised to respect women's rights under Islamic law.
if the Afghans really wanted to be a civilized, modern democracy they could have.
I would rate that as UnPossible at this point in time and Afghanistan's development. Making a nation-state out of a collection of warring tribes and clans is a long-term project. Based on watching people try, speeding up that process does not seem to be possible.
#10
They didn't really want it is what I'm saying. So they can't have it. That's why I'm not crying about Afghan women having to wear burqas. It's just another sob story about which there is nothing I can do.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 12:31
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#11
Should China prevail Let them throw money down that money hole. We have all heard this tune before.
This is a pretty good assessment. Follows is the.... 'so what.'
As the collapse of the ANDSF became apparent, the Afghan government scrambled to put together a new force composed of various militias. Three influential warlords â Atta Muhammad Noor of Jamiat-e-Islami, Abdul Rashid Dostum of Hezb-e-Junbish and Haji Muhammad Muhaqiq of Hezbe-e Wahdat Islami Mardom-e Afghanistan â met to forge a joint front against the Taliban and coordinate their struggle with the ANDSF.
However, the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif to the Taliban forced them to flee the country. The collapse of the ANDSF even before the US withdrawal was completed and the way the gains of the so-called âwar on terrorâ have been reversed will reverberate for years to come. The thousands of fighters freed by the Taliban from Bagram Airbase, including those from al-Qaeda and other groups, will pose a major security challenge in the region and beyond. Emphasis added
#1
I thought initially this will take 6 months to work it ways thru the courts. But then I remembered the recent data on relocation patterns of the USA, since the over-hyped C-19 started.
Mostly Yankees Fleeing the North and generally headed South....
âș We are being invaded by Yankees again.âș
Which also explains why lately we are hearing a lot more "...that's not the way we did it where we came from"...
#4
Time to start watching the watchers and maybe let some of them wake up naked with a bad headache in an alley...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 9:01
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#5
"...that's not the way we did it where we came from"...
When I was at the State University of New York at Buffalo back in the late 1970s, we had a lot of kids from New York City who thought they wanted to get as far from home as possible while still getting a remarkably cheap education. More than half of them spent the first semester saying that repeatedly. The second semester they were enrolled in some school in The City.
#6
NYC pollutes the mind. I lived in a sublet there in the early 80's, haven't been back since. I went to CWRU in Cleveland for my undergrad because I knew there would be too many distractions I was already familiar with in Pissburgh, where I was born and went to private high school. I got my degree in 4 years, made a lot of friends, cultivated a lot of new distractions and I'd be there still if not for a job waiting back in SWPA when I graduated (there is a God) You are either able to leave your back yard or you are not.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 9:19
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#7
One invader from Pennsylvania I was talking with bemoaned the fact there is no state income tax in Tennessee. He didn't like the sales tax. He didn't like paying 9% sales tax on refrigeraters and ranges. I asked him how many times a year he bought them and he gave me a blank stare
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/18/2021 10:00
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#8
We should have poll taxes and tests to vote. People who can't pass an econ 101 exam should not vote or be allowed to run for office.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 10:05
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#9
I give you free reign of my Communist Fiefdom, only if you have taken "The Jab" and can prove it.
U.S. Constitutional Rights Permanently Suspended - William de Blasio (D)
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 15:05
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#11
Been in New England nearly my entire life and I thought grits & collard greens were pretty good. That was that one trip to Atlanta back in the Dot Com days (never to be confused with one of the all-time greatest Rantburg commenters, .com).
#13
The vaccination rates for blacks is less than other groups. Therefore, blacks will be turned away at a higher rate.
Given that any process that produces disparate outcomes for different races is illegal, lawsuits will be coming quickly. Alinsky, you magnificent bastige, we read your book!
#3
She should do us all a favor and keep it that way.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 14:15
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#4
Kamala â âYou will not pin this shit on me!â According to multiple reports, Harris was asked to address the American people on Sunday about the unraveling situation in the war-torn country, but refused. As the Taliban threatened the lives of thousands of Americans and allies in Kabul, pressure mounted on the White House to look the people in the eye and explain what happened.
Yet, no one did.
A well-placed source inside the White House informs Becker News that Kamala objected to addressing the nation on Sunday. The source reports that Harris could be heard screaming, âThey will not pin this shit on me!â
[Spiked] Everyone is saying itâs like Saigon in 1975. Helicopters evacuating an American embassy. Chaotic, distressing scenes at the local airport as American allies, or just plain fearful people, desperately try to flee the country. American officials convincing absolutely nobody with their unhinged claims that the âmission has been successfulâ (in Anthony Blinkenâs words). Itâs clear for all to see, commentators insist: Kabul in 2021 is a replay of Saigon in 1975. America humiliated, its enemies ascendant.
#1
The strategy for the "War on Terror" was paying danegeld to peoples of the Islamic world and simultaneously sending the message that one could get political concessions from the West without resorting to terrorism.
Since the West has ZERO civilizational confidence this was perhaps the only option.
It was also pure self-destructive madness.
Looking e.g. at these randomly selectedvignettes, how could anyone have ever believed that this would not end in a disaster?
#5
^ Yes. They look well fed, compliant and rip for the picking...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:56
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#6
Ripe. But the picking will be a rip...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:57
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#7
The guy in front is me right now. I take a mask everywhere, but only put it on to suit those who apoplectically demand it. The raging inconsistency of the masking religion at this point is self parody.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:59
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#8
Time for Chicagorans to arm up and blast the criminals. If gay mayor bitches take out as a warning to encourager les autres
#2
Over $7 trillion dollars (circa 2000) spent on the "War on Poverty". Same effect, so the authors of that now blame everyone and everything else for its lack of major success. They call it Critical Race Theory.
#3
By most accounts, the effort was doomed from the start. DoD and OGA (Other Government Agency) and contractor budgets swelled to unheard of levels. Kicking the can down the road for 20 years simply postponed the inevitable.
"War is our business, and business is good."
~ Unk
But hear ye now the DOD schpiel,
written by some REMF insect.
They'd like to spend more dollars
now and loudly introspect.
Men who'd sell you the death o' yer
dreams, you ain't circumspect.
"Mr. Fancy Five Star! WTF was this?"
"Oh, we knew how it ends, in retrospect."
#16
I wonder if anybody else has noted that the overwhelming majority of traditional Americans have f=been treated like nothing more than field hands on the Tax Farm Plantation that is America, an d that the Big House Masters and house "servants" are all far more well treated and privileged than s field hands. Had enough yet?
Afghanistan, refuge of sheiks,
Of lofty Mohammedan piques,
Of men who find joys
In their... faith! And their boys?
Well, they probably welcomed the Greeks.
What did any of these Americans think, anyway? The State Department has a long history of treating Americans abroad like trash. They are regarded as either fugitives from justice or tax evaders. They did the same thing during the Wuhan virus crisis. Other countries sent planes to bring their nationals home, free of charge. State washed their hands of American citizens and abandoned them. $1 trillion for war, not one cent for the little people.
#3
I'm going to get hammered for "blaming the victims." So be it. The ones trapped there who went to make their fortunes by siphoning USAID and other "development" money, the conflict tourists, the ones trying to bust into the drug trade, let them find their own ways out.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:30
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#4
Jo(k)e always was competitive, I guess he's determined to show that Jimmy Carter a thing or two when it comes to hostages.
#8
No, G, world policeman is a hubris we cooked up here in America for ourselves. Then the neocons and Soros types figured out how to co-opt it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:43
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#9
What actual conservitives in the US need to do is discredit the "R2P" nonsense with the same verve we put into stomping CRT. Ask R2P zealots this: "Where is the rest of the world's R2P Americans from their exported drugs, exported criminals, exported illiterate welfare leeches, exported bad politics and exported "quaint cultural customs?"
Silence...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:47
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#10
How much effort did those mini skirted girls in Kabul in the 70s from the picture yesterday put into protecting their own futures to be free individuals? Apparently not nearly enough...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:50
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#11
What actual conservitives in the US need to do is discredit the "R2P" nonsense with the same verve we put into stomping CRT
Definition of verve
1a: the spirit and enthusiasm animating artistic composition or performance : VIVACITY
b: ENERGY, VITALITY
đ
#18
I refer back to my comment #3. I don't have any problem believing there are lots of people with US passports (as opposed to Americans in the sense of people who believe in America nad the American idea) in Afghanistan. Think of fat, black flies buzzing over a fresh turd...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 11:53
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#19
Maybe these are wannabe American citizens, Afghans pegged to be ever grateful blue voters still negotiating the buy in. At this point, who knows?
Afghanistan was stable and we had enough troops there to monitor what was going on. Almost all of the fighting was being handled by the Afghan military.
US casualties for the last five years had fallen dramatically as a result. In 2020 we lost 9, in 2019 we lost 22, in 2018 we lost 15, in 2017 we lost 17 and in 2016 we lost 14. Many of these losses were not the result of combat but admittedly tragic just the same. However, the loss of 77 Americans over 5 years pales in comparison to the over 3000 we lost in a single day to allegedly the same damn terrorists we just turned the country back over to.
The idea to pull out completely whether it was Trump's plan or Biden's execution has turned out to be a catastrophe that, I believe, will haunt us for decades and maybe longer. As a result of Biden's lack of planning and execution and probable self-fulfilling need to be out of Afghanistan by September 11th, people will die in mass. Some will be Americans. Some will be tortured and executed in the streets because that is the Taliban way. For the remainder of my life, every execution I see on TV, every terrorist act, every rape, enslavement or forced marriage coming out of Afghanistan will be at the hands of Joe Biden. And remember, what you see through the media will be a small fraction of the atrocities committed. Joe now has blood on his hands and, as I see it, that will be his lasting legacy, Tonight I pray for the Afghan people. My heart goes out to them especially their women and young ladies and girls. Their promising future, their whole world has been torn apart by the self-serving decisions of none other than the President of the United States, Joe Biden. I say again "NICE JOB JOE".
#21
I can easily believe there are a lot of idiots in the aforementioned categories, but 40K makes me skeptical. Unless there was some really crazy stuff going on that we don't know about...
#22
More magic numbers, which, if you don't accept without question, you are a QANON domestic terrorist and must be liquidated.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 13:49
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#23
That number makes absolutely no sense. Seeing how people actually shat themselves when Green Beans showed up at Bagram, I searched fast food Kabul Afghanistan, and I don't see that result mash.
Latest spinball: we should be putting aside our disagreements and anxieties and rallying around the flag like the second plane just hit.
Me: you did it backwards. Things come at you from behind when you go backwards. Your pronouns are dum/fuks.
#24
And these are people who saw Bagram abandoned like a two legged puppy and were like, "It'll be fine."
I'm not wishing them harm, and I"m sure they are just as stoked about all the people high-fiving the 650 Afghans hitching a US Military plane ride rather than them, especially after You Got Mail: you're on your own. Embassy App. How red of a flag do you need?
And if it were a serious military effort, why didn't we bomb all that abandoned equipment before it became mounted and used in an attack. Wouldn't that be an easier kill? So what was bombed during 'Big Day of Air Strikes!'?
[Rudaw] At least one civilian was killed in Ottoman Turkish bombardment in northeast Syrian (Rojava) on Tuesday evening, according to a local media outlet and a conflict monitor.
The Ottoman Turkish army bombarded Zarkan district in Hasaka province.
One child was killed and five other civilians were maimed in the bombardment, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Hawar News Agency (ANHA), a media outlet affiliated with the Rojava administration, reported that a four-year-old child and a woman were killed and more than 10 people were maimed.
