[ShabelleMedia] A senior al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... leader Mohamed Mire, also known as Abu Abdirahman, has been confirmed dead following a targeted dronezap in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia. The attack took place near Kunyo Barow, where Mire was reportedly killed while holding a meeting.
Mire, who had been with al-Shabaab for over 15 years, was a key figure within the organization, previously serving as the governor of the Hiraan region and a member of the Shura Council. More recently, he held the position of head of regions (Wilayaat), a role central to the group’s administrative and strategic operations. His designation as a global terrorist by both the United States and the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... Security Council in 2022 underscored his importance to al-Shabaab’s leadership.
The strike was carried out by U.S. forces in collaboration with Somali national forces and international security partners, showcasing ongoing efforts to dismantle the bad boy group’s command structure. al-Shabaab itself has acknowledged Mire’s death, marking it as a significant event within its ranks.
[Rudaw] Syrian de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) on Sunday told Saudi media that the country’s defense ministry will also include Kurdish forces.
"The Syrian Ministry of Defense will include Kurdish forces in its ranks," al-Hadath cited him as saying, in an interview set to be aired later on Sunday.
It is not clear if Sharaa elaborated on the issue.
Sharaa also called Kurds an "integral part" of Syrian society but stressed that his administration will not allow the country to become a "launchpad" for Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) attacks.
"We are negotiating with the SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces] to resolve the crisis in northeast Syria," he said.
The Kurdish-led SDF, who control most of the northeast (Rojava), have expressed their readiness to be merged into Syria’s new security apparatus.
SDF chief Mazloum Abdi told Asharq al-Awsat in a recent interview that they are willing to merge the SDF into the new Syrian army if both sides agree on a "suitable formula through negotiations."
A coalition of rebel groups spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS) overthrew Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... ’s regime on December 8. They have announced the dissolution of their affiliated gangs and formed a transitional government that is expected to expire in March.
The HTS has not clashed with the US-backed SDF, but the new officials in Damascus and Sharaa have declared that weapons should only be in the hands of the state and they will not tolerate the existence of any independent gang.
[Rudaw] At least 27 people, including suspected members of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS), were arrested in a security operation by Kurdish security forces (Asayish) in the northern Raqqa province, the force said on Saturday.
"As part of the ongoing efforts to enhance security and stability in our areas, our security forces carried out a large-scale security campaign east of Raqqa ... resulting in the arrest of 27 people, some of whom belonged to these [ISIS] cells and other criminals in the area," the Asayish said in a statement.
The arrests come as ISIS cells attempt to exploit the security vacuum created in parts of the country after the downfall of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... ’s regime, particularly in desert areas which the former regime used to loosely control.
[Rudaw] The main crossing between Iraq and Syria border, which was shut earlier this month following the collapse of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... ’s regime, remains closed, Iraqi border guards spokesperson said on Sunday.
"After the recent events in Syria, al-Qaim border crossing was closed. A few days later, it was decided to allow only humanitarian movement and trucks stranded between the two countries," Hayder Karkhi told Rudaw.
A coalition of rebel groups spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS) launched an offensive against Assad’s army late last month, toppling the regime on December 8. Thousands of Syrian soldiers sought refuge in neighboring Iraq.
The border crossing, which connects the town of Abu Kamal in Syria's Deir ez-Zor province to Iraq's al-Qaim district in Anbar province, was also temporarily opened to allow nearly 2,000 of the soldiers to return to their country on December 19.
Karkhi said that the border will open again in due time.
Over 100 Iraqis, who had fled to Syria in the face of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) attack a decade ago, were repatriated through Kurdistan Region’s main border crossing with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... on Thursday. It is not clear why Baghdad chose to return them through Turkey rather than al-Qaim border crossing.
During the escalation of the conflict between the HTS and the Syrian regime, thousands of soldiers from the Iraqi armed forces, including the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), along with border police, were deployed along the Iraqi-Syrian border in Anbar province. Iraq feared that the developments in the neighboring country could negatively affect its security.
[IsraelTimes] British government sources tell London’s The Times that Asma al-Assad, the London-born wife of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, is effectively barred from the United Kingdom as her passport is not valid.
It is unclear if the travel document expired or was actively blocked.
Sources tell the newspaper that because the exiled former Syrian first lady’s passport is not valid, and the British government will not allow her back in on compassionate grounds due to her health, Assad will be unable to seek medical treatment in the UK.
Assad is said to have a 50% chance of survival after an aggressive form of blood cancer is believed to have returned following treatment for the disease earlier this year, the UK’s Telegraph newspaper reported earlier this month.
According to the report, the exiled former first lady, who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in May of this year, is completely isolated in Moscow as she undergoes treatment for the aggressive cancer.
While her husband fled to Moscow after his brutal regime was toppled in a lightning rebel offensive earlier this month, Asma is said to have already been in Russia for some time before that as she was seeking treatment there.
According to The Times, it is thought that her treatment in Moscow is being managed by cardiologist father, who has apparently left his home in London along with his wife.
#1
Any refugee from anywhere, unless the Left doesn't like them.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/30/2024 8:42
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#2
With the UK & a few other EU nations threatening Israel's President BiBi with arrest for killing and wiping out Terrorists. Using their A$$ backward logic, why not offer her free treatment since Syria also had problems with Israel?☺☻
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2024 12:43
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#6
You have practical diplomatic and national security interests on one hand and common decency on the other. I think my own tendency, in spite of the distastefulness of patient, would be to allow entry for medical treatment and tell the terrorists to go to hell.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2024 12:46
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#7
A B-2 (Medical) Visa and a firm post-op exit requirement.
[IsraelTimes] Syria’s new Foreign Minister Assaad al-Shibani is seeking to calm an outcry sparked by comments from the country’s newly appointed head of women’s affairs, who said that women should “not go beyond the priorities of their God-given nature,” and should know “their educational role in the family.”
Posting on X, Shibani says that authorities will “stand by” women and “fully support their rights.”
“We believe in the active role of women within society, and we have confidence in their capacities,” he says, adding that “Syrian women fought long years for a free homeland that preserves their dignity and status.”
”You have the right to wear a hijab. You have the right to walk three steps behind your husband and obey him. You have the right to speak out in support of Syria’s new rulers. You have the right to speak out against the godless Assad government and against the Shiite heretics in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. You have the right to train your sons to be jihadis and your daughters to marry and give birth to jihadis and you have the right to be thoroughly educated in the HTS interpretation of Sunna and Hadith so that you can teach your children to be rightly guided by it. Really, you are practically drowning in rights and governmental support of those rights, O Syrian women! Let us together rejoice that it is so!”
Speaking to Turkey’s state-run TRT broadcaster, Aisha al-Dibs, the only woman so far in Syria’s transitional government, said only feminist organizations that “support the model that we are going to build” would be welcome in Syria, adding “I am not going to open the path for those who don’t agree with my thinking.”
“Why adopt a lay or civil model? We want to implement a model that is right for Syrian society, and Syrian women will make it happen,” she said.
Dibs’s remarks have prompted outrage among some on social media.
Actress Aliaa Saeid says on social network X that “we were imprisoned so that we could [obtain the right] to express our opinion.”
“We have been displaced, our homes have been destroyed, so that in the end you come and tell us what’s allowed and what’s not?” she adds.
[IsraelTimes] Israel says 240 suspects arrested at Kamal Adwan hospital — including its director and 15 participants in Oct. 7 onslaught; 600 civilians evacuated; IDF wraps up Jabalia operation
The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that a military raid, completed Saturday, on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... had killed 19 terror operatives, without any known civilian casualties, after Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... -run health authorities previously claimed — and some international media reported — that 50 people had been killed, including hospital staff.
While providing new details on Sunday about the operation, army sources indicated that, with the raid complete, the IDF was close to wrapping up its operations in northern Gaza’s Jabalia area.
Kamal Adwan Hospital was described by the IDF as "Hamas’s last bastion in Jabalia," after hundreds of terror operatives allegedly used the medical facility as a shelter from Israeli strikes.
According to the military, the terror operatives returned to Kamal Adwan after the IDF last operated in the medical center in late October.
The IDF said that, of 940 Paleostinians who passed through an army checkpoint outside the hospital, 240 were detained for being alleged members of terror groups. In all, some 600 civilians and another 95 patients, caregivers, and medical personnel were evacuated from Kamal Adwan.
The IDF said some of the terror operatives posed as medical staff and patients, and some tried to leave on stretchers and in ambulances. Of a first group of 21 patients leaving the hospital, the military said that 13 turned out to be suspected terror operatives.
Of the 240 terror operatives, the IDF said that at least 15 participated in the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which started the ongoing war. Several others are considered to be prominent commanders in the Hamas and the Paleostinian 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... terror groups, the military said.