The casualties were brought to Dirbesiye hospital, ANHA reported.
In October 2019, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... launched an offensive against Kurdish forces in northeast Syria. Ceasefires were brokered by Moscow and Washington, but the truces are frequently violated. Earlier this month, a father and his three children were killed in a Ottoman Turkish bombing near Ain Issa.
There’s nothing about this in One India thus far....
[AlAhram] Hundreds of Moslems chanting religious and pro-freedom slogans erupted into the streets in the main city of Srinagar despite security restrictions banning the traditional procession
Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... fired tear gas and warning shots Tuesday to disperse Shiite Moslems who attempted to participate in processions marking the Moslem month of Muharram. Dozens of people were detained.
Government forces used batons to beat journalists covering the procession, according to a local news hound. Authorities erected steel barricades and barbed wire to block the crowds.
'We respect the religious sentiments and practices of all, but at the same time, it is also our joint responsibility to defeat the ill designs of vested interests who try to disturb the peaceful atmosphere,'' police Inspector-General Vijay Kumar said on Twitter.
Muharram is among the holiest months for Shiite Moslems across the world and includes large processions of people beating their chests while reciting elegies to mourn the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson. The mourning reaches its peak on Ashura, the 10th day of the month in the Islamic lunar calendar. Tuesday's procession marked the eighth day on the calendar.
The traditional religious procession turned violent mostly peaceful last year as Indian forces fired shotgun pellets to disperse crowds, injuring dozens.
Some main Muharram processions have been banned in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir since an armed insurgency broke out in 1989 demanding the region's independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistain. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
Kashmiri Moslems have long complained that the government is curbing their religious freedom on the pretext of maintaining law and order while promoting an annual Hindu pilgrimage to the Himalayan Amarnath Shrine in Kashmir that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. The pilgrimage has been canceled for the last two years because of the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... .
[Rooters] - 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 StĂŒrmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or FĂŒhrer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... has accelerated its enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade, the U.N. atomic watchdog said in a report on Tuesday seen by Rooters, a move raising tensions with the West as both sides seek to resume talks on reviving Tehran's nuclear deal.
Iran increased the purity to which it is refining uranium to 60% fissile purity from 20% in April in response to a kaboom and power cut at its Natanz site that damaged output at the main underground enrichment plant there.
Iran has blamed the attack on Israel. Weapons-grade is around 90% purity. read more
In May, the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran was using one cascade, or cluster, of advanced centrifuges to enrich to up to 60% at its above-ground pilot enrichment plant at Natanz. The IAEA informed member states on Tuesday that Iran was now using a second cascade for that purpose, too.
The move is the latest of many by Iran breaching the restrictions imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal, which capped the purity to which Tehran can refine uranium at 3.67%. The United States and its European allies have warned such moves threaten talks on reviving the deal, which are currently suspended.
Following Rooters' report, Iran reiterated that its nuclear programme is peaceful and said it had informed the IAEA about its enrichment activities. It added that its moves away from the 2015 deal would be reversed if the United States returned to the accord and lifted sanctions, Iranian state media reported.
BLUF:
[Radio Free Europe] The Talibanâs stated revenues of $1.6 billion corresponds with figures provided by the United Nations Security Councilâs Sanctions Committee, which in May said the groupâs earnings "range from $300 million to upwards of $1.5 billion per annum."
The key to rising revenues has been profits from mining, growing from $35 million in 2016 to $464 million in 2020, according to one of the Taliban members interviewed, who added that China and the United Arab Emirates were the biggest buyers of the raw materials.
The illicit opium trade also remained a major source of revenue for the Taliban. Around 90 percent of the worldâs heroin comes from the Helmand River valley, a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan.
The Taliban taxes poppy farmers and is also involved in the trafficking of narcotics to neighboring countries, from where they end up in Europe and North America.
"Yaqoobâs efforts to control and expand the organizationâs finances mean that these plans can, according to officials close to him, be bankrolled to the tune of almost $2 billion a year," says the report.
[Red State] I wrote earlier about how the debacle in Afghanistan may have been intentional because Joe Biden previously said he thought we should just pull out and didnât need to be concerned about the allies we left behind. "F*** that," he reportedly said in 2010. "We donât have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it." So it appeared it was always his intent to just pull out, no matter the cost.
That was pretty horrible to read â that indeed he was looking at Vietnam actions as a model of what he could get away with.
But that isnât all. He blamed Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. But that wasnât who was responsible. Guess who was involved in 1975, too? You guessed it â Joseph R. Biden and the Congressional Democrats.
#1
NYTimes, March 20, 1975: Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger after a closedâdoor meeting with the Senate Armed. Services Committee on military sales to Saudi Arabia, said that the âniggardlyâ approach of Congress toward military aid, to the Saigon Government was the âapproximate causeâ for withdrawal of South Vietnamese forces from provinces in the Central Highlands. Mr. Schlesinger saw North Vietnam taking advantage of South Vietnam's defensive move to launch what he described as âa major offensiveâ particularly in Military Regions. I and II in the northern part of South Vietnam.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 10:32
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#3
Nixon was long gone by the time Saigon fell. But don't count on Joe to remember minor details like that, especially when it was Democrats in Congress who withheld military supplies for South Vietnam.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 14:59
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[OneIndia] Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday shared a video of a group of Taliban ...Arabic for students... celebrating its victory in Afghanistan in his twitter account in which gun wielding men are heard speaking in Malayalam.
Taliban Lions of Islam speak Malayalam in their victory celebration video; Shashi Tharoor shares on Twitter
"It sounds as if there are at least two Malayali Taliban here one who says samsarikkette around the 8-second mark & another who understands him!", Tharoor wrote on his microblogging site after sharing the video posted on August 15.
The video showed the Taliban member weeping in joy as they reached outside Kabul, hours ahead of falling of the Afghanistan capital in their hands.
It sounds as if there are at least two Malayali Taliban here — one who says “samsarikkette” around the 8-second mark & another who understands him! https://t.co/SSdrhTLsBG
Posted by: Chris ||
08/18/2021 9:38
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#5
Dron, this has never happened in Pakistan. Why was a woman sexually assaulted, thrown in the air and her clothes torn apart by 400 men on Pakistan's Independence Day?
#7
^ Horrid I'm sure, us men can probably never appreciate the fear it inspires in ladies.
How do you know it hasn't happened in India too?
This sort of thing is common wherever criminality trumps discipline. The south Asian fauna is a society in particular need of discipline. Tough love so to speak.
#8
I have a better alternative: women should start committing mass suicides and start killing female infants. But this is already in practice in hellholes.
#9
#5 Because they saw a poorly made undistributed movie that was still available on YouTube because they were too busy practicing to ban "domestic extremists" and "COVID / vaccine conspiracy theory nuts" who would emerge 11 years later...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 11:11
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#10
You have to hand it to the Rajput women. They had more dignity than their husbands had sense. That's exactly what they did.
Mullah Yaqoob in a audio message instructs Taliban fighters âNo one has the right to go to anyoneâs home. No one has the right to take weapons of vehicles from homes of former officials. Protect public property.â pic.twitter.com/0Qy36JKeru
Mullah Yaqoob, more fully Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, who has been acting as interim Taliban commander, is the elder son of Mullah Mohammad âBlinkyâ Omar. Blinky was the âLeader of the Faithfulâ during the Talib Emirate, v.1.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021
00:00 ||
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[11144 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
Mullah Yaqoob in a audio message instructs Taliban fighters ââNo one has the right to go to anyoneâs home. No one has the right to take weaponsââ2021-08-18
"...Well, that oughta do it then. Thanks, Ray."
- Dr. Peter Venkman
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/18/2021 10:15
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[IsraelTimes] The IDF did not respond militarily to a rocket fired yesterday 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 an iron fist by Hamaswith 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... due to sensitive ongoing negotiations with Hamas, one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,, reports Channel 12 news.
According to the report, which did not cite a source, there is a possibility of a breakthrough in a deal that will both ensure 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... i funds will enter Gaza and could include the release of Israelis being held by Hamas.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Defense Minister Benny Gantz held meetings at the IDF Gaza Division earlier today. IDF intelligence officials and the Shin Bet reportedly told Bennett and Gantz that they should hold back in responding to the rocket in order to give the negotiations a chance, and they agreed to do so.
The rocket fired yesterday was purportedly launched by Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... fighters who were then arrested by Hamas. Hamas then reportedly informed Israel that it was not behind the rocket fire and is not interested in an escalation.
Earlier today, while touring the IDF Gaza Division, Bennett vowed to respond to the rocket fire "on our terms, and not anyone else’s."
[IsraelTimes] The United States says that the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... have promised safe passage for thousands of civilians seeking to reach Kabul airport in order to leave Afghanistan.
"The Taliban have informed us they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport, and we intend to hold them to that commitment," National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan tells news hounds at the White House.
Sullivan says the US is also "talking" with the Taliban about the timetable for the removal of thousands of American citizens and Afghans fleeing the country on US military aircraft.
#1
Xi could offer a release of all hostages in exchange for the Biden administration declaring the lab escape theory a hoax and pressuring all Western social media sites to resume the aggressive suppression of such speculation.
#5
Offer the Taliban $1 million per capita to let Afghans out of their own country, that should do it just fine! Do I have to be the only one to come up with ideas like this?
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 ||
08/18/2021 9:08
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#6
Yea, well, cool down - lets see how long Taliban can rule.
With #6 as well, or was, not sure yet. The theory of the rapid leave was Talis would overextend and get heady, and picked apart by rivals. However, these international negotiations and calls for, cough, gender inclusive government is legitimizing their rule.
Say after all this pandering and title giving, Dostrum launches a bold counter-attack, retakes Kabul, and the Tali army melts back into the villages. I know, but play along, how would the internationals approach that new situation?
Which is easier for the internationals, admit being wrong about kingmakers again, or air strike Dostrum's approach to the capital?
#2
Cause those who are charge with waging war collect all the fancy toys but don't know what war has been since the middle of the last century. There is no substitute for destroying the enemy's means of conducting war. In this case destroying the enemy's base of operation, which was and is Pakistan. Further, it means breaking and killing on a large scale. That is too icky and uncomfortable for too many, they have no will to conduct war so engage in 'precision' and 'surgical' approaches as a substitute which is kabuki theater masquerading as war.
THOUGHTS ON AFGHANISTAN, from a senior military officer with whom I am acquainted:
"Of course, I blame President Biden for the disastrous retrograde operation still unfolding. But let us not allow that to deflect us from heaping even more blame on military leaders. They stonewalled President Trump rather than beginning deliberate preparations to exit the country when he told them to"
#7
Home court advantage + it was never about "winning" as far as CIA, Pentagon and the Beltway Bandits were concerned. All way over Tucker's poor little head. He tied those bow ties too tight for too long before he got too weak to keep doing that...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 12:35
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#8
Does Insta whatever he is at the moment still thing Jake Tapper is an honest journalist? He yused to slaver over the guy.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 12:39
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#9
The locals know that at some point the foreigners will leave and the savages will still be there so most will never go all in to save their country.
In coordination with the Peshmerga forces, Iraqi security forces raided an ISIS headquarters in mount Qara Dagh in Nineveh.According to a blurb of the Security Media Cell (SMC), the intelligence of Division 14 of the Iraqi army detected a movement of a group of ISIS Death Eaters from and to a den on mount Qarah Dagh in Nineveh.
"In coordination with the Iraqi Kurdistan Guards-Peshmerga, a land force of the 50th brigade’s first regiment raided the den and seized ten bombs and material. The den, with its contents, inside were detonated by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal."