Several operatives who carried out a deadly attack on troops in Jabalia earlier this month were also nabbed, the IDF added.
The IDF said some of the terror operatives posed as medical staff and patients, and some tried to leave on stretchers and in ambulances. Of a first group of 21 patients leaving the hospital, the military said that 13 turned out to be suspected terror operatives.
The director of the hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, was also detained. The IDF said he is suspected of being a Hamas operative.
The IDF said that the Kamal Radwan raid marked one of the largest single arrest operations in Gaza since the beginning of the war.
The IDF has been operating in the Jabalia area since early October, facing relatively fierce resistance by remaining Hamas cells there, military sources said.
Over the last few weeks, the IDF operated in areas near Kamal Adwan, as part of efforts to clear routes to enable the raid on the hospital over the weekend. Numerous bombs were neutralized in the area surrounding the hospital, the IDF said.
Before launching the operation, the IDF said it enabled the evacuation of 350 patients, caregivers, and medical personnel to other hospitals, in an effort coordinated by the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
The IDF said its 401st Armored Brigade approached the hospital from two directions on Friday morning, surrounding it within an hour. The soldiers also neutralized a large bomb planted on a road leading to the medical center, according to the military.
At the same time, two Hamas cells attempted to flee from the hospital, and they were killed in dronezaps, the IDF said.
Within another hour, civilians sheltering at the medical center, along with patients, began to evacuate, following calls by the IDF to leave. As part of the evacuation, they passed through a military checkpoint, at which point those suspected of being terror operatives were taken into custody.
Meanwhile,
...back at the desert island, Bert climbed the cocoanut tree, looking for ships. He saw none. He looked in the other direction and saw Irene, vigorously scrubbing her backside... the patients, caregivers, and medical personnel were taken to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, where the IDF delivered fuel, generators, and other medical equipment from Kamal Adwan.
After the hospital was cleared of all Paleostinians, members of the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit carried out "precise activities" inside the hospital, during which they located and captured weapons, including grenades, handguns, ammunition, and other military equipment, according to the IDF.
The IDF acknowledged that only a few weapons were found in the hospital itself, but said that numerous weapons were located and seized in apartments surrounding Kamal Adwan, which were used by Hamas as fighting positions, some of which were boobytrapped.
During the operation, three operatives launched RPGs at an armored personnel carrier from an area near the hospital, the IDF said. There were no injuries among the Israeli forces, and the operatives behind the attack were killed, according to the military.
The IDF said it did not fire directly at the hospital, did not target any medical staff, and was unaware of civilian casualties in the operation.
Kamal Adwan Hospital is now out of service after its staff, patients, and equipment — including generators and critical medical equipment — were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital, also located in Jabalia.
Before the evacuation, the IDF also operated at the Indonesian Hospital to ensure that no terror operatives were holed up there, military sources said.
The IDF said it has no plans to demolish Kamal Adwan following the raid there. A military source said troops would remain in the area of Kamal Adwan to "closely monitor" the hospital to ensure it does not return to serve as a base for terrorists.
Military sources said that there are still other operations to carry out in Jabalia against remaining Hamas cells, but, in general, the IDF is close to completing its mission there, following the hospital raid.
Israel has been at war against Hamas in Gaza — and other Iranian-backed forces that have joined the war — since October 7, 2023, when some 3,000 Hamas-led forces of Evil invaded Israel from the enclave, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages.
Hamas has fought from within hospitals throughout the war and periodically hid some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7 inside them. International law generally prohibits targeting hospitals during wartime, but hospitals can lose this protection if used for military purposes.
Since October of this year, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in northern Gaza, stating that its goal is to prevent Hamas from regrouping in the area.
[RS] An intriguing video from Feb. 2018 went viral over the weekend and had a lot of folks on the right talking because of something that actress Claire Danes said to talk show host Stephen Colbert and how he immediately interjected and changed the subject. When you hear it, you'll understand why.
Danes was sharing about how her "Homeland" show went to something of a weeklong "spy camp" because they knew someone in the CIA. There in Georgetown, they met actual "spooks," people in the State Department, and journalists. Colbert asked her, what was the most surprising thing that she learned from that experience?
Danes said every year it was different, but that year it was "all about the distrust between the [Trump] administration and the intelligence world, and the intelligence community was suddenly kind of allying itself with journalists, which usually they're not..."
It was at that point that Colbert interjected and deflected to another point about when they had started shooting the season's episodes.
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace mocked Trump and others for spreading one of his favorite “conspiracy theories.” MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt insisted that “we know it’s been debunked that this virus was manmade or modified,”
#4
How does a comedian like Colbert get to be so sensitive about such matters? Is it because he's really not a comedian and is, in fact, something else?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2024 12:52
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#5
And then there's the clip of little Chuckie Schumer, further down in the article, with his famous statement about how the intel community has "six ways from Sunday at getting back at you", one of the most chilling and sinister statements I've ever heard.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2024 12:55
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#6
#4 I'm reminded of Richard Dawson's character in the movie Marathon Man.
Anybody interesting getting the money? This should prove amusing when winter temperatures make the silly things inoperable.
[Breitbart] Several Illinois school districts will be receiving millions in federal grant dollars to purchase electric school buses to replace gas-powered ones, Board of Education officials said.
The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) announced on December 19 that it had been awarded a $19.9 million grant from a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiative “made possible by President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.”
The initiative, called the Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles Grant (CHDV) program, is doling out more than $400 million to communities across the country in areas that have been designated as being in “non-attainment” with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
The nearly $20 million will be distributed to nine Illinois school districts in order to replace 70 traditional school buses with “zero-emission” electric buses, as well as to install electric vehicle charging stations for each new bus and to conduct workforce training to “support these new technologies,” the ISBE said.
#1
Currently (no pun intended)
After about 2,500-3,200 charges, many Large Electric Vehicle batteries start losing battery charging capacity on an increasing scale.
Meaning, the ROI is fewer miles per $$$/charge.
Then there is the Electric Bill, Special charging areas, Special Fire Suppression Equipment needed, Special Trained Maintenance personnel higher salaries, Cost of Replacement in the $30K+, and finally the Environmental impact issues / Hazmat for disposal.
So in 6+/- years they'll likely need 4x's the original amount to replace the batteries, disposal costs.
OBTW: Illinois gets cold as a Well Digger A$$, and EV batteries don't like that either, nor the Road Salts.
100% EV's, typically, lose an average of 41% of their range when outdoor temperatures drop to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
#4
It's not the stupidest thing they've got going.
They've also been buying electric snowplows.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/30/2024 8:47
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#5
A Kamala legacy.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/30/2024 11:20
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#6
They've also been buying electric snowplows.
That should prove interesting with the cold and salt (especially in Chicago where they dump salt 'pellets' the size of baseballs all over the road).
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/30/2024 12:03
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#7
maybe Illinois will be smart and deploy the EV school buses near, say, Cairo
nah
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/30/2024 15:13
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#8
#6 They've also been buying electric snowplows.
That should prove interesting with the cold and salt (especially in Chicago where they dump salt 'pellets' the size of baseballs all over the road).
Posted by: Mullah Richard 2024-12-30 12:03
....Oh, yeah - salt brine on the batteries. Gonna look like an outtake from an action movie.
#9
In addition to reduced range, another disadvantage of EVs in winter is that you don't get all that yummy warm "waste heat" from the engine to de-ice the windshield and warm the cabin.
#10
Several Illinois school districts will be receiving millions in federal grant dollars to purchase electric school buses to replace gas-powered ones, Board of Education officials said.
[Breitbart] A pair of Seattle, Washington-area teens accused of tying a younger boy to a tree and “disemboweling” him in a possible gang-related attack earlier this month have been charged as adults.
Everett Police responded to the area of Olympic Drive and Rainier Drive in the early morning hours of December 17 after a 911 caller said that a teenager covered in blood was at their home, FOX13 reported.
Upon arrival, officers observed a 14-year-old victim with “obvious stab wounds,” the department said in a news release.
No suspects were present at the scene, believed to have “fled on foot,” police said.
By December 18, two 17-year-olds who were “known” to the victim were arrested in their respective homes, the release stated.
According to FOX13, all three teens are students at Lakewood High School in Arlington.
Court documents obtained by the outlet revealed more gruesome details of the incident, including that it may have been a gang-related setup involving a girl.
Security footage from the 911 caller’s front door shows a “disemboweled” and naked teen ringing the doorbell while “struggling to breathe,” the outlet reported of probable cause documents.
The boy’s injuries were described as “traumatic,” including a letter “N” that had been carved into his chest.