[israelTimes] For the first time since Operation Guardian of the Walls ended in May, Israel is allowing the entry of 10 trucks carrying tires and engines into 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 an iron fist by Hamaswith 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, reports Paleostinian media.
Beginning on Thursday, additional trucks carrying imported goods, including building materials, are slated to be granted entry.
In addition, around 1,800 Gazook businesspeople and traders entered Israel today for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, says a security source.
I understand that police can't be everywhere, and I wouldn't want them there. But they should be somewhere.
Their deBlasio-defined rules of engagement require them not to engage. So always being elsewhere follows.
[NYPOST] Disturbing new surveillance video shows the moment a 51-year-old man was brutally attacked by a hatchet-wielding maniac while at a Lower Manhattan ATM.
The footage, obtained by The Post on Tuesday, shows the victim at one of the ATMs inside a Chase Bank vestibule on Broadway near Beaver Street in the Financial District shortly before 5:30 p.m. Sunday when his attacker walks in, removes a hatchet from a dark bag, sneaks up behind him and begins slashing him.
The frightened and bloodied victim tries to fend off the brutal assault, falling to the floor several times as he futilely attempts to grab his crazed assailantâs weapon, the footage shows.
When the unidentified suspect is finished beating his victim, he smashes the screens of the cash-dispensing machines before walking away â and leaving the hatchet and his backpack behind, according to police.
The maimed man was hospitalized in stable, pH balanced condition, police said.
Cops hope the surveillance video helps them catch the maniac, sources said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021
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#1
Looks like a Racist Hate Crime to me.
Why isn't it being reported as a BLOM racial attack?
[PJMedia] It was one of the worst trades in history: Back in 2014, Barack Obama I am the change that you seek...
And now Khairullah Khairkhwa, one of the jihadis Obama traded for Bergdahl, is among the Taliban leadership that just took Kabul.
traded five Taliban ...Arabic for students... commanders for one American who, we were led to believe, had been captured by the Taliban. Obama did all he could to make the swap seem noble: He said at the time that the recovery of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was "a reminder of Americaâs unwavering commitment to leave no man or woman in uniform behind on the battlefield," and the five Taliban jihadis were sent to Qatar
Continued on Page 49
In 1965? 56 years ago? I can barely remember that far back. She'd better have a lot of photos of the two of them together nekkid.
[PAGESIX] Legendary singer and songwriter Bob Dylan plied a 12-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol before sexually abusing her at his Chelsea Hotel apartment in 1965, an explosive new lawsuit alleges.
The "Blowin’ in the Wind" musician allegedly used his star status to groom, gain the trust of and control the victim "as part of his plan to sexually molest and abuse" her, according to the Manhattan Supreme Court ...the political football known as The Highest Court in the Land, home of penumbrae and emanations... papers, which only identify the plaintiff as "J.C."
"Bob Dylan, over a six-week period between April and May of 1965 befriended and established an emotional connection with the plaintiff," say the papers, which were filed late Friday on behalf of J.C., now a 68-year-old woman in Greenwich, Conn.
The suit alleges that Dylan — whose given name is Robert Allen Zimmerman — established the "connection" to "lower [J.C.’s] inhibitions with the object of sexually abusing her, which he did, coupled with the provision of drugs, alcohol and threats of physical violence, leaving her emotionally scarred and psychologically damaged to this day."
The alleged abuse by the now-81-year-old "Like a Rolling Stone" singer and songwriter occurred multiple times, and some of the incidents took place at the famed Chelsea Hotel, the suit claims.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021
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#1
So we have a 68+/- y/o woman now suing a
80-81 y/o rock star, for something she claims
happened 56 years ago????????
This must be some type of Legal World Record.
Because she took her time deciding.
BTW:
Where were her Parents during all this?
If it did happen, slap his butt in jail for the few
months he may still have to live being already 81.
#4
Statutes of limitation apply to criminal prosecutions. The world of civil litigation is, shall we say, a good deal more flexible inventive. Look at the reparations crowd, they expect their perceived grievance to be eternal and unreconcilable (but they'll take whatever they can get.)
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:55
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Yesterday the CalDor fire in El Dorado County sent a direct smoke plume into the Lake Tahoe/Carson Valley so thick that the streetlights in Gardnerville came on in several places around 2pm and the air quality rating at the south end of the Carson Valley was 325, extremely hazardous for all people. Worst ever. The Tamarack Fire, the Dixie Fire and now the CalDor Fire, its making me wonder if it was somethjing I said...
[EN.ALGHADEERTV.NET] The Paleostinian resistance movement Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic ResistanceÂź, has called for a general strike in the wake of the shooting martyred of four young Paleostinians by Israeli forces in a dawn raid in Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
âLetâs you and him fight!â
The four young men, identified as Saleh al-Ammar, Raed Abu Seif,
.... both al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades...
Amjad Husniyah,
...plain vanilla Hamas...
and Nour Jarrar,
...Islamic Jihadâs military wing, the al-Quds Brigades...
were shot at the Jenin refugee camp on Monday, multiple sources, including Akram Rajoub, the governor of Jenin, said.
The noble Lions of Islam got themselves killed while trying to prevent the arrest of another of their ilk.
The governor was cited as saying that the bodies of two of the victims â Husniyah and Jarrar â were seized by Israeli regime authorities before withdrawing from Jenin.
The raid on the city of Jenin and its refugee camp led to heavy festivities between the Israeli troops and Paleostinian resistance fighters and local youths. Loud explosions and gunfire were heard, too.
"We mourn the deaders of Jenin who died at dawn today after a heroic confrontation with the Israeli occupation forces who stormed the camp," Hamas front man Hazem Qasem said in a blurb later on Monday, before calling for a general strike across the occupied territories.
"This pure blood of the Jenin deaders is the true guarantee for the liberation battle to continue until the occupation leaves our entire Paleostinian land," the Paleostinian Information Center quoted him as saying.
The national and Islamic political forces in Jenin also declared a day of anger against the Israeli regime and a general strike in the city in mourning for the young Paleostinians, the report added.
The groups also called on the residents of Jenin to take part in the funeral procession of deaders Saleh Ammar and Raâed Abu Saif.
The Paleostinian resistance movement Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... , for its part, also expressed condolences to the families of the victims and stressed that the killings were a clear sign of insistence by "revolutionaries of Jenin" and the whole West Bank on resistance against the occupying regime.
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 an iron fist by Hamaswith 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... -based movement also held the Zionist enemy fully responsible for the growing crimes against the Paleostinians and their holy sites.
The main force of the mujahideen in the war against the Soviets was the Northern Alliance, headquartered in the Pandjir Valley
...also spelt Panjshir, Panjishir, and similar. The native population â primarily poor and illiterate â number about 173,000 earlier this year, though no doubt that is quickly changing. The capitol is Bazarak...
and led by Ahmed Shah Masood, basically the Tadjiks in the country. They were allied, usually, with Abderrashid Dostum, leading the Uzbek contingent, and Ismail Khan, leading the Dari speakers. There were others, and Dostum used to have the habit of changing sides when it suited his purpose. The Paks supported them, usually, acting as a funnel for American and Saudi dollars.
The south of Afghanistan is Pashtun, who speak the Pashto language. Pashtuns make up (guesstimating, since there hasn't been a census in years) about forty percent of the population. They're the largest population in Afghanistan, but not the majority.
The Pashtuns were supported against both the Soviets and the Northern Alliance by the Pak Jamaat-e-Islami, headed by the late lamented Qazi Hussain Ahmed, and Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami, headed by Fazlur Rehman (Mullah Diesel), and the also late lamented Samiul Haq (Mullah Sandwich). Mullah Diesel got his name for the large amounts of diesel fuel that he resold at a profit, and Mullah Sandwich got his name from his habit of taking two boys to bed at once. Sami ran a madrassah that churned out little Pashtun fighters by the hundreds. Our friend Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ran his own Hizb, and he was Qazi's favorite. He got lotsa money, as did others like Yunous Kalis, the duke of Jalalabad, whom I kinda liked from my safe distance. Hekmatyar was also a double/triple agent, funneling information -- usually about Masood's forces -- to the KGB and separately to the KhaD, which was the Kabul government's secret police. After getting kicked out of Sudan, Osama bin Laden moved there to fight as well. I recall seeing at least one interview with him, probably on CNN, which did news in those days instead of whatever it does now. There were other Arab muj as well, not all of them virulent.
Now, nowhere in that list of names is Mullah Omar mentioned, nor is the word Taliban.
To make a long story short, the Soviets left in February 1988, the Northern Alliance kept fighting against the Najibullah regime, the Paks kept trying to control them through their mullahs for that "strategic depth" nonsense. The Northern Alliance eventually took Kabul. Najibullah and his brother took refuge with the UN headquarters. Barnhanuddin Rabanni (Tadjik) became president. Hekmatyar (Pashtun) became PM. Masood became defense minister. Dostum and Ismail Khan got Mazar and Herat, respectively.
Hekmatyar wanted to be in charge, which started what was known as "dog eat dog," basically Pashtuns against Northeren Alliance. Rabbani was a nice man, and Hek overlooked his guardian Masood in the background. Hekmatyar rocketed Kabul before finally being run out of town to Iran and earning himself the title "Most Evil Man in the World." Most of Afghanistan came under the control of local warlords. Rabbani and his government remained the legal govt of Afghanistan and remained such until he stepped down in 2001.
The net result was a weak and unstable government in Kabul and a lot of Pak pot stirring, courtesy of the thankfully late Hamid Gul and his ISI successors in league with Fazl, Qazi, and especially Samiul Haq. Got all that?
Sami and his kindred were still stamping out little murderous Moslems, full of Koranic maxims about killing people and how to strip an AK-47, not so much about how to function in any but the most primitive kind of society. As soon as they were out of the pretty dancing boy stage they were off to Kandahar or someplace.
Mullah Omar was a graduate of Sami's and he was a minor warlord around Kandahar. He may have fought against the Soviets. I have no idea what led to his dispute with Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of Nangarhar; I read that it was defending a maiden's honor, but that's probably Pak bull droppings. Maidens don't have any honor in Pashtunistan. Omar ran Gul Agha out of town, and the Taliban was founded in 1994. With Pak support, they took more and more territory, though they never did control quite the whole country.
Al-Qaeda assassinated Masood on September 9th, 2001, using two "journalists" from Belgium with exploding cameras. Probably twenty four hours later, not counting time zone shuffles, and the September 11th attacks were underway.
Now, why kill Masood? Perhaps if bin Laden knew, without doubt, that the U.S. was going to retaliate against Afghanistan, he wanted the most able -- and Pak-free -- commander in the country neutralized. There were a number of fumbles and bumbles that took place in that period. Rather than nuke Kabul, or land six combat divisions and shoot the place up and put it under occupation, we worked with the Northern Alliance to toss the Talibs -- they're called Taliban because they were Sami's students -- but also put together a stupid "Southern Alliance" made up of Pashtuns. The Talibs had made a show of wanting to hang Karzai, so we held a conference in Berlin, gave him a cape, and made him president.
That's how the decisions of December, 2001, led to this week's debacle. The moral of this story is: Never trust a Pak or a holy man and never put your full weight down on anything a politician tells you.
I can't attest to the absolute correctness in detail of the above. I'm an old man now. While my memory's not as bad as Joe Biden's, it's not infallible, and I've been writing off the cuff.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021
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#1
Thank you for taking the time to write this, Fred.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 9:07
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#5
Cleaque: You are incorrect. We funded the Muj war against the Soviets by providing the military materiel. That materiel was turned over to the Afghan rebels in Karachi port, and the USA had nothing to do but complain about its distribution which was organized by the Pak military ISI. The genesis of the ISI is found in the geopolitical aspirations of Pak strongman Zia ul Haq. The incipient Taliban organization had little effect on the Afghan rebel victory over the Soviets. However, again thanks to the ISI and its leader Hamid Gul, by 1994 its strength had grown considerably within the region's Pashtunistan. The Taliban were by then able to overcome the feckless Hekmatyar and neutralize the equally feckless warlords, and the rest is, as they say, history.
#7
Cleaque is very obtuse. I thought I made myself clear: The Sovs left in 1988. The Taliban were founded in 1994. The only major Muj commander associated with the Taliban was Jalaluddin Haqqani. The Northern Alliance Muj were never a part of it. Even Hekmatyar wasn't part of it.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021 10:50
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#8
Itâs Herb McCoy. He canât help being stupid, poor dear.
Says regnum.ru:
Direct translation via Google Translate
It is noted that all missiles and shells fired by Israeli artillery exploded near the settlement of Khodr. The target of the shelling, presumably, was the positions of pro-Iranian Shiite formations fighting on the side of the Syrian army. Possible deaths, injuries and damage were not reported.
"The Israeli adversary launched a new aggressive action against Syria and launched a missile attack on the northern part of the province of Al-Quneitra," according to agency SANA, Syrian state news agency.
Syrian media reported on Tuesday evening of an Israeli missile strike on an area in the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
The state-run SANA news agency reported that "initial information indicates an Israeli missile attack west of the town of Hader
...an alternate spelling of Khodr, above ...
in the northern Quneitra countryside," adding that two missiles were fired in the strike.
Footage taken from the Israeli side of the fence shows an object flying through the air before it went kaboom!Another independent pro-opposition Syrian source in the Golan Heights claimed two separate sites were hit: one belonging to the Hezbollah terror group, and the other being the office of the Syrian First Division’s 90th Brigade commander Brig. Gen. Hussein Hamoush.
Hamoush has been previously named by the Israel Defense Forces, in leaflets dropped in the area, as cooperating with Hezbollah, with Syrian troops warned not to corporate with the Iran-backed militias in the area.
[RedState] There is some speculation floating around social media (mostly, but not totally, from the right) that Democrats may try to pull the 25th Amendment card on Biden to push him aside and bring Kámala Harris Former Oakland mayor Willie Brown's former mistress, then a senatrix from California, and then a former 2020 Dem presidential hopeful. She dropped out because she was polling in negative numbers because of racism. Her father is a Marxist professor emeritus at Stanford and her mother is an Indian of the Hindoo tribe. She is reputedly the proud descendant of a long line of women. Joe Biden picked her for her skin tone, feeling she could also bring in the Native American, women's, and bimbo votes. She's an outstanding exemplar of the Peter Principle, proudly displaying her level of competence in her handling of the Biden Border Surge forward in an effort to save face in this moment of geopolitical crisis. It is some of the same speculation you saw several times when the Left called for members of the Trump administration to turn on Trump and invoke the amendment.
However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... the Democrats have put themselves into such a terrible position that they absolutely cannot get rid of Biden through this means, or else they give up the only chance they have to get anything through the Senate, and they would definitely hurt their electoral chances in 2022 and 2024.
In August of 1974, Gerald Ford became the President of the United States after Richard Nixon resigned. In order to get a Vice President, Congress had to approve Nelson Rockefeller.
"Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress," Section 2 of the amendment explains.
This last happened in 1974, when Vice President Gerald Ford — himself a replacement for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who resigned after being accused of tax evasion — replaced President Richard Nixon. Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller to serve as his vice president, according to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum.
This is a problem for the Democrats. Kamala Harris is currently the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, and Republicans are only crossing over if Mitch McConnell supports a bill or if he realizes the Republicans will lose the fight anyway. He has a very tight grip on his caucus, and he can get his 50 votes whipped if he wants to make a stand. So far, he hasn’t had to. But there is a lot of power to be had in a 50-50 Senate with no tie-breaking vote, and he will take advantage of it.
So, Kamala Harris becoming the President via the 25th Amendment means the Democrats lose their tie-breaking vote in the Senate, and without a 51st vote, there is no way for the Democrats to break a tie in the Senate in order to confirm a replacement Vice President. They are effectively stuck.
[FoxNews] Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley's annual financial disclosure shows she and her husband made thousands of dollars in rental income last year.
Pressley has been one of the most prominent advocates for canceling rent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We must cancel rent, extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums, provide rental assistance, and offer legal representation for those at risk of eviction," Pressley, a member of the far-left "Squad," wrote in a Dec. 2020 tweet.
She introduced a bill in March 2021 that, if passed, would have canceled rent and mortgage payments nationwide.
The bill would have required the federal government to reimburse landlords for any rent not paid during the pandemic.
Pressley's 2020 financial disclosure, filed on Friday, disclosed between $5,000 and $15,000 in rental income from a Boston property in her husband's name. The property was converted into a multi-family apartment after it was purchased, according to Pressley's disclosure.
Pressley's office did not immediately return Fox News' request for comment on whether she and her husband canceled rent for their tenants at any point in 2020. She disclosed the same range of rental income â between $5,000 and $15,000 â in 2020 as she did in 2019, before the pandemic began.
#3
Don't you get it yet? These restrictions they advocate are for everyone else, not themselves. They of course can do this because their hearts are pure and they deserve a good income for the good things they're doing. We get no such consideration as they have determined our hearts are evil and only bad things come out of us.
Pentagon: More assets to Haiti: 8 helicopters, 2 P-8 patrol planes, Coast Guard cutters and amphibious warship USS Arlington underway from Norfolk soon
China's state media is now producing propaganda content for Ibram X. Kendi and promoting Critical Race Theory, depicting whites as racist for an English-speaking audience. It really makes you think.
Not an opinion, check youtube, look at independent filmmaker reports.
The average Chinese citizen, maybe through social circumstance and not through choice, appear to be quote horribly racist.
#4
I'll let you on a little secret. Asians, the whole of Asia not just China, are incredibly racist from Western point of view. We do not have any concept of racism but colourism, which gives rise to Asians hating brown or black coloured skin cuz for them it's just plain undesirable and dirty. People are very subtle while discriminating against coloured people.
If you are white or fair skinned person, you'll be treated like a royalty. In India or in any South Asian country, we have fairness creams or face washes to magically change our dark skin into a fair one, demand for a fair-skinned spouse and even cleverly shame children with darker skin tone. From a very early age every Asian is told that darker skin is ugly. Thus, it's no surprise that Chinese media would jump on to shame Americans 'for being racist' because many of you easily buy into that stuff.
#6
they would just mow them down and not give a shit.
Posted by: Chris ||
08/18/2021 10:04
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#7
Oh, you mean like CBS, ABC, CNN and NBC? Can't help wondering if the Chinese get these ideas from our media or if our media get it from the Chinese.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 12:33
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[NYPOST] A 70-year-old reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel... woman was ambushed and rubbed out by two button men while she sat in her car outside her job — with shocking surveillance video capturing the attack.Yvonne Ruzich was sitting in her vehicle shortly before 4:30 a.m. Monday waiting for the grocery store where she worked to open when the two men in hoodies walked up to her and opened fire, video released by Chicago police shows.
The maimed woman then hit the gas and crashed into a street sign — where the two men caught up with her and shot her multiple times.
Ruzich, a retired city sanitation worker, was pronounced dead at a local hospital, WMAQ-TV said in a report Tuesday.
Police have not determined a motive for the deadly early-morning attack outside Baltimore Food and Liquors in Chicago’s South Side — and are asking the public to help track down the suspects.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021
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The Headline we WON'T see.
"Elderly White Grandma Murdered by Black Racists."
[NYPOST] When President Joe Biden ...... 46th president of the U.S. Old, boring, a plagiarist, fond of hair sniffing and grabbing the protruding parts of women, and not whatcha call brilliant... Just look at the competent way he dumped Afghanistan...... addressed the nation on Monday, he was admirably clear-eyed about the reason for leaving Afghanistan: US forces had killed the late Osama bin Laden ...... who is no longer with us, and won't be again...... long ago. America should have sought no more than to find and kill him and neutralize al Qaeda — not to will liberal democracy into existence in a country that has rarely enjoyed a stable central government at any point in the last 2,000 years.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021
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#8
excuse my gibberish. I don't put any faith in "foreign policy experts".
Posted by: Chris ||
08/18/2021 12:57
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#9
#2, maybe the Marshall Plan. That was nation building too but then at least we had some material we could work with.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 14:05
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#10
Oh, and then there are the foreign policy experts who think of Israel as an ally we should support. Biden might not be one of those. He seems to favor Iran just like his former boss.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 14:11
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#11
The "mystique" existed only among those in the media sucking Brennan's and Clapper's d*cks. Everybody eles saw them for what they we for over a decade.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 15:25
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#13
Re #2 & #9,The largest difference between AFG and the Marshall Plan in Europe and Japan, is that in the WW2 examples, the people there already had a developed country, and wanted one back. The people of AFG didn't have one to begin with, and would routinely bail out when given the opportunity.
I have repeatedly seen police reports advising of AFG personel being trained in the US, and would go AWOL in order to not go back hame.
Ponder this: Is there now an anticipated migration of immigrants to go back to AFG?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/18/2021 19:06
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#14
I've heard it also said Japan is a culture based on honor. Where Afghanistan is a culture based on shame.
Direct translation via Google Translate. Edited. [REGNUM] The Syrian soldier died as a result of shelling from the positions of illegal armed groups controlled by Turkey, Deputy Head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria Rear Admiral Vadim Kulit said at a briefing on August 17 .
The positions of the Syrian army in the Aleppo province were subjected to artillery fire.
According to the Russian military, the fire came from the area of ââthe settlement of Khizvan.
âAlso, positions of government forces in the area of ââAin Dakna were subjected to artillery fire from militants from the area of ââthe Jibrin settlement, as a result of which one member of the armed forces of the SAR was killed ,â said Vadim Kulit.
In addition, three Syrian military personnel were injured as a result of shelling by terrorists in the province of Hama.
âAs a result of mortar attacks by terrorists at positions of government forces in the area of ââthe settlement of Tell-Methazi in the province of Hama, three servicemen of the armed forces of the SAR were injured ,â the deputy head of the Russian Center said.
[TASS] At least 40 people have died since Monday in a stampede and shooting in Kabul International Airport, TOLOnews TV channel reported on Tuesday, citing a Taliban (outlawed in Russia) commander who is inside the airport.
And if a Taliban commander says so, it must be true.
According to him, the people died after "foreign troops opened fire" as well as in a stampede. He called on the population not to travel to the airport and not "listen to false rumors that it is possible to fly abroad."
Afghans who came to the airport told the TV channel that they are hoping to leave the country as they heard that several Kabul residents managed to leave without visas or passports. Moreover, many women are flocking to the airport due to instability in the country as they are scared to live under the Taliban.
TOLOnews notes that despite the Talibanâs calls to stay at home and tragic deaths of people who fell from planesâ landing gears to their deaths on Monday, crowds are still arriving at the airport in hopes to leave the country and its new regime.
On August 15, Taliban militants entered Kabul without a fight and took over the city in a matter of hours. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani stepped down to avoid bloodshed, as he put it, and fled the country. Western states are currently evacuating their citizens and embassy staffers.
#1
The Taliban seem to be doing a fair job of keeping a human tsunami from overwhelming the airport and shutting down all fixed wing operations. I see no way the few allied troops on the ground could handle a major rush on the airport.