The young teen told police that he had been stabbed in the nearby Lions Park, and that one of the suspects was a member of the “Norteños”
… the various affiliated Mexican-American gangs that pay tribute to Nuestra Familia while in California state and federal correctional facilities
— which the City of Everett describes as “a group of Latino street gangs with origins in northern California.”
The 14-year-old told police that he had been in communication with a girl over social media, and agreed to meet her on the evening of December 16, court documents stated.
“After picking him up, the victim suggested they go to Lions Park to hang out and smoke,” FOX13 noted.
The victim told police that while the girl was driving them to the park, he believes that she was messaging someone to let them know their location. He knew the girl had previously “set up one of his friends and attacked her,” documents stated.
After arriving at the park, the victim got out of the car and went to open the driver’s side door for the girl when two people grabbed him and took him into a “wooded area,” according to the outlet.
“The girl then drove away,” the article reported of allegations in the court documents.
While the perpetrators were wearing ski masks over their faces, the victim told police that he quickly recognized them before they forced him to strip off his clothes and tied him to a tree at gunpoint.
After allegedly stabbing him, court documents said the suspects fled the scene and the victim was able to free himself and get to the nearest home for help.
He was transported to the hospital and is expected to survive, Fox News reported.
The two 17-year-olds, identified by the outlet as Milo Canales and Hayden Lusebrink, have since been charged as adults with first-degree assault, first-degree robbery and first-degree kidnapping.
Canales, who was allegedly found with the victim’s bloody clothing, had his bail set at $1 million.
He was already facing felony charges in juvenile court for a November 2023 robbery in Seattle, but had been released from custody on December 2, according to KOMO News.
Lusebrink, who had his bail set at $300,000, bonded out and was released.
#1
He knew the girl had previously “set up one of his friends and attacked her.”
So he's just stupid then.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/30/2024 8:51
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#2
Sounds like a job for Homan. If the perps are citizens, sweep the neighborhood for relatives and friends. We don’t need the EME farmhands anymore than we need the Salvadoran and Venezuelan thugs.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/30/2024 11:17
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[FoxNews] The EU's budget cannot be used to fund defense directly, and some NATO experts are proposing a global defense bank
As NATO member states struggle to meet their defense spending goals and war rages on Europe's eastern front, officials are struggling to agree on a plan to shore up hundreds of billions of dollars to bolster defenses.
Eight NATO countries did not meet their 2% target for defense spending in 2024. And as many member states struggle with chronically stressed budgets, calls to meet those goals are not being heeded quickly.
The European Commission estimates about 500 billion euros, the equivalent of $524 billion in investments, are needed in the coming decade to defend Europe against evolving threats.
The EU's budget cannot be used to fund defense directly, and some European officials and NATO experts are proposing a global defense bank to dole out funds for military modernization.
A defense, security and resilience (DSR) bank would issue bonds backed by AAA ratings for financially strapped countries to upgrade their defenses and would provide guarantees for commercial banks to offer credit to defense suppliers.
[FoxNews] The employee had a difficult time reading the memo allegedly passed by a man
A Colorado man allegedly attempted to rob a bank but left with nothing after handing a note to a teller who was unable to decipher what he had written, according to police.
The incident happened shortly before 5 p.m. on Dec. 17 at First National Bank at 750 North Lincoln Ave. in Loveland, Colorado, according to the Loveland Police Department.
Police said the man walked into the bank and handed the teller a note.
The teller, however, had a difficult time reading the note since it was allegedly almost completely illegible, according to CBS Colorado.
The man allegedly grew frustrated as the teller was struggling to read the note, so he quickly left the bank, the outlet noted.
Police are still searching for the suspect.
The man was captured in surveillance images wearing a brown hoodie, green pants, a green baseball cap, sunglasses and brown gloves.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent]The number of clashes on the front has increased to 133.
In particular, in the Kursk region, Ukrainian defenders repelled 16 attacks by Russian invaders today, 19 clashes are ongoing.
The enemy does not stop trying to advance deep into Ukrainian territory, the defense forces are holding back the invaders, inflicting significant losses on them. Today, the number of enemy attacks has increased to 133. This is stated in the General Staff report on Sunday, December 29.
The border areas of Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv regions continue to be subjected to Russian artillery shelling. A number of populated areas, including Timofeevka, Bachevsk, Senkovka, Berilovka and Aleksandrovka, suffered from shelling by the Russian army today.
In the Kharkov direction, the occupiers stormed the positions of our units in the Gatishche area.
The enemy attacked our positions in the Kupyansk direction six times. Ukrainian defenders repelled enemy assaults near Petropavlovka, Kucherivka and Lozovaya. One clash continues to this day.
In the Liman direction, enemy units attacked in the areas of the settlements of Grekovka, Zeleny Gai, Platonovka, Pervomayskoye, Nadezhda, Makeyevka, Terny, Yampolevka, Ivanovka and Belogorovka. Since the beginning of the day, Ukrainian soldiers have repelled 15 attacks, six clashes are still ongoing. In addition, enemy aircraft struck the settlement of Sergeyevka.
In the Seversky direction, since the beginning of the day, the enemy has made one futile attempt to push our defenders from their positions.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the invaders carried out five assault actions near Chasovy Yar. At present, two attacks by the occupiers are continuing.
In the Toretsk direction, Ukrainian defenders repelled two enemy attacks in the area of Shcherbinovka and Toretsk, and two more clashes are still ongoing.
In the Pokrovsk direction, since the beginning of the day, the occupiers have already made 26 attempts to push our defenders from their positions in the areas of the settlements of Zelenoe Pole, Vozdvizhenka, Mirolyubovka, Luch, Lisovka, Dachenskoye, Novy Trud, Volkovo, Solenoye, Novoolenovka, Novovasilovka and Novoye. The defense forces, holding back the enemy onslaught, have already repelled 22 enemy attacks in the direction. The enemy is suffering significant losses in manpower.
In the Kurakhovsky direction, the invaders attacked our units 16 times, trying to advance in the areas of the settlements of Ukrainka, Slavyanka, Petrovpavlovka, Kurakhovo and Dachnoye. Four battles are ongoing.
In the Vremovsky direction, the invaders carried out 17 attacks on Ukrainian troops near the settlements of Konstantinopolskoye, Yantarnoye, Uspenovka, Konstantinopol, Dachnoye and Privolnoye. Four combat clashes are ongoing, and enemy aircraft also struck the settlements of Zaporizhzhya, Razliv and Komar with guided bombs, dropping a total of nine guided bombs.
The enemy did not conduct any active operations in the Orekhov, Gulyai-Polye and Dnieper directions .
In Kursk region, Ukrainian defenders repelled 16 attacks by Russian invaders, 19 clashes continue, in addition, the enemy launched 152 artillery attacks.
Let us recall that earlier, Ukrainian military personnel destroyed a Russian TOR-M2 air defense system near the settlement of Zelenopil in the Zaporizhia region.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 19:00 Ukraine is moving towards fully providing its Defense Forces with domestically produced drones. This industry has reached unprecedented proportions this year, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said .
17.04 Since the beginning of the current day, 82 combat clashes have occurred on the front. More than a third of all battles are in the Pokrovsk direction, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in a report as of 16:00.
16.00 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a telephone conversation with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and expressed condolences to him and the Azerbaijani people in connection with the crash of flight J2-8243 of Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL). Russia must give a clear explanation and stop spreading disinformation, the Ukrainian leader noted.
15.25 Russian aggressors shelled the village of Belozerka in the Kherson region with artillery. So far, eight people are known to have been wounded, including two teenagers. All victims have been hospitalized.
14.58 Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has apologised to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev over the crash of a plane in Kazakhstan. According to the Kremlin, the plane repeatedly attempted to land at Grozny airport, which at the time was "under attack by Ukrainian drones", and Russian air defence systems "repelled the attack".
14.41 Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has instructed Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico to open a "second energy front against Ukraine." This was stated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
13:45 An explosion at a railway station occurred in the Moscow region on December 27. As a result, carriages of a train used by the Russian army were destroyed. The GUR added that the scale of the damage inflicted on the aggressor is being determined.
12:59 Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky named Russia's losses in the war in 2024. They exceeded 421 thousand military personnel.
12.46 The supply of drones to the Defense Forces increased to a record high in 2024 - 19 times. This was stated by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky.
11.26 The city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast is completely without power due to an emergency. This was reported by the Pokrovsk city military administration.
10:48 Defense forces hit a storage depot for "shahids" in the Oryol region. There are casualties among the occupiers.
9:56 The largest number of attacks over the past day, more than 50, occurred in the Pokrovsky direction. A total of 162 combat clashes were recorded on the front.
8.57 Partisans have reconnoitred the Kremniy EL plant in Bryansk, which supplies electronics to Russian missiles and fighters, which has already been attacked by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
7.54 Two cases of fire were recorded in Nikolaev on the night of December 28 as a result of a Russian strike using drones. The fire occurred at night in the Ingulsky district of the city. There were no casualties as a result of the drone strike.
7.25 Russia continues to scale up production of "shaheeds" ahead of the "winter campaign" against Ukraine in 2024-2025, despite sanctions and technical limitations. This is evidenced by a report by the Institute for the Study of War.
04.00 In the Voronezh region of the Russian Federation, a UAV attack caused a breakdown in the contact network on the railway. Local authorities announced train delays.
01.50 In Nikolaev, the roof of a multi-story building caught fire after an attack by enemy UAVs. The fire was soon extinguished. There were no reports of casualties.
Or never. Or they could choose to enjoy a farce in the mode regularly put on by Iran, where all the candidates at every level must be approved by a committee of Mad Mullahs, so elections are an exercise in choosing among insiders.
[IsraelTimes] Rebel chief who ousted Assad says drafting a new constitution could take three years, subsequent changes could take another
Holding elections in Syria could take up to four years, Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said in an interview with Al Arabiya on Sunday, the first time he has commented on a possible timetable for elections since Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... was ousted this month.
Drafting a new constitution could take up to three years, Sharaa said in excerpts from the interview with the Saudi state-owned broadcaster. He also said it would take about a year for Syrians to see drastic changes.
Sharaa leads the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... group that ousted Assad on December 8, ending decades of Assad family rule and a 13-year civil war. He said HTS will be dissolved in a national dialogue conference.
On foreign ties, Sharaa said Syria has strategic interests with Russia. Russia has military bases in Syria, was a close Assad ally during the long civil war, and has granted Assad asylum.
Sharaa said earlier this month that Syria’s relations with Russia should serve common interests.
Sharaa also said he hopes the administration of US President-elect Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... will lift sanctions imposed on Syria. Senior US diplomats who visited Damascus this month said Sharaa came across as pragmatic and that Washington has decided to remove a $10 million bounty on the HTS leader’s head.
[IsraelTimes] Government document compiles grim details of abuse of hostages, including whipping, branding with heated iron, isolation, binding, starving, maltreatment and psychological torment.
Very upsetting details at the link that I am not tough-minded enough to do more than skim. We knew they are evil. My imagination did not stretch how far. PJ Media has more, linking to other sources.
[IsraelTimes] Iran International’s Israel correspondent Babak Itzhaki: ‘I tip my hat to the security services, they’re watching over me’; IRGC tried, failed to recruit prisoner in Armenia for plot
Iran’s paramilitary forces reportedly plotted to kidnap an Iranian-Israeli journalist by luring him to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... and then smuggling him into Iran, but abandoned the plan when an intermediary they recruited to participate in the plot refused to participate.
According to the IranWire dissident news site, Babak Itzhaki, the Israeli correspondent for London-based Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... International — another opposition outlet reporting about Iran — was the target of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) plot.
The IRGC reportedly tried to recruit Mohammad Hashemzadeh, a former Iranian political prisoner who once studied with Itzhaki, to lure him and another unnamed journalist, also from Iran International, to a border city in Turkey.
Hashemzadeh, currently detained in Armenia, refused to participate in the plot. He then discussed the attempt with another Iranian journalist, who in turn told Channel 12 that the prisoner had said: "They expect me to take Babak to Turkey, and from there they’ll bring him to Iran."
Speaking to Channel 12 on Sunday, Itzhaki said he wasn’t surprised by the plot, telling the Israeli outlet, "This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time they plan to kidnap me. They threaten all Iran International employees around the world."
The correspondent was targeted by Iranian intelligence in an operation uncovered by the Shin Bet security agency in early 2022, which involved four Jewish Israelis who were recruited by Iranian intelligence to carry out espionage missions across the country for small payments.
So Iran was actively seeking information and attempting to acquire key hostages via this new model almost two years before Hamas exploded over the border on 10/7/2033.
Among their revealed targets were the Iran International news outlet and Itzhaki himself.
In his work for Iran International, Itzhaki has interviewed leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former president and convicted sex offender Moshe Katsav.
Speaking to the Ynet news site on Sunday, Itzhaki said, "I tip my hat to the security services, they’re watching over me, and they’re always in touch with me."
"Unfortunately, I don’t see the same from the government ministries," he said, complaining that no public officials had contacted him about the plot.
Park your ego, buddy — those closest to the issue made sure you were informed. It’s quite possible the politicians were allowed to remain ignorant.
The journalist noted previous attempts by the Islamic Theocratic Republic to harm Iran International employees and said the outlet poses a unique threat to the regime.
"We broadcast using about 15 satellites to Iran, no one can block us. Even the most remote villages, if they have a little dish they can watch us. They know that for real news they need to open Iran International. The [regime] sees this and they want to silence us," he said.
Still, he said, " "Neither threats nor acts of terror will stop our exposure of the truth. I will continue to work and to bring the truth to Iran."
Last year, Channel 12 reported that Israeli security officials gave intelligence to the United Kingdom suggesting that Iran intended to harm journalists at Iran International, leading them to move their studios from London to Washington, DC.
At the time, the dissident outlet said it was experiencing an escalation of "state-backed threats from Iran," which has declared it a terrorist organization. The station resumed operations at a new location in London last September.
[NYPOST] Washington DC's District Department of Transportation denounced a transit ad that was spotted near the Capitol that likened MAGA hat wearers to garbage.
''Keep DC trash free,'' reads the incendiary ad spotted by Capitol Hill Baptist Church pastor Caleb Morell.
The ad featured a red circle with a line through it over an image of a MAGA hat wearer holding a book labeled ''Project 2025.''
The bottom of the ad includes the logo for the District of Columbia Department of Public Works and the Mayor's Office of the Clean City program.
DDOT DC quickly denied any role in the creation of the politically charged ad.
''This image was not created, funded, or authorized by the DC government, and our teams are currently working to remove them,'' DDOT DC wrote on X in response to Morell's post.
''If you see additional images like this, we encourage you to report them to 311.''
When asked for comment, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser's office referred The Post to DDOT DC's response.
It is unclear who was behind the advert, but it wasn't the first time a US city was plagued by dubious political ads
In the fall, for example, the artist known as @winstontseng on Instagram fessed up to being behind art falsely showing the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day He claimed that he wasn't aware how the fugazi ads depicting Harris in team attire got displayed near bus stops in the City of Brotherly Love.
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Antisemitism is going to make you unpopular and there will be blowback.
[NYPOST] Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said her party was still stuck in their ''old ways'' while reacting to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's failed bid to be the top Democrat Oversight Committee chair, and suggested they were too focused on seniority. ''Different ain't a synonym for 'better,'''
''While I think both are absolutely qualified, I do think that within the Democratic Caucus, we are really stuck in our old ways of doing things which is you get there by seniority. And so if you've been there longer, you get the post, and I don't think we fully sit there and say, 'who may be best equipped for this moment?''' Crockett said. '... and is she a loose cannon? A birdbrain? A showboat?'
If the question is competence, the answer is never AOC.
Ocasio-Cortez lost the bid to be the top Democrat on the committee to Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who is more moderate. The 74-year-old lawmaker's win over Ocasio-Cortez was seen as a blow to progressives. ... and progressives just hate getting blown...
''I think that America is looking at us and saying, wait a minute, we lost the election, and we know that the Senate lost seats, now, the House we picked up seats, right? But I think they are saying, we are looking towards y'all to show us you're willing to shake it up if it means we can move this country forward,'' Crockett said. I'm guessing America is looking up and saying "holy spit, glad there's more of us than them!"
Crockett said the Oversight Committee would be in good hands under Connolly, but said switching up the leadership more frequently would benefit Democrats.
[IsraelTimes] Fighter jets hit rocket launchers amid resurgent fire from Strip; fourth baby dies of hypothermia in Gaza tent city; IDF says it killed six Oct. 7 perpetrators last month
An IDF soldier was killed in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, the military announced, as a months-long operation in Jabalia appeared to approach its end, despite several instances of rocket fire from the enclave, which has been a rare occurrence at this stage of the war. The slain soldier was named as Staff Sgt. Yuval Shoham, 22, of the 401st Armored Brigade’s 9th Battalion, from Jerusalem. The Israel Defense Forces did not detail the circumstances of Shoham’s death.
The killing brought Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against the Hamas terror group in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 394.
Separately, a soldier with the Nahal Brigade’s 931st Battalion was seriously wounded during fighting with Hamas terror group operatives in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun on Sunday, the military added.