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 ||
08/18/2021 9:06
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[DW] The insurgents have vowed to take a more moderate stance as they seize control of Afghanistan but both the UN and Germany have expressed skepticism. EU foreign ministers are holding emergency talks. DW has the latest.
This story was last updated at 01:55 UTC/GMT. EVACUEES LAND IN GERMANY
Around 130 people who had been flown from Kabul to Tashkent on Tuesday arrived in the central German city of Frankfurt on a commercial Lufthansa flight early on Wednesday morning.
Further special flights put on to bring people from Afghanistan to Germany will continue to arrive from Tashkent, Doha and other stopover countries during the next few days, the airline company said.
UN REFUGEE AGENCY TO STAY IN AFGHANISTAN
The United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, is hoping to continue working in Afghanistan, the organization's German representative Katharina Lumpp told German newspaper Die Welt.
"We want to stay in the country because the people there need help now more than ever," she said, adding that the UNHCR currently has around 200 members of staff in the country.
Lumpp explained that the vast majority of Afghan refugees over the past 40 years have sought refuge in neighboring Iran or Pakistan. But in the past few months, most displaced Afghans have been displaced within their own country. "They now urgently need support and humanitarian aid," the UN representative said.
AUSTRIA UNWILLING TO ACCEPT REFUGEES
Austria's Interior Minister Karl Nehammer, from the ruling center-right Austrian People's Party (ĂVP) told the German newspaper Die Welt that accepting Afghan refugees following the Taliban's takeover was out of the question.
"There's no reason why an Afghan should come to Austria," he said. He called instead for neighboring countries to take in refugees, saying that "illegal migration" where migrants pass through several safe countries before their final destination "must be stopped."
The conservative lawmaker said that Austria had already taken in 35,000 people from Afghanistan, "the majority of which are young men, who often prove a challenge for the integration and social system due to their low level of education."
Efficiently sums it up.
UK TO ACCEPT UP TO 20,000 REFUGEES Anyone see any women in those airport fotos? No, me neither.
The British Home Office said on Tuesday that it is planning to accept 5,000 refugees from Afghanistan this year, rising to some 20,000 in the long term. Priority will be given to those at high risk, including women and children facing threats of persecution.
"This resettlement scheme will be kept under further review for future years, with up to a total of 20,000 in the long term," the Home Office said in a statement. It follows a similar scheme that saw the UK accept refugees from Syria from 2014.
The announcement comes before British MPs take part in an extraordinary session of parliament on Wednesday after being called back from holiday. They are set to discuss the ongoing situation in Afghanistan.
The UK was one of the biggest supporters of the US invasion of the country, deploying 9,500 troops. Some 900 British troops have now returned to Kabul to help with evacuations.
TALIBAN LEADER RETURNS TO AFGHANISTAN
Top Taliban leader and co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived in the city of Kandahar, the group's spiritual home in the south of Afghanistan, on Tuesday evening.
Baradar had been in Doha as part of the Taliban's peace negotiation delegation. He is the highest-ranking official of the Islamist group who is known to have returned to Afghanistan. He is expected to take a key role in any eventual Taliban government.
A video shared on Twitter showed the leader driving through Kandahar in a convoy after arrival.
THIRD GERMAN PLANE LEAVES KABUL
A third German military transport plane has left Kabul airport with 139 people on board, Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told public broadcaster ZDF.
The aircraft headed to Tashkent in Uzbekistan. From there the passengers will be taken to Germany.
Another German plane was also ready and waiting at Kabul airport, according to Maas. "At the moment the gates at the airport are closed, as soon as they're open again, we will continue the operation," he said.
A tweet from the German defense ministry confirmed that so far, more than 260 people have been flown out of the country. "And we will evacuate as long as we can," it added.
MIXED REPORTS OVER TALIBAN COMPLIANCE WITH DEPARTURES
The Taliban have agreed to allow the "safe passage" of civilians hoping to join a US-directed airlift from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden's national security adviser said Tuesday.
Jake Sullivan did acknowledge reports that some civilians were "being turned away or pushed back or even beaten," as they tried to reach the Kabul international airport.
Nevertheless, he said "very large numbers" were reaching the airport and the problem of others was being taken up with the Taliban, whose swift takeover of the country on Sunday plunged the US evacuation effort into chaos.
A timetable for completing the evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and possibly other civilians has yet to be established with the Taliban.
Taliban fighters stand guard in front of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, August 16, 2021.
CHAOS AT KABUL AIRPORT
Taliban fighters stand guard in front of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021. Thousands of people thronged to the airport trying to leave the country after the Taliban seized power with stunning speed.
GERMAN GOVERNMENT CRITICIZED
Angela Merkel and the German government have received a stinging rebuke from the country's Green Party over its handling of the crisis in Afghanistan.
Germany flew around 125 people out of Kabul on Tuesday afternoon but an earlier mission had just seven people on board.
And the Greens' expert for foreign affairs, Omid Nouripour, told DW that the "huge failure" to carry out an orderly evacuation showed that the German government was not as prepared for the situation in Afghanistan as it had previously assured
The MP said the government had ignored warnings since June about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. "They did not adapt to the situation. They had a lot of time," Nouripour said.
"This is a pity that they just took seven people with them, because we know that it's a question of hours until the airport maybe could be closed by the Taliban," he said.
Amid rising concern from certain sides that the Taliban takeover would trigger a migrant influx in Europe, Nouripour dismissed German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer's remarks about expecting to receive some 300,000 to 5 million asylum applications.
"This is ridiculous," Nouripour said. "We get seven people out of Kabul in just days... and he's talking about five million people."
What an arrogant idiot.
RUSSIA HAS 'CONSTRUCTIVE' TALIBAN MEETING
The Russian ambassador to Afghanistan said he had a "constructive" and "positive" meeting with Taliban representatives in Kabul on Tuesday.
Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov told Russian state television: "The Taliban representatives said the Taliban has the friendliest approach to Russia. They confirmed guarantees of security for the embassy."
Moscow's Afghanistan envoy, Zamir Kabulov, also said the Taliban has already started guarding the outside perimeter of the Russian embassy.
The Kremlin designated the Taliban a terrorist group in 2003, but has since hosted several rounds of talks in Afghanistan, most recently in March, that involved the militant organization.
Moscow, which fought a 10-year war in Afghanistan that ended with the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, has made a diplomatic comeback as a mediator, reaching out to feuding Afghan factions, as it jockeyed for position with the United States to gain leverage in the country.
EU SEEKS TALIBAN TALKS, SUSPENDS DEVELOPMENT AID
The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday the bloc "will have to talk" to the Taliban as they "have won the war."
Nevertheless, Borrell was keen to stress this does not mean Brussels will officially recognize the Taliban as rulers of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Borrell also said the EU would suspend payments of development assistance to the conflict-ravaged country, but Brussels is weighing up whether to boost humanitarian aid.
He said there can be "no payments of development assistance until we clarify the situation" with the Taliban.
UN CASTS DOUBT ON TALIBAN STANCE
In the wake of the Taliban's first news conference since seizing control, global skepticism has emerged over the group's new-found levels of tolerance.
The United Nations said it will need to see action, before it can believe the Taliban's words.
"We will need to see what actually happens and I think we will need to see acts on the ground in terms of promises kept," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
Germany also said the Taliban will be judged "by their actions" rather than pledges.
And the US said it hoped the Taliban would follow through on its promises.
"If the Taliban says they are going to respect the rights of their citizens, we will be looking for them to uphold that statement and make good on that statement," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
Based on the new scheme of the UK, 5,000 eligible people which includes girls, women and other groups will be given priority and will be flown out in the first year while the rest will be resettled in upcoming years.
Other high-ranking officials on the other hand sort of criticized the scheme and said that the number of visa should be increased to 35,000 or 40,000.
[AmericanMilitaryNews] Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Chinese state-run Global Times, tweeted a call for war after Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) (Now known as "The Pride of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence")
mistakenly tweeted that there are 30,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in Taiwan.
In a now-deleted tweet sent on Tuesday, Cornyn said, 'US Troops Today in: South Korea â 28,000; Germany â 35,486; Japan â 50,000; Taiwan â 30,000; Africa â 7,000; Afghanistan (month or 2 ago) â 2,500.' Responding to Cornynâs post, Hu tweeted, 'Now, the US and the Taiwan authorities must explain. If it is true that the US has 30,000, or less than that number, soldiers stationed on the Taiwan island, Chinese military forces will immediately launch a war to eliminate and expel the US soldiers.' The Drums of War become louder.
Although a FH could loft about 40,000 cellphones attached to tiny USB connected vapor type motors. It only takes a 2 gram warhead (cellphone) at orbital speed to take down an ICBM.
(actually some of the water motors for small sats would be ideal)
Think Cell with cams, GPS, and app to remote control and run, and base station to StarLink for each cluster of phones.
Then it's just an Internet of Machines.
#3
We should be in a state of preparation for war with certain countries.
After all isn't that why we are strategically pulling out of Afghanistan so we can focus on more important threats.
Yet some idiots with loose lips are trying to sink ships with idiot tweets.
We should have "advisers" on certain island off certain mainlands, but as to the their exact nature and number that would be highly classified.
All congressional members who break secrecy should lose security clearances and not be allowed any access and so be removed from any intelligence positions starting with all Democrat members of congress from California because they have all been compromised long ago.
Gunmen killed a police officer and six employees of #Nigerian oil and gas services company Lee Engineering during an attack on a project site in the southeastern state of #Imo, police said on Tuesday.https://t.co/KxsmUPLDsr
Attacks on oil and gas facilities have long been a problem in Nigeria, where the multi-billion dollar industry sits alongside impoverished communities that have seen little benefit from it. In this case, the motive was unclear.
Lee Engineering could not immediately be reached for comment.
The attack took place on Monday at a location called Assa, according to Abattam.
The Lee Engineering website says the company has a project there involving the installation and construction of a gas primary treatment facility and the supply of gas turbine generators and a waste heat recovery system.
#BREAKING | Three members of the #Iraqi army were killed, another wounded in a critical condition in a terrorist attack with a sniper that targeted a security point in Muqdadiya district, northeast of $Diyala Governorate. pic.twitter.com/mFPVkLR0te
AFTER DETAILED DISCUSSIONS WITH MY TEAMMATES, ALL OF US DECIDED TO JOIN OUR FORMER VICE PR & NOW PRESIDENT OF ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF đŠđ« @AmrullahSaleh2 IN PANJISHIR.
WE WILL DO WHATEVER HE SAYS. JOINING THE RESISTANCE.
[OneIndia] Two women were taken into custody on Tuesday by the sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) here for allegedly propagating ideology of 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.... terror group through social media, police said.
NIA arrests two Kannur women for alleged ISIS links
Confirming the development, a police brass hat told PTI that the women were held from their residences in Thana, a commercial suburb in the Kannur city. He, however, did not divulge more details of NIA's action.
Reports from Kannur said the NIA had earlier carried out raids at their residences following the arrest of another member of their group from Kannur in March this year.
The group in which they were active members allegedly propagated IS ideology through a social media platform called Chronicle Foundation, reports said.
[NYPOST] Two wildfires, fanned by strong winds, raged out of control near Athens on Monday, forcing the evacuation of villages, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.More than 500 wildfires have broken out in recent weeks across Greece, which, like other countries in the Mediterranean region including The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... and Tunisia, has seen some of its highest temperatures in decades.
On Monday, a blaze broke out on a mountain near the port town of Lavrio, about 60 km (40 miles) south of Athens, sending thick plumes of smoke above a busy beach, where windsurfers were riding the waves.