The incidents came as the IDF indicated that it was wrapping up its operations in northern Gaza’s Jabalia following the Israeli military raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Kamal Adwan Hospital was described by the IDF as “Hamas’s last bastion in Jabalia,” after hundreds of terror operatives allegedly used the medical facility as a shelter from Israeli strikes. According to the military, the terror operatives had returned to Kamal Adwan after the IDF last operated in the medical center in late October.
There is no way to verify the military’s claims.
The IDF has been operating in the Jabalia area since early October, facing relatively fierce resistance by remaining Hamas cells in the area, military sources said.
The IDF said it had arrested hundreds of terror suspects at the hospital while facilitating the transfer of patients and civilians to other Gaza hospitals. The raid sparked a widespread outcry in the international community with Israel being accused of torching the hospital and killed civilians.
Overnight, Israeli fighter jets struck rocket launchers in Beit Hanoun, which had been used to fire two long-range rockets at the Jerusalem area on Saturday.
There were no injuries or damage in Saturday’s rare long-range rocket attack from Gaza, as both projectiles were intercepted.
When the strike was carried out, another rocket had been loaded into one of the launchers, the IDF said, releasing an image showing the launchers before they were hit.
In a video published by the military, the rocket could be seen flying out of the launcher.
MORE ROCKET FIRE
On Sunday, five more rockets were launched from the northern Gaza Strip, this time at the southern city of Sderot, along the border with the enclave, one of the largest rocket attacks from Gaza in recent months. According to the IDF, two rockets were intercepted, while the other three apparently struck open areas. There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage from the attack, which marked the third day in a row of rocket fire from the Strip.
Rocket attacks from Gaza have been rare at this stage of the war, after frequent barrages during and in the months after the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which started the war.
Following Sunday’s rocket fire, the IDF issued a fresh evacuation warning for civilians in a large area near the northern Gaza city of Jabalia.
“Terror organizations are again launching rockets from these areas that have been warned several times in the past,” Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman said on X, attaching a map of the areas to be evacuated.
Civilians were urged to head for shelters in Gaza City, in advance of the IDF launching strikes on the area.
STRIKE HITS HAMAS CELL IN GAZA CITY HOSPITAL
Also Sunday, Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck a group of Hamas members who were operating out of a former hospital in Gaza City, the IDF said. Palestinian media reported at least seven dead and several others wounded in the airstrike on Al-Wafa Hospital.
According to the IDF, the operatives were part of Hamas’s air defense unit in the terror group’s Shejaiya Battalion.
“The terrorists operated in a command and control center that was established in a building that was previously used as Al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City, and is not currently an active hospital,” the military said.
The IDF said the operatives were using the command center at the former hospital to plan and carry out attacks against troops operating in Gaza “in the immediate future.”
Artillery shelling also reportedly hit the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City Sunday morning, though there was no immediate comment from the IDF on that incident.
HAMAS COMMANDERS, OCT. 7 PERPETRATORS KILLED
The IDF and Shin Bet also revealed on Sunday that 14 members of Hamas, including six who participated in the October 7 onslaught, were eliminated in a series of operations and airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip last month.
As part of the IDF’s ongoing operation in the Strip’s far north, troops are working to locate and kill terrorists who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, the military and Shin Bet said.
In one incident on November 27, the IDF said, troops of the Givati Brigade raided a Hamas position in Jabalia, where they killed Muhammad Abd al-Hamid Salah, a Hamas terrorist who “participated in the murderous massacre on October 7.”
Another two Hamas commanders were killed in the same operation, according to the military. The IDF said an airstrike in Jabalia on November 26 killed Rasem Jawda, a Hamas company commander, Zahar Shahab, and Ali Ramadan, who all participated in the October 7 onslaught. Another two Hamas commanders were also killed in the strike, the military said.
A separate strike on an unspecified date a month ago killed Muhammad Hamuda, who also participated in the October 7 attack, the IDF says. With him, five additional Hamas operatives were killed, the military added.
FOURTH BABY DIES OF COLD IN GAZA
A fourth infant has died of hypothermia in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly 15 months of war are huddled in tents along the rainy, windswept coast as winter arrives.
Jomaa al-Batran, 20 days old, was found with his head as “cold as ice” when his parents woke up Sunday, his father Yehia said. The baby’s twin brother, Ali, was moved to the intensive care unit of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Their father said the twins were born one month premature and spent just a day in the nursery at the hospital, which, like other health centers in Gaza, has been overwhelmed and is only partially functioning.
He said medics told their mother to keep the newborns warm, but it was impossible because they live in a tent and temperatures regularly drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at night.
“We are eight people, and we only have four blankets,” al-Batran said as he cradled his son’s pale body. He described drops of dew seeping through the tent cover overnight.
At least three other babies have died from the cold in recent weeks, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave.
Rainy and stormy weather in the region is expected to intensify over the next two days before slightly warmer conditions return later this week.
Some 1.9 million Palestinians of the 2.3 million Gazan population are residing in the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone,” according to IDF assessments in July. The zone is located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, western neighborhoods of Khan Younis, and central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah. The size of the zone has changed multiple times, according to evolving IDF operations against Hamas.
[IsraelTimes] Israel detonated the pagers days after realizing some devices were being sent to Iran for examination; had earlier used drone to kill Hezbollah technician who suspected they were rigged
The New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... on Sunday reported that Israel detonated thousands of boobytrapped pagers, which it had covertly sold to Hezbollah, six days after learning that the terror group was sending some devices to Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... for close examination. The newspaper’s account of the years-long deep penetration of the terror group by the Mosssd ...... and Israeli military intelligence is the most detailed to be published to date.
The report cited two dozen current and former Israeli, American, and European officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified information. It detailed Israel’s two decades of surveillance of Hezbollah’s leadership and the decision to keep Washington in the dark about the plan to assassinate the terror group’s long-time leader, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> According to the report, earlier in 2024, Israel carried out a dronezap to kill a Hezbollah technician who suspected there might be explosives in the walkie-talkies that, like the pagers, Israel had covertly sold the terror group.
The September 17 pager detonation, which killed dozens of Hezbollah operatives and maimed thousands, marked the beginning of Israel’s escalation against Hezbollahs
, after almost a year of the terror group’s persistent rocket fire that displaced some 60,000 residents of the north. Israel invaded Leb ...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade.... 10 days after the targeted explosions, beginning with Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s in which most of Hezbollah’s leaders, including Nasrallah, were killed. By the end of November, a battered Hezbollah signed a ceasefire agreement with Israel.
The Iran-backed terror group, unprovoked, began its near-daily rocket attacks against Israel on October 8 of last year — one day after its fellow Iran-backed terror group Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... According to the New York Times, the boobytrapped devices were not yet fully in place at the time of the Hamas invasion and Hezbollah’s entry into the war. The newspaper confirmed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided against a large-scale counteroffensive in Lebanon, preferring to focus on Gaza, over the advice of some Israeli officials, including then-defense minister Yoav Gallant.
By August 2024, Mossad chief David Barnea and military intelligence chiefs were urging a short campaign to neuter Hezbollah’s rocket capabilities and push it away from the border, said the Times, citing a senior Israeli defense official.
Then, according to several unidentified officials cited in the report, new intelligence showed the long-planned pager operation was in danger, especially in light of a September 11, 2024, discovery that some devices had been taken to Iran for inspection.
With the pager operation apparently compromised, Netanyahu met with top security chiefs on September 16 to decide whether Israel should "use it or lose it," according to four Israeli security officials.
The Times also elaborated on a report last week from CBS’s "60 Minutes" that Mossad had registered shell companies in Budapest and Sofia to handle the sale of the pagers to Hezbollah. CBS said Hezbollah had some 5,000 pagers in use at the time of the blasts.
The pagers were first delivered in the fall of 2023, the Times report noted, and it also cited Hezbollah’s purchase of some 15,000 booby-trapped walkie-talkies since 2015.
20-YEAR SURVEILLANCE OF HEZBOLLAH CULMINATED IN HIT ON NASRALLAH
The New York Times said that the foundation of Israel’s surveillance effort was laid in the 2006 war with Hezbollah. For example, according to three Israeli security officials cited by the newspaper, Israel planted tracking devices on Hezbollah’s Fajr missiles, which yielded information on the terror group’s munitions and facilities. During that war, Israel bombed the sites and destroyed the missiles.
Israel also developed near-constant tracking of the terror group’s leaders by recruiting people to bug their hideouts. In the case of Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr, whom Israel killed in July, keeping track of his movements included knowledge of his multiple rendezvous with four mistresses, whom he made his wives in the months before he was killed. They married in separate phone-based ceremonies arranged by Hashem Safieddine, who was killed by Israel in October, when he emerged as Nasrallah’s heir-apparent.
Israel reportedly decided to strike Nasrallah after learning of a plan to move him to a different bunker that would have been harder to hit.
Netanyahu approved the strike that killed the terror chief immediately before the premier addressed the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... General Assembly on September 27 — when he decried Nasrallah’s grip on Lebanon.
According to the Times, confirming previous reports and comments by the prime minister, Netanyahu discussed the strike with top Israeli officials in Israel the night before taking off for New York, and gave the operation the green light after landing.
Jerusalem chose not to update the White House on the imminent elimination of Nasrallah, avoiding any opposition by Washington, trusting that the US would support Israel if Iran retaliated.
The report cited Israeli intelligence, shared with Western allies, that Nasrallah, in his very last days, seemed skeptical that Israel would try to kill him, maintaining that the country was not interested in an all-out war. After the strike that killed the long-ruling terror chief, intelligence sources determined that he died of suffocation, together with a top Iranian general based in Lebanon.
[IsraelTimes] Drone said to fire missiles at weapons warehouse causing massive blast; up to 11 reportedly killed; no comment from IDF
An alleged Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... near Damascus hit a weapons warehouse and killed several people according to Arab-language media outlets Sunday.
Reports said there was a kaboom in the city of Adra, on the eastern outskirts of the capital. A drone was said to have fired two missiles at the warehouse located in a commercial area.
Initial media reports said that at least two people were killed, though that was not the final toll.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 11 people were killed, mostly civilians. It said there was a blast at a weapons depot belonging to the former Syrian regime and that it was "likely resulting from an Israeli attack."
According to the Observatory, Syrian locals in areas where there are weapons warehouses sometimes arrange for the contents to be blown up to prevent an Israeli airstrike that could kill people in the area. However,
you can observe a lot just by watching... according to the observatory, it was not previously known that there was a weapons warehouse in the Adra area where the earth-shattering kaboom happened.
SOHR, run by a single person, has regularly been accused by Syrian war analysts of false reporting and inflating casualty numbers as well as inventing them wholesale.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces on the alleged strike.
An unconfirmed video shared on social media purported to show the aftermath of the attack. The video showed a building reduced to rubble with several bodies scattered among the debris.
Earlier in December, after the rebels took control of Damascus in a lightning offensive, Israel launched a major operation to destroy Syria’s strategic military capabilities, including chemical weapons
...have not been used since WWI except for in Iraq, by the late, unlamented Saddam Hussein and in Syria, but really, honest, not by the Syrian government. And in Germany in WWII, but that was against civilians. Lots of them, just one of many reasons Hitler's also late and unlamented... sites, missiles, air defenses, air force, and navy targets, in a bid to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile elements.
In a move that drew some international condemnation, Israel also entered a United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... -patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights. Israel has said it will not become involved in the conflict in Syria and that its seizure of the buffer zone established in 1974 was a defensive move and a temporary one until it can guarantee security along the frontier.
Israel has also signaled its desire to have "correct ties" with the new regime, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in early December.
Syria’s new de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Julani, has said that his new regime is "committed to the 1974 agreement and we are prepared to return the UN [monitors]," referring to peacekeeping forces that manned the demilitarized zone alongside Syrian troops. He has also said he does not want conflict with Israel.
Israel and Syria do not have diplomatic relations and have formally been in a perpetual state of war since Israel declared independence in 1948.
While the fall of the Assad regime, which stood for over five decades, could provide a historic opportunity for recognition between Israel and its neighbor, the potential power vacuum in Syria could also lead to further chaos and serve as a breeding ground for a resurgence of terror in the region.
[IsraelTimes] Death of Shatha al-Sabbagh comes as PA security services clash with terror operatives in West Bank city; family says shooting happened with no fighting nearby
A Paleostinian journalist was rubbed out overnight at the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, with her family on Sunday accusing the Paleostinian Authority’s security forces of killing her while she was with her mother and two small children.
Shatha al-Sabbagh, a journalism student and independent news hound in her early 20s, was killed by a bullet to the head, which her family said was fired by a security forces sniper while there was no fighting going on in the vicinity.
The security forces of the PA, however, blamed local Paleostinian terror group fighters, saying she was shot during nighttime festivities at the camp.
PA security forces have been carrying out an operation against terror groups in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, killing and detaining members of Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... and 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... , seizing weapons, and neutralizing bombs.
The crackdown came after terror operatives stole two PA vehicles and paraded them through Jenin earlier this month.
The Paleostinian Authority security forces said in a statement Sunday that the "heinous crime was committed by outlaws inside the Jenin camp."
But her family insisted that the PA security forces were responsible.
She was killed by "a sniper’s bullet from the security forces of the Paleostinian Authority in a heinous crime," the family said in a statement released on Sunday. "As the family of martyr Shatha al-Sabbagh, we hold the Paleostinian Authority and its security forces directly responsible for this crime."
Describing the incident, the family said she was with her mother when she was shot in a neighborhood that was "fully lit... and there were no festivities" at the time.
"Despite this, the snipers of the security forces shot her directly," the statement said.
Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... -based Paleostinian terror group Hamas, which also maintains a presence in the West Bank, also accused the PA forces of killing her.
"The coldblooded and deliberate killing of journalist Shatha... is a criminal act that adds to the dark record of these security apparatuses, which have committed crimes of killing, arresting and mistreating our people," said Hamas, which itself has widely been involved over the years in abuse and persecution against critics in Gaza, as well as countless terror attacks and atrocities against Israelis, including during its October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre.
The Paleostinian Journalists Syndicate called for an independent investigation to uncover the circumstances of Sabbagh’s death.
Her death brings to 11 the total number of deaths since the festivities began on December 5.
The PA has a relatively strong presence in southern and central West Bank cities, where it has managed to maintain public order. But in the northern part of the territory, especially the refugee camps in the Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem areas, the PA has struggled to exercise authority against the terror groups there.
As the PA faces a legitimacy crisis over its failure to deliver Paleostinian statehood or even hold elections, its popularity has waned significantly, particularly in the northern West Bank where rivals have taken up weapons and challenged its authority.
Rival factions of PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase.... ’s Fatah party have condemned the recent arrests, accusing the security forces of collaborating with Israel.
As Trey said, there is a civil war happening between Hamas and the West Bank. No media outlets are picking it up, because they would never want to portray Hamas or the Palestinian Authority as violent.
… Overnight, a Palestinian journalist was killed in Jenin.
Tensions are boiling.
BREAKING: Palestinians in the West Bank have taken to the streets to protest Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
They are also protesting Al Jazeera, for whitewashing terrorists to look like “leaders.” Al Jazeera is too radical for Palestinians, but not for Western academics. pic.twitter.com/i3J6ElKwag
#1
Well, the PA hires outlaws, so it explains itself.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/30/2024 8:40
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#2
One band of outlaws blames a different band of outlets. The other day Israel's foreign minister stated the new government of Syria is composed of 'gangsters'.
#3
A democrat Up for re-election again, in a MAGA world. Trying to get to blame Racism for a clear ROI Business Decision to close up stores suffering too much in loses and no longer profitable.
Either way, shouldn't she be addressing the reason for the pillage rates in her district. Then taking steps to resolve or solve them?
#7
Pressley is attempting to manipulate her constituents with standard Marxist rhetoric. The election results indicate that her strategy will eventually lose its impact. Not sure what the velocity and acceleration of the change is.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/30/2024 11:29
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#8
represents MA-7 which includes most of Boston
overwhelmingly re-elected
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/30/2024 16:07
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#9
As a proper Harkonnen she needs to shave her eyebrows.
BREAKING - IRAN: Mass strikes erupt in Iran as retailers, shopkeepers, and business owners in Tehran stop working to protest the Islamic regime's failed economic policies and rampant hyperinflation. Protesters are chanting slogans, urging others to join the general strike. pic.twitter.com/1o1WSWkHq9
Today, Sunday, December 29, 2024, large sections of Tehran’s bazaar went on strike in protest against crippling price hikes and skyrocketing currency rates. They organized a protest march, urging other merchants to join the strike.
The strike and protest began in the Shoemakers’ Bazaar and quickly spread to the Rasteh Bazaar, Small Charsu, the Fabric Sellers’ Bazaar, Bagh Sepahsalar, Seyyed Vali Passage, Hammam Chal Passage, and the Coppersmiths’ Bazaar. Shortly afterward, the fabric sellers in Abbasabad Passage, Sepah Bazaar, and Mellat Passage also joined the strike. Protesters chanted: “Courageous merchants, support, support!” “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, shut it down, shut it down!” and “You can’t do business with an 80,000 toman dollar!”