At least 91 firefighters, assisted by six water-bombing planes and six helicopters, tried to contain the fire, which broke out in an area of low vegetation and spread to pine trees. Three villages were ordered to evacuate.
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[Garowe] The government of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... has donated armored personnel cars which are mine-resistant to the Somali National Army [SNA], in a bid to help in the fight against al-Shabaab ...... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa... krazed killers, who have been causing havoc in the Horn of Africa nation.
Al-Shabaab seeks to topple the fragile UN-backed Somalia administration, but for years, it has been facing stiff resistance from an organized military, mainly the foreign troops serving in the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... Mission in Somalia [AMISOM].
Hassan Ali Mohammed, Somalia's Defense Minister, and General Odowaa Yusuf Rageh, the Chief of Defense Forces, received the donations and were not short of praises to the Ottoman Turkish government, which is also a key security partner of Somalia.
Ottoman Turkish ambassador to Somalia Mahmet Yilmaz and other government officials were present during the handover. Turkey, besides helping Somalia through such donations, trains the elite Gorgor soldiers and Haramcad coppers.
General Odawa Yusuf Rageh thanked the Ottoman Turkish government for its vital role in reviving the country’s army. According to him, the vehicles will allow the military to access some parts of the country where the al-Shabaab has been controlling.
"I thank the Ottoman Turkish government for the new armored personnel carriers and their continued support," general Odawa said.
"Mine-resistant armored personnel carriers intended for Gorgor Commandos have been donated by The Ottoman Turkish Government. These were handed over to the Ministry of Defence along with the Head of the Somali National Armed Forces, General Odowaa Yusuf Rage," SNA said in a Twitter post.
The Ottoman Turkish ambassador Mahmet Yilmaz said Turkey will continue to support Somalia. According to him, Ankara is keen to see a stable government in Mogadishu, following years of instability and terror.
The Ottoman Turkish government has been able to focus on development and construction in Somalia without coming to direct conflict with other states in the region. This is in contrast to United Arab Emirates [UAE] and 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... Turkey also built the biggest military in the Somali capital Mogadishu which has the capacity to train at least 1,500 soldiers at a time according to the Ottoman Turkish officials.
Also, the donation comes in the week Somali National Army announced killing 279 al-Shabaab Death Eaters in Lower Shabelle. According to the military, the gains have been made within the last two months.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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[FoxNews] U.S. officials on Monday are expected to declare the first-ever water shortage from a river that serves 40 million people in the West, triggering cuts to some Arizona farmers next year amid a gripping drought.
Water levels at the largest reservoir on the Colorado River â Lake Mead â have fallen to record lows. Along its perimeter, a white "bathtub ring" of minerals outlines where the high water line once stood, underscoring the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate change.
States, cities, farmers and others have diversified their water sources over the years, helping soften the blow of the upcoming cuts. But if current conditions persist â or intensify â additional cuts in coming years will be more deeply felt.
Lake Mead was formed by building Hoover Dam in the 1930s. It is one of several man-made reservoirs that store water from the Colorado River, which supplies drinking water, irrigation for farms and hydropower to Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and parts of Mexico.
But water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the river's two largest reservoirs, have been falling for years and faster than experts predicted. Scorching temperatures and less melting snow in the spring have reduced the amount of water flowing from the Rocky Mountains, where the river originates before it snakes 1,450 miles (2,334 kilometers) southwest and into the Gulf of California.
"Weâre at a moment where weâre reckoning with how we continue to flourish with less water, and itâs very painful," said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.
Most of the agriculture is on the east side of the Continental Divide. Most of that water is from the Rio Grande and of intense legal fights with Colorado and particularly Texas.
[KhaamaPress] US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S., who gives the geriatric a bad name. He blames Afghans for losing Afghanistan.... in his White House public speech on Afghanistan said that sending and doubling troops in Afghanistan, staying for long in the country and fighting for the civil war of a foreign country was a mistake and he is not repeating that mistake and is bringing the war to an end.
Joe Biden said that he will not let his men and women in service fight for others anymore and does not regret the decision of full withdrawal of troops.
The US President said that they spent over a trillion dollars to train and equip the Afghan forces but they were not willing to fight for themselves thus, he added we are not fighting in Afghanistan anymore.
#1
Sending troops into Afghanistan to hunt down and kill those responsible for 9/11 was not a mistake. Trying to do 'nation building' wasn't in that goal. F'ing mission creep.
The West wasn't exporting Western values to Afghanistan. The goal was importing the tyrannical values of Afghanistan into the West in order to appease the 'Noble People of Afghanistan.'
[EN.ALGHADEERTV.NET] The Saudi-led military coalition has upped the ante in war-ravaged Yemen, with its fighter jets launching fresh raids in north-western Sa’ada Province.
Yemeni media reports said the latest military aggression targeted al-Dhaher district, southwest of the provincial capital Sana’a, on Tuesday, resulting in serious damage to civilian properties.
It comes in the wake of repeated ceasefire violations by Saudi-led foreign mercenaries in strategic al-Hudaydah Province, which borders Red Sea.
According to Yemen News Agency (SABA), quoting a military official, the foreign mercenaries on Monday carried out around 190 violations of the ceasefire in the province.
The report said the Saudi jets conducted raids on the areas of al-Jabaliyah, al-Fazah and al-Tahita, firing 92 shells and 137 bullets.
Masirah, in its report, also confirmed the relentless military raids in Hudaydah Province.
It said the Saudi-led coalition forces have not only been targeting the strategic province with large-scale airstrikes but also conducting raids with spy planes.
In addition to Sa’da and al-Hudaydah, Saudi-backed mercenaries continue their destabilizing activities in other provinces like Ma’rib, about 120 kilometers east of Sana’a.
Over the past few months, the strategic province has been the scene of large-scale operations by Yemeni armed forces, strongly pushing back Saudi-backed mercenaries.
Pertinently, since the establishment of Al-Hudaydah ceasefire within the framework of the Stockholm Agreement in 2018, Saudi Arabia has failed to adhere to it.
Despite widespread protests in Yemen over Riyadh’s non-compliance with the ceasefire agreement, the United Nations has so far taken no action to stop the Saudi-led aggression.
On August 8, thousands of Yemenis marched through the streets of Sana’a to protest Saudi blockade, supported by the West, and the economic hardships resulting from it.
[ToloNews] Sources in Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... said on Tuesday that a number of government offices in the province had resumed their activities without the presence of women employees.
Employees emphasized that they continue to serve the citizens.
Breshna Company in Herat resumed its work a day after the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... took control of Herat city, and now is operating as before.
"The staff are back on duty and there are no problems," said Mullah Khair Mohammad Meraj, the Taliban member heading the Herat Breshna company.
"The electricity department is open to clients and there are no problems," said Hafizullah Heydari, a resident of Herat.
Kabir Ahmad Jami, a resident of Herat, said: "The electricity department is open and the staff of this department handles the problems of the clients with good behavior."
While work has resumed in a number of government institutions in Herat, residents of the province said that women employees in government offices have not yet appeared.
Regarding the presence of women in government institutions in Herat, Mawlawi Abdul Qayum Rohani, the Taliban governor for the province, said: "We have rules on women's work. Women should not have any worries and they can continue their work based on the Sharia laws." He added: "Men and women deserve to have those rights that have been defined in Islam."
Several public service offices in Herat have not yet been opened. One is the Office of Electronic ID cards, which is currently inactive while thousands of people are waiting to get their electronic ID cards.
"Government offices should be opened soon to solve the people's problems," said Abdullah, a resident of Herat.
Mullah Mohammad Delbar, the Taliban's deputy for the Justice Department in Herat, said: "We invited all the staff of the Justice Department to continue their work in this department, all of them have come in. We will assist each other and will work together."
Taliban officials in Herat are urging all babus government employees in the province to return to their duties. According to them, there are no restrictions on the activities of babus government employees in Herat.
[Legal Insurrection via Rantingly] "Bagram prison contained the 5,000 "highest value" Taliban, al-Qaeda and Islamic State fighters captured on the battlefield."
As Taliban forces swept through Afghanistan, thousands of high-level Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Islamic State terrorists have been set free.
Around 5,000 top terrorists fled when Afghan government forces surrendered Bagram Air Base, 40 miles from Kabul. The prison at the base housed some of the worldâs most notorious jihadis besides the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center.
"Afghan forces at Bagram Air Base, home to a prison housing 5,000 inmates, surrendered to the Taliban, according to Bagram district chief Darwaish Raufi," The Associated Press reported on Monday. "The prison at the former U.S. base held both Taliban and Islamic State group fighters."
The Times of London reported the release of high-profile terrorists:
Thousands of Afghanistanâs most dangerous terrorism captives have been set free after the Taliban seized control of the former American base at Bagram and the prison known as Afghanistanâs Guantanamo Bay.
Bagram prison contained the 5,000 "highest value" Taliban, al-Qaeda and Islamic State fighters captured on the battlefield. A Taliban spokesman said they were "being evacuated to a safe place".
The freeing of these high-level terror operatives will have sweeping consequences on the raging worldwide jihad. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the slain ISIS chief was a Camp Bucca inmate, a U.S. detention center in Iraq. Camp Bucca was nicknamed the âJihadist university,â where the future ISIS leadership came from. "Camp Bucca became what has been described as a âuniversityâ for the future leaders of IS, with inmates becoming radicalised and developing important contacts and networks," the BBC noted.
Former inmates from Guantanamo Bay make up the current Taliban leadership, including the mujahedeen commander who took the presidential palace in Kabul. "The Al-Jazeera news channel livestreamed the press conference from inside the palace, which showed a group of Taliban fighters sitting at the Presidentâs desk before a fighter claimed he was a former inmate of the US-controlled Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba," UKâs Daily Mail reported.
The next large scale Islamic Terrorist Attack on the US and/or the Free World now rests squarely on the 2021 Coup's administrations shoulders. Due to its piss poor execution and handling of the withdrawal plan.
Some might remember back in 2016-2020,when we had a clear minded and strong president, his scale down process was not seeing ANY of this crap.
The Irony of the 2021 Coup's major F*up is only multiplied given their figurehead "Biden" once suggested the same screwed up course of action for South Vietnam back 1975.
[AlAhram] Thirty-seven non-combatants were killed in a western Niger region that has been battered by jihadist incursions from neighbouring Mali, local sources said Tuesday.
"Armed men who arrived on cycle of violences" attacked the village of Darey-Daye in the Tillaberi region on Monday afternoon as people were working in the fields, a local official said, adding: "The toll is very high -- there were 37 dead, including four women and 13 children."
Unidentified shooters opened fire on Monday in the commune of Banibangou, in the Tillaberi region near Niger's border with Mali.
HRW: ISLAMISTS 'WAGING WAR' ON CIVILIANS
According to a report issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW) last week, at least 420 non-combatants were killed in jihadi attacks in Tillaberi and the neighboring region of Tahoua this year.
"Armed Islamist groups appear to be waging war on the civilian population in western Niger," Corinne Dufka, the Sahel director for the international rights group, said in the report.
HRW said people with disabilities and "numerous children" were killed, including some who were executed after being ripped from their parents' arms.
Extremist bully boy attacks have also destroyed schools and churches, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
Similar attacks have repeatedly occurred in the region despite security efforts by authorities. Shooters on cycle of violences flee across the border into Mali after their raids.
Human remains found on the landing gear of a US C-17 Direct Translation via Google Translate
WASHINGTON , August 17, 2021 11:29 PM - [REGNUM] Human remains were found in a niche of the landing gear of an American transport plane taking off from Kabul airport, the US Air Force's Special Investigations Directorate reported on August 17.