In a statement, the merchants cited several reasons for their strike, including the shortage of raw materials due to soaring currency rates, severe economic stagnation caused by exorbitant prices, lack of liquidity in the market, and heavy taxes.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), praised the protesting and striking merchants. She stated that these protests are a significant part of the broader and growing wave of social unrest, including actions by workers, laborers, nurses, and retirees. The vast majority of Iran’s people, impoverished by the plundering, oppressive, and warmongering policies of the criminal clerical regime, face relentless inflation, declining purchasing power, power outages, and disastrous living conditions. This regime of murderers, destroyers of the land and its people, will undoubtedly be overthrown by the uprising and resistance of the people.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
29 December 2024
It seems more an emotional outburst than something effective…
[IsraelTimes] Identity of killer still unknown, but some media reports say perpetrator is linked to al-Qaeda
A suicide bomber killed a local police officer and wounded another in a southern Iranian port city, home to a large Sunni Muslim community, local media said Sunday.
The hardline Javan Daily, a newspaper close to the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the attacker stopped Capt. Mojtaba Shahid’s car Saturday evening in Bandar Lengeh in the province of Hormozgan before detonating his vest.
Shahid’s deputy, who was also in the car, has been hospitalized in critical condition, the paper reported, describing the attack as an act of terrorism.
The city, some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the capital Tehran, has no recent history of terrorism.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but some local news outlets claimed Ansar al-Furqan,
...the Sunni Arab jihadi/separatist group based along the Iranian border with Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. It’s been a thorn in the Iranian side for the past quarter century...
an al-Qaeda-linked Sunni armed group, was behind it.
The attack came days ahead of the anniversary of two suicide bombings on January 3 in which nearly 100 people were killed at a memorial in southeastern Iran for top IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2020 by a US drone. Islamic State claimed those two suicide bombings.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2024
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[FoxNews] China directs largest military build-up since 1930s Nazi Germany, expert warns, citing Pentagon report. Defense report says China seeks 'mind dominance' through AI, tech in latest 'psychological warfare' operation
China is conducting the largest military build-up seen since that of Nazi Germany during the 1930s, one expert warns, after a new Department of Defense report detailed Beijing's operations including bolstering weapons and psychological warfare.
In a piece for The Federalist, Chuck DeVore, chief national initiatives officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, referenced the Pentagon's annual report to Congress and warned that the United States has spent $5.4 trillion on its war on terror and futile nation building while the Chinese threat has grown. He urged that Congress get on board with the incoming Trump administration to reallocate resources within the Pentagon to better prioritize naval strength, nuclear deterrence, missile defense, and logistics.
"China is engaging in an unprecedented military build-up that the world frankly hasn't seen since Adolf Hitler in the 1930s," DeVore, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, told "Fox & Friends Weekend."
"Now the big difference there, is that he really focused on land power, which frankly is pretty easy to build up pretty quickly," he added. "Navies are much more difficult to build up. And we are way behind. And not only do we need to catch up, but we also need to modernize our nuclear weapons, and we need to put a lot of effort into missile defense."
DeVore further detailed the Department of Defense's findings in its report, which summarized "military and security developments involving the People’s Republic of China" in 2024.
"They're massively building up their nuclear arsenal. We expect it to expand to at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, only five years from now. Probably going to be bigger than that," DeVore said Sunday. "The Chinese Navy, not by tonnage, but by numbers is now larger than the U.S. Navy. China has something like 250 times the ship building capacity that America does."
The report cites how China has bolstered its People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) arsenal to include 50 new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which can strike the continental U.S., raising its total to 400. As far as the report discloses, the DoD says China has added 300 medium-range ballistic missiles and 100 long-range cruise missiles. Their arsenal also now includes more than 600 operational nuclear warheads and is expected to have more than 1,000 by 2030.
The DoD says the People's Republic of China (PRC) has the world’s leading arsenal of hypersonic missiles, including the DF-27, which as DeVore notes, "are capable of evading U.S. missile defenses and targeting Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska."
China already has the largest navy in the world but is expected to expand from its current 370 ships and submarines to 435 by 2030.
The 182-page DoD report also details how the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the military arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), seeks "to expand the reach of its influence operations around the world and seize information dominance on the battlefield," by researching and developing what it "believes to be the next evolution of psychological warfare," known as cognitive domain operations (CDO).
[FoxNews] Elon Musk has called for bringing in more migrant workers to the US
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., says H1-B visas are being "abused" in the U.S. and argues that many American workers are being forced to "train their replacements."
Schmitt made the comments on Fox News Sunday with host Shannon Bream, cutting against a push for more migrant workers from Elon Musk.
"I think there's an important, thoughtful debate that's happening. But the context that we need to, I think, keep in mind here is that American workers have been left behind by this economy. Many factory jobs have been sent overseas," Schmittt said.
"I think the abuses of the H-1B program have been evident, where you have sort of the sons and daughters of those factory workers who lost their jobs, got white collar jobs as accountants, and they're, you know, training their replacements, the foreign workers who are undercutting their wages," he continued.
"So I think the solution here President Trump has actually articulated in 2020 is to reform that system and, you know, get rid of the abuses, make it merit-based and make sure that we're not undercutting wages and having, you know, Americans train their foreign replacements," he added.
Schmitt went on to argue that the U.S. needs to "invest" more in Americans workers, as well as defend President Trump's plans for deportations.
#2
It's been a sham since the 80s. The game then was to advertise for a job with a long list of requirements that no one could meet, then get permission to get a H-1B to fill the job. Only no one followed up to see if the H-1B met all those requirements.
Then they bought off enough Congresscritters to remove the requirement that to hire a business had to show no Americans were available. When you have Americans doing the jobs and they have to train their H-1B replacement you know exactly what they're doing.
Since the 80s business has had the time to establish the programs for us to 'grow our own' but instead have used it to undermine our own talent. Why put in years of work to get a skill that they'll just hire a foreigner to fill anyways. Its a total disincentive for Americans.
#3
It's been a sham since the 80s. The game then was to advertise for a job with a long list of requirements that no one could meet, then get permission to get a H-1B to fill the job. Only no one followed up to see if the H-1B met all those requirements.
#4
The H1-B program has been abusive to the folks 'imported' for these positions for a long while, too.
Many of these folks are brought over by 'employment agencies' (unregulated, of course) who then contract their services to the firms using these workers. The immigrant is contractually bound to these agencies, not actually employed by the firm they are working at, and are often paid far far less than what the firms hiring the agencies would pay even their newest employees. The firms pay the agencies supposedly good rates (so it looks good on their books), but in reality the H1-B individual hired is actually paid a near starvation wage (out of which the agency subtracts fees for 'placement', admin, etc.) and becomes so indebted to that agency over time that it borders on indentured servitude or worse.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/30/2024 8:13
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#8
The 'buy American' argument doesn't work here any better than it does with cars. Reflexively buy Ford if you want to, but I'll continue to choose the best car thank you. Is the system abused? Yes. So fix it. But at the conceptual level I'm 100% behind denuding foreign countries of their best and brightest.
[FoxNews] Russian President Vladimir Putin held a call with Azerbaijan's leader on Sunday
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev accused Russia of executing an "absurd" cover-up after its air defenses allegedly "shot down" a passenger plane last week.
Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for the "tragic incident" this weekend, but the Kremlin has not formally stated that Russian air defenses shot down the plane. At least 38 people were killed in the incident.
"Our plane was shot down by accident," Aliyev told state television on Sunday. "Unfortunately, in the first three days we heard only absurd versions from Russia."
"We witnessed clear attempts to cover up the matter," he added.
A Kremlin statement said the incident occurred after Russian air defenses engaged with Ukrainian attack drones, but did not outright state that Russian forces had shot down the plane.
Aliyev is a close ally with Putin's regime, and the pair held a phone call regarding the incident on Sunday. Neither party has released details of their conversation.
Crew members and survivors of the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190-passenger jet say they heard at least one loud bang before the aircraft crashed on Christmas day.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. The very model of probity.... is said to regret choosing Merrick Garland as attorney general and blames the federal judge for his election defeat.
Nearing the end of his presidency, Biden has admitted that he regrets appointing Garland because the justice department has aggressively prosecuted his son Hunter, but slowed down prosecution for President-elect Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... , sources close to the matter told The Washington Post.
In 2020, Biden also faced harsh criticism for going with Garland as two of his closest aides and friends - Former senator Ted Kaufman and Mark Gitenstein - tried to persuade the president to name former Alabama state Senator Doug Jones as attorney general instead.
The 46th president soon set his sights on Garland, who was highly recommended to him by his former chief of staff Ron Klain, but furious Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... quickly opposed his decision, saying it severely damaged his presidency.
Democrats believe that if the justice department moved faster on Trump allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents, the incoming president might have faced trial before the recent election, ultimately damaging his political career, sources told the outlet.
Other than regretting Garland, Biden is also remorseful about stepping down to let Vice President Kamala Harris Former Oakland mayor Willie Brown's' former mistress run for president as he and some of his aides believe he could have won another term.