The remains of a man were found after the plane landed at an airbase in Qatar.
An investigation has begun into possible deaths during the takeoff of a US Air Force C-17 transport aircraft at Kabul airport.
"The Air Force Special Investigations Directorate is studying all available data regarding the C-17 aircraft, which took off from Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 15, and the deaths associated with it ," the Office said in a statement.
A huge international airlift of foreigners and Afghans who worked with them continued on Tuesday as thousands of people terrified at the prospect of Taliban ...Arabic for students... rule flocked to Kabul airport.
NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and structure.... Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would send additional aircraft to bolster the operation after member states met on Tuesday, adding that evacuations were "gradually resuming" following chaotic scenes on Monday after commercial flights were halted.
Major General Hank Taylor, a top military official, said the US aimed to increase its airlift to one aircraft an hour so that between 5,000 and 9,000 passengers could be carried out per day.
"We are confident we have taken the right steps to resume safe and orderly operations at the airport," he said.
The US plans to evacuate more than 30,000 people by plane from Kabul to its military bases in Kuwait and 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... Washington said Tuesday the Taliban had promised safe passage for civilians wanting to leave via the airport.
"The Taliban have informed us they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport, and we intend to hold them to that commitment," National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told White House news hounds.
The US was also "talking" with the Taliban about the timetable for the removal of thousands of American citizens and Afghans fleeing the country on US military aircraft, he said.
He added that President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created ... by the â you know â you know, the thing... has not spoken with fellow world leaders since Kabul fell.
"He has not yet spoken with any other world leaders," Sullivan said.
"Myself, Secretary (Antony) Blinken, several other senior members of the team have been engaged on a regular basis with foreign counterparts and we intend to do so in the coming days."
Some other countries, including Germany and La Belle France, have also been able to land aircraft to pick up their nationals and Afghans qualified to travel to those countries
A first French plane, with 45 Frenchies and Afghans aboard, arrived at Gay Paree Charles de Gaulle airport on Tuesday.
Sweden announced that all its diplomatic personnel had returned home.
- TALIBAN 'HINDERING' EXODUS -
Germany accused the Taliban of blocking would-be refugees from reaching Kabul airport, amid an operation to evacuate some 10,000 Afghans who have worked with the German military or NGOs. A German military plane that landed in Kabul overnight Monday managed to leave with only seven people on board.
"The Taliban have set up checkpoints everywhere in the city and have the entire area and the airport surroundings in their hands," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told news hounds.
The only people allowed through into the airport are "foreign citizens, but no local workers and no Afghan citizens" are given access, he said.
Thousands of panicked people fled to the airport in a bid to get on departing Western flights, after the Taliban seized control of Kabul.
Austria and Romania have also indicated that their nationals and the Afghans they intend to evacuate are experiencing difficulties in reaching the airport.
Madrid has sent two planes to Dubai from Zaragoza to repatriate its embassy, nationals and Afghans who worked with Spain, the defence ministry said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021
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Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
The only people allowed through into the airport are "foreign citizens, but no local workers and no Afghan citizens" are given access
Just imagine the hellish scene that would ensue if the Talibs allowed anyone onto the grounds of the airport.
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 ||
08/18/2021 9:13
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#2
And like COVID, the goalposts will move daily.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 10:58
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#3
So, 5-6 days given the 40,000 number. Expect to be seeing pearl clutchers about "threatened" people stuck in Afghanistan for the next two years.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 11:01
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[FoxNews] A Texas murder suspect charged in a deadly 2019 shooting at a Dallas hotel was released back onto the streets Monday without having to pay bond after a massive data deletion at the police department left prosecutors clamoring to review whether any evidence tying him to the slaying was lost.
Jonathan "P-Money" Pitts, accused of fatally shooting Shun "Big Youngster" Handy during an argument on Jan. 28, 2019, was seen wearing a mask and an ankle monitor on Monday while walking out of the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas.
District Judge Ernie White was forced to release him on a personal recognizance bond, the Dallas Morning News reported. Under state law, pretrial detention is prohibited when prosecutors arenât ready to begin trial on the scheduled date, Pittsâ defense attorney, George Ashford III, said.
His trial was supposed to begin last Thursday, but prosecutors are seeking more time as a city audit is conducted into the loss of eight terabytes of data, which the Dallas Police Department said was permanently deleted months ago when a city IT employee was migrating police evidence from a cloud system to another server.
Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax said the data loss included photos, videos, audio, case notes and other files related to a yet-to-be determined number of cases.
Just one terabyte alone is capable of storing 250,000 photos and 6 million documents, Fox 4 reported.
The deletion happened between March 31 and April 5, but the Dallas Police Department did not make District Attorney John Creuzotâs office aware of the loss of data until about two weeks ago when prosecutors from different cases began inquiring about missing evidence.
Dallas police do not believe any evidence was lost in connection to Pittsâ case, but a detective told the judge the morning the trial was set to begin that he could not be sure until the city audit was completed. Itâs unclear at this whether the data loss will prevent prosecution from moving forward.
#1
Under state law, pretrial detention is prohibited when prosecutors arenât ready to begin trial on the scheduled date
Not to be confused with the District of Columbia, in which prosecutors have said they will not be able to provide possible exculpatory evidence till 2022, leaving 'accused' languishing in jail.
#2
A staple of good crime fiction is the purloined r-kive box of stale evidence that yields a new clue on the living room floor of the disgraced detective who stole it from the dusty archives. Now, "computer crashed. it's gone..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 9:31
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#3
Don't worry - you can arrest him after he kills again.
#4
I don't see why there was even a trial. They should give 'P-Money' his gun back and insist he kill more of his kind. Think of it as time served and community service.
#5
eight terabytes of data, which the Dallas Police Department said was permanently deleted months ago when a city IT employee was migrating police evidence from a cloud system to another server.
This smells fishy. The whole point of a cloud is things don't get deleted permanently. Also the should be a back up of the data pre-migration before the data is actually moved.
#6
True. But shortcuts get taken sometimes--like not checking that a backup actually has data on it, or not verifying that you can get your cloudy data back again.
Posted by: james ||
08/18/2021 12:16
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[EN.ALGHADEERTV.NET] Abdulrahman Tayeb, a 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 doctor, was shocked when his hospital in southern Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century... told him his contract would not be renewed, leaving him with a difficult choice: go home to a nation at war or try to find work in another country.He is not alone. Hundreds of medical staff, academics and other professionals in the kingdomâs southern region bordering Yemen have in recent weeks been told they are being let go, several Yemenis told Rooters.
The exact number is not known. Staff said they were not provided justification for government orders to stop renewing contracts of Yemenis.
There has been no official explanation and Saudi and Yemeni authorities did not respond to the requests for comment. Yemeni sources who spoke said they did not know why the dismissals were happening and were unwilling to advance any theories.
A Saudi analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... , said the move aimed to free up jobs for citizens in the south as part of efforts to tackle Saudi unemployment of 11.7%, and was also driven by security considerations in areas near the war, in which a Saudi-led coalition is fighting Yemenâs 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 Americaâą, 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... group.
Oh dear. Now all those Saudi MDs are going to have to actually earn their pay by actually treating patients instead of âsupervisingâ the hired medical staff while on site between ten and two. How humiliating for them.
A Yemeni government source, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... due to political sensitivities, said the directives could affect "tens of thousands" of Yemenis, including labourers. The source did not know why the orders were issued.
"All the Yemeni doctors working in government hospitals (in the south) were told our contracts would not be renewed," said Tayeb, 40, who comes from Ibb in Yemen and whose wife and two children are with him in Saudi Arabia.
Tayeb, who declined to name the hospital where he has worked for six years, said his employer informed him on Monday that the labour office instructed them to halt contract renewals and provide two monthsâ notice. Tayebâs contract expires in December.
"We are shocked by this because Yemenis avoid problems, especially with the war because they have no other options to make a living," he told Rooters.
A document from the Saudi Health Ministry dated July 27 and addressed to a hospital in Al Baha in the southwest, an image of which was seen by Rooters, only referenced instructions to "stop issuing new contracts or renew existing contracts for Yemenis".
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021
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[11141 views]
Top|| File under: Houthis
[Garowe] A top official in Somalia insists the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... Mission Forces [AMISOM] killed civilians last week, arguing that the incident happened after the troops had been ambushed by al-Shabaab ...... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... Death Eaters in the southern part of the country.
Abdulkadir Mohammed Nur, the governor of the restless Lower Shabelle region, said he made a confirmation after arranging a meeting with local residents, adding that five farmers were among the civilians who were killed during the fiasco.
Two other civilians whose vehicle broke down on the side of the road were also killed by the peacekeepers, he said. Nur said he personally knew one of the farmers, who died instantly after the assault by the AU forces.
According to reports, the killings took place at Golweyn town, about 100 kilometers south of Mogadishu on August 10. The Uganda People's Defense Forces [UPDF] was manning the place at the time of the incident.
Already, the Somali and AU officials confirmed al-Shabaab Death Eaters had ambushed the peacekeepers during a routine patrol near Golweyn. The soldiers engaged the Death Eaters in a heavy firefight lasting several hours before the incident of civilians deaths was reported.
The African Union insisted that those killed were Death Eaters who took part in the ambush, a claim which has been disputed by a number of eyewitnesses. The troops are accused of frogmarching the innocent civilians, shooting them afterward.
According to Governor Nur, one AU soldier was killed; two others were maimed. It is not yet clear if the killing of the civilians occurred during or after the ambush. AU officials said they are investigating the incident.
In a tweet on the day of the attack, the African Union said that Ugandan troops on routine patrol "engaged and dislodged" an al-Shabaab ambush.
"During the counterattack, 7 bad boyz were potted while others sustained injuries and an assortment of weapons was recovered," AMISOM said in a tweet. In the tweet, AMISOM said one of its soldiers sustained injuries. The tweet has since been deleted.
In a statement, AMISOM seemed to maintain that those killed had links to al-Shabaab krazed killers, but vowed to ensure proper investigations are done. After investigations, the mission said, the report will be published for action.
"On August 10, 2021, soldiers of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) while on a routine patrol to secure the Main Supply Route along with the Beldamin-Golweyn Forward Operating Base in the Lower Shabelle region, were ambushed and attacked by al-Shabaab krazed killers," the AU said in a statement on August 11.
The AMISOM team also said troops seized firearms, rounds of ammunition, and mobile phones during the shootout against al-Shabaab.
"AMISOM has since received reports that civilian lives were lost," the statement further read. "To this end, AMISOM has launched a thorough investigation into the reported incident. The investigation team will present its findings and this will be followed by a Board of Inquiry."
Afghans have been deleting messages, pictures and music history from phones
After a years of a push to digitise databases in Afghanistan, activists warn these technologies could be used by the Taliban to hunt down vulnerable groups
The biometric databases - which includes facial recognition technology - makes it much more difficult for Afghans to hide
[AlAhram] Price said the department was advising personnel to search for and remove social media and website content featuring civilians
Multiple federal agencies that operated in Afghanistan and worked with Afghan citizens have been hastily purging their websites, removing articles and photos that could endanger the Afghan civilians who interacted with them and now fear retribution from the Taliban ...Arabic for students... The online scrubbing campaign appeared to begin late last week when it became clear that the Afghan cops had completely collapsed and the Taliban would take over the country far faster than even the most alarmist official predictions. The concern is that the Taliban or its supporters would search the websites and identify Afghans who had worked with the Americans or merely benefited from their services.
State Department Spokesman Ned Price said the department was advising personnel to search for and remove social media and website content featuring civilians because the safety of Afghan contacts ``is of utmost importance`` to the government.
``State Department policy is to only remove content in exceptional situations like this one. In doing so, department personnel are following records retention requirements,'' Price said.
The U.S. Agency for International Development said in a statement the agencies who operated in Afghanistan began clearing the websites last Friday _ one day after the decision was made to send U.S. military to secure the Kabul airport as the capital collapsed.
``Given the security situation in Afghanistan, and out of an abundance of caution for the safety of our staff, partners, and beneficiaries, we are reviewing USAID public websites and social media to archive content that could pose a risk to certain individuals and groups,`` the agency said in an email to The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
An official with the Agriculture Department said a similar scrubbing effort was underway there. That official spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not cleared to speak on the issue.
An News Agency that Dare Not be Named review of the USDA website revealed at least seven different links to Afghanistan-related blurbs or blog posts that, when clicked on, defaulted to a page declaring ``Access denied: You are not authorized to access this page.''
While much attention has focused on protecting Afghan interpreters and others who worked with the U.S. military, soldiers were only a portion of the U.S. personnel who operated in Afghanistan over the last two decades.
Organizations, including USAID, elements of the Agriculture Department and others, began arriving in Afghanistan as early as 2002, within months of the toppling of the previous Taliban government, focused on developing the country's infrastructure, educational and agriculture sectors.
As recently as June, USAID announced the U.S. was providing more than $266 million in additional humanitarian assistance to help Afghans. Total humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan totaled more than $543 million since fiscal year 2020, according to the USAID press announcement.
The money brought the total U.S. humanitarian assistance to nearly $3.9 billion since 2002, the release said.
In some of the now-disabled Agriculture Department posts viewed by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, several, but not all, contained details that would clearly be viewed by the Taliban as proof of collaboration, such as names and photos of Afghan agricultural specialists and governmental officials who visited the U.S. on multiple USDA-sponsored delegations or fellowships.
Others were more innocuous, such as an article about Minnesota farmers donating more than 2,500 bushels of soybean seeds to their Afghan counterparts. The fact that they have also been scrubbed from the site possibly indicates the level of caution being used _or simply that whole sections of Afghan-related material were hastily deleted in large batches.
One scrubbed article makes it clear that even while the American military was deployed across the country, Afghan civilians and government officials were in danger of retaliation for the most low-level associations with the U.S. government.
It recounts in detail the USDA's working relationship with the members of an regional agricultural authority in a province near Kabul. USDA helped coordinate a shura (townhall meeting) between the council members and local farmers. The article, which includes a photo of the meeting, notes more than 250 farmers showed up despite bully boy threats of ``violence against any farmer or government official planning to attend the meeting or work with USDA.''
The author praises the government officials ``who risk their safety each day to bring progress and opportunity to their fellow Afghans.''
#2
I'm sure Fakebook and Twister will support any unofficial government requests as soon as the new government will classify those accounts belong to 'insurrectionists'.
[FoxNews] Texas is requesting five mortuary trailers in anticipation of an increase in dead bodies as the delta variant spikes, while the state also prepares to house thousands of Afghan refugees in addition to coping with the border crisis.
"We are anticipating a need within the state of Texas for these trailers as COVID cases and hospitalizations continue to increase," Department of State Health Services spokesperson Doug Loveday said Monday, adding that the trailers were requested on Aug. 4.
The trailers would come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and be stationed in San Antonio, where they would then move to various Texas locations if local leaders request them, Loveday told NBC News.
"We haven't gotten any local requests, but we want to be ready with the COVID cases in the state," Department of State Health Services Chris Van Deusen added, according to the outlet. "We didn't want to wait."
The seven-day average of coronavirus deaths in Texas sits at about 80 per day.
The announcement comes as Texas and other border states face a continued migration crisis, with last month seeing a total of 212,672 encounters â a 13% spike compared to encounters in June.
In the city of McAllen, for example, an emergency shelter was expanded this month to keep up with the number of COVID-positive migrants. City officials said more than 7,500 COVID-positive migrants have been released into the city since February, with 1,500 released over one week in August alone.
Now, Texas is bracing for another influx of people in the state amid the virus: Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban.
"We want to have the capacity to get up to several thousand immediately, and want to be prepared for the potential of tens of thousands," Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told Fox News this week of refugees being housed in the U.S. "Bliss and McCoy have the capability right now â and whatâs advantageous is, with a little bit of work, they could increase their capacity in very short order."
"Once we get more airlift out of Kabul, weâre going to put as many people on those planes as we can. There will be a mix, not just American citizens, but perhaps some Afghan SIV applicants as well," Kirby said. "Weâre going to focus on getting people out of the country, then sorting it out at the next stop. Itâs not going to be just Americans first, then SIV applicants. Weâre going to focus on getting as many folks out as we can."
The state will take in at least 300 refugees this week, with more expected in the coming weeks, according to Refugee Services of Texas, Houston Public Media reported.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
08/18/2021
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Top|| File under: Human Trafficking
[BenarNews] The Philippines, Bangladesh, and Indonesia said Monday they were trying to evacuate their citizens from the chaos-filled capital of Afghanistan following its takeover by Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... Death Eaters.
The Afghan government collapsed over the weekend after President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, ex-president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. When Biden abandoned the country left with a helicopter, four cars, and part of the national treasury... fled the country just before the Taliban took over Kabul without resistance. Dozens of governments across the globe asked to be allowed to repatriate their nationals, with some nations shutting down their embassies.
"We are calling on the relatives of our fellow Filipinos in Afghanistan ... get in touch with the Philippines Embassy so you can be repatriated," Presidential front man Harry Roque told BenarNews.
The Philippines government said it was repatriating about 130 Filipinos from Afghanistan, with 32 already evacuated to Doha, and a group of 19 Filipinos set to leave on Monday.
Members of the Taliban have been fighting to regain power since their ouster from Kabul after a U.S.-led offensive in 2001, prompted by the worst-ever terror attacks on American soil on Sept. 11 of that year.
Between Aug. 6 and 14, just weeks after the withdrawal of U.S. and international troops from the country, all major cities fell to the Taliban in quick succession.
Roque said the Filipino government had raised its alert for Afghanistan to the highest level, 4, which mandates repatriation but refused to answer whether the government would recognize the Taliban government.
"It is up for the Department of Foreign Affairs to address," Roque said.
Bangladeshâs foreign minister, A.K. Abdul Momen, told BenarNews that the government had asked the NGO BRAC, which has worked in 10 provinces of Afghanistan for the last 19 years, to evacuate all foreign staff last month.
Imran Ahmad, minister for expatriatesâ welfare and overseas employment, told BenarNews that there were no Bangladeshi migrant workers in Afghanistan.
Shameran Abed, the executive director for BRAC International, said that three Bangladeshi staff were on their way home, while six were expected to return on Aug. 22.
Bangladesh has diplomatic ties with Afghanistan, but no resident mission in the country.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Big Shirley was still trying to snatch Nunzio bald-headed. She was already halfway there... Indonesia said it would not be closing its embassy in Kabul even as news reports showed countries including Russia, China, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire... , and Pakistain rushing to close theirs.
"Indonesia is closely monitoring the rapid developments taking place in Afghanistan," a foreign ministry statement said.
There are 15 Indonesians in Afghanistan, including U.N. workers and those married to Afghans, and evacuation efforts were underway to evacuate them, as well as the staff of the Indonesian Embassy in Kabul, the ministry said.
"The Indonesian Embassy in Kabul will be run by essential staff while monitoring the security situation in Afghanistan," the statement said.
"Indonesia hopes that a political settlement that is Afghan-owned, Afghan-led can be achieved ... Indonesia continues to communicate with all parties in Afghanistan, including with U.N. and foreign representatives."
Originally a group of Islamic students tired of the civil war waged by warlords in the early 1990s, the Taliban took up arms and ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 under an extremely strict interpretation of Islam. Under their rule, women were banned from going to school or working, and al-Qaeda was able to establish a foothold in the country and plan the 9/11 attacks.
Swedish staff left the embassy as their Afghan colleagues worked. Then, they refused to answer calls from the Afghan staff and even blocked their official email accounts. Left the country. https://t.co/t1JqChlOnC
How India evacuated its embassy from Afghanistan
[OneIndia] The evacuation of the Indian embassy staff from Kabul was a "difficult and complicated" exercise as the diplomats were under observation by the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... India completed the evacuation of its staff from Kabul, a day after theĂ airport in the Afghan capital witnessed unprecedented scenes of desperate residents rushing into it while some people were even seen clinging to the side of a US military plane in an attempt to flee the country fearing the Taliban''s brutality.
India brought back over 190 people including the Indian ambassador and its staff members from its embassy in Kabul in two C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force.
While the first aircraft evacuated around 40 staffers on Monday, the second one brought back around 150 staffers including the Indian ambassador on Tuesday.
It is learnt that the people who were to return on the second aircraft on Monday could not board it due to the ground situation.
An overnight conversation between the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar may have helped in moving the Indian personnel to Kabul airport this morning.
India has brought back the Indian ambassador and all its staff members from its embassy in Kabul in two military transport aircraft in the wake of escalating tension and deteriorating security situation in the Afghan capital after its takeover by the Taliban.
Taliban spox asked by a female reporter if women can continue to work. Answer: "They will be allowed to work within Sharia law." Very unclear what that means.
12 armed & masked Syrian soldiers approach #Israel border overnight, train near IDF outpost in area without border fence, @arutz20 reports (via @RotterNet); army closely monitors maneuvers in high-risk zone for fear of future infiltration or terror attack.
Mullah Baradar, the co-founder of Taliban, lands in Kandahar, Afghanistan after 20 years via special flight from Doha, Qatar.#Kabul#Afghanistan#Taliban
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.
Why don't you come up and see me sometime - (I may have lifted the line, but she looks like she means it.) 
[Right Wing] 
[NY Post] Taliban fighters shot and killed a woman for not wearing a burqa in Afghanistan Tuesday â the same day the group pledged to usher in a new inclusive era in the country that honors "womenâs rights."
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor....jpg "Kashmir")
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
...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 
[Red State] I wrote earlier about how the debacle in Afghanistan may have been intentional because Joe Biden previously said he thought we should just pull out and didnât need to be concerned about the allies we left behind. "F*** that," he reportedly said in 2010. "We donât have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it." So it appeared it was always his intent to just pull out, no matter the cost.
...Arabic for 
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...the political football known as The Highest Court in the Land, home of penumbrae and emanations...
Former Oakland mayor Willie Brown's former mistress, then a senatrix from California, and then a former 2020 Dem presidential hopeful. She dropped out because she was polling in negative numbers because of racism. Her father is a Marxist professor emeritus at Stanford and her mother is an Indian of the Hindoo tribe. She is reputedly the proud descendant of a long line of women. Joe Biden picked her for her skin tone, feeling she could also bring in the Native American, women's, and bimbo votes. She's an outstanding exemplar of the Peter Principle, proudly displaying her level of competence in her handling of the Biden Border Surge
[FoxNews] Massachusetts Rep. 
...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel...
[NYPOST] When 
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
...46th president of the U.S., who gives the geriatric a bad name. He blames Afghans for losing Afghanistan....
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...46th president of the U.S. 
[FoxNews] A Texas murder suspect charged in a deadly 2019 shooting at a Dallas hotel was released back onto the streets Monday without having to pay bond after a massive data deletion at the police department left prosecutors clamoring to review whether any evidence tying him to the slaying was lost.
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century...
...... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
...Arabic for 