Recently, Biden and his aides - who have chosen to remain anonymous - have admitted that they believe he could have defeated Trump again, but have remained cautious about blaming Harris or her campaign for losing to Trump in November.
Some of his aides have also voiced that Biden's sudden decision to withdraw from the race and hold onto his presidency for too long was disastrous, leaving Harris with just over three months to prepare to take over, the outlet reported.
The man is senile. What he is said to believe is orthogonal to reality.
Although some believe he made a change, other Democrats have made it clear that Biden's decision to run again was a mistake.
'Biden ran on the promise that he was going to be a transitional president, and in effect, have one term before handing it off to another generation,' Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said.
'I think his running again broke that concept — the conceptual underpinning of the theory that he would end the Trump appeal, he would defeat Trumpism and enable a new era.'
Others have said that Biden has lost touch with what the country needs at this time, adding that he and his supporters 'often yearn for a world that disappeared.'
Remember waaay back in the day he was allowed to testify in private, and none of the interview was allowed to leave the room, because he was already beyond a defensible condition?
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] On the morning of December 29, a powerful X-point flare was recorded on the Sun. This was reported by the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"A flare of the highest X value was registered on the Sun this morning. The event began at 10:08 Moscow time. The peak radiation was registered at 10:18. The explosive phase of the event lasted for about half an hour. The preliminary value of the event is X1.1," the laboratory's website said.
It is specified that the increase in solar activity has been observed for about a week and during this period the number of solar flares has increased almost twofold, but they have only now reached their highest level.
The laboratory added that the flare occurred in the area of possible impact on the Earth and the mass of emissions from it with moderate magnetic storms could reach the Earth in the period from December 31 to January 1.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on December 8, two solar flares of the highest class X and M occurred. In total, eight flares were recorded on the Sun that day, most of them of the middle class C.
In mid-November, scientists registered a powerful solar flare, in the M-class range but close to the highest class (X). Its duration was 31 minutes.
On November 6, the Institute of Applied Geophysics reported that scientists had registered the second highest class X flare on the Sun since the beginning of the month. Its duration was 32 minutes.
#3
Raskin was relected last November. It is now up to the new Congress to kick his ass out. Of course the new Congress could also impeach Biden and Harris, but that won't happen either.
#7
How about we disqualify Jamie Raskin instead? He's a Democrat. That should be grounds enough to kick his ass out of Congress.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2024 13:22
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#8
By "rampaging Trump mobs", he means the means the majority of American (49.9%) who voted for Trump. Harris got 48.4%. Seems like a pretty close game. You sure you want to burn the country down over that, Jamie?
#10
Raskin (who was re-elected in MD-8) is still pumping the theory that the insurrection language in section 3 of amendment 14 (which was passed to prevent Confederate Generals from serving in Congress) is relevant to the J6 riot.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/30/2024 15:41
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Syria has strategic interests related to Russia. This was stated on December 29 by the leader of the new Syrian authorities, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in an interview with the Al Arabiya TV channel.
He also stressed that Damascus does not want Moscow to leave Syria to the detriment of relations between the two countries.
"Russia is the second most powerful country in the world, it is of great importance. We strive to build balanced relations with everyone," added Ahmed al-Sharaa.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Bogdanov said on December 12 that Russia expects to maintain military bases in Syria because they play an important role in the fight against international terrorism. The diplomat said that Moscow has established contacts in Syria with the political committee of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (a terrorist organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation).
The leader of the armed Syrian opposition, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said that the country's new authorities "give Russia the opportunity" to reconsider relations with the people of Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan noted on December 21 that the fate of Russian army bases in Syria should be decided by the people of the republic.
[NYPost] At least he got to vote a couple times for Kamala
He lived long enough to die as the second-worst president in my lifetime, an improvement in rank I never expected to see. I don’t believe in his soul’s probable destination, but he assuredly did. Lots of details about his life and career can be read at the link — here is the key info:
Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who became the 39th president of the United States during a time of gas shortages, Cold War drama and the Iran hostage crisis, died Sunday.
He was 100.
Carter — the longest-living president in US history — passed away in Plains, Ga. — the town where he was born — after spending nearly two years in hospice care.
He survived Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years, by a little over a year. She died at age 96 in November 2023.
The former president leaves behind four children, Jack, Chip, Jeff and Amy, as well as 11 grandchildren and 14 grandchildren. He was preceded in death by Rosalynn as well as one grandchild.
“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son.
“My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”
Carter was sworn in on Jan. 20, 1977, after defeating Republican Gerald Ford, whose campaign was burdened by the political baggage he carried from his decision to pardon disgraced President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal.
He served only one tumultuous four-year term before being swept aside by Ronald Reagan — but in that time he racked up triumphs such as the historic Camp David peace accords, in which Israel and Egypt officially recognized each other’s governments.
“Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood,” he once said.
Public observances will be held in Atlanta and Washington, DC followed by a private interment in Plains, where Carter will be buried alongside Rosalynn on a plot visible from the front porch of their home of more than six decades.
The full details of President Carter’s state funeral — including public events and motorcade routes — are still pending and will be released by the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region.
He declares January 9 as a National Day of Mourning across the US. Carter, the longest-lived former president, died yesterday at his home in Plains, Georgia. He was 100.
Biden also orders US flags to fly at half-staff for 30 days from Sunday.
A few bits from something more contemporaneous (National Review, 2002), which nicely explains my animus:
Carterpalooza!
• For years, Carter has been a thorn in the side of presidents, acting as a kind of “anti-president,” as Lance Morrow once put it in an essay for Time. You recall how Carter irked Clinton on Haiti and North Korea. His low moment, however, came during the run-up to the Gulf War, when he wrote members of the U.N. Security Council — including Mitterrand’s France and Communist China — urging them to thwart the Bush administration’s effort. Our government found out about it when the Canadian prime minister, Brian Mulroney, called the defense secretary, Dick Cheney, and said, “What the . . .?” Some people actually allowed themselves to utter the word “treason.”
• Carter has long enjoyed a reputation as a Middle East sage, owing, of course, to his role in the original Camp David accords. That reputation, however, rests on shaky grounds. Truth is, Sadat and Begin had their deal worked out before ever approaching Washington. And the facilitators they used were far from saintly Southern Baptists: They used the dreadful King of Morocco and the even more dreadful Ceausescu of Romania! When they had their plan essentially worked out, however, they called the White House (whose occupant just happened to be J.C.) (initials not accidental, he and his most fervent admirers have seemed to think for years).
Why did they contact the White House? Prof. Bernard Lewis put it succinctly to Charlie Rose recently: “Well, obviously, they needed someone to pay the bill, and who but the United States could fulfill that function?”
Still, Carter is proud-as-all-get-out of his rendezvous with Middle East history. He trades on it incessantly.
• The ex-president has always considered himself screwed out of the Nobel prize, and he and his Carter Center have campaigned rather embarrassingly openly for it. He has won prizes, however, about which he crows: There was one named after his fellow liberal southerner, Fulbright; there was one from the U.N. (natch); and there was my favorite: the Zayed International Prize for the Environment, named for His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates!
Arabs are heavy-duty funders of the Carter Center, and they get a lot for their money.
• No one quite realizes just how passionately anti-Israel Carter is. William Safire has reported that Cyrus Vance acknowledged that, if he had had a second term, Carter would have sold Israel down the river. In the 1990s, Carter became quite close to Yasser Arafat. After the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia was mad at Arafat, because the PLO chief had sided with Saddam Hussein. So Arafat asked Carter to fly to Riyadh to smooth things over with the princes and restore Saudi funding to him — which Carter did.
• Carter’s op-ed piece for the New York Times last month — April 21 — was a nasty piece of work, an apologia for Arafat (despite a pro forma and unconvincing attempt at “balance”) and a mendacious attack on Sharon and Israel.
His hatred for Sharon is deep, obvious, and personal. At times he seems to use the man as a proxy for Israel: in other words, it’s okay openly to despise Sharon, if it’s slightly less okay openly to despise Israel. He refers to Sharon’s — Sharon’s — “invasion” of Egypt and his “invasion” of Lebanon. Of course, Meir was prime minister in the one instance, and Begin was prime minister in the other. Sharon was a general or defense minister. Carter also forgets the annoying little detail that Israel is a democracy, and that the people of that country democratically elected Sharon their prime minister. This is in sharp contrast to the Arab states, plus the P.A., that Carter admires and excuses.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/30/2024
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#6
I started to think more kindly of Carter after his presidency because of charitable work with Habitats for Humanity. Then he started his long demented slide into aiding and abetting the scum of the earth in foreign affairs. Good riddance as he goes to another judgement over his life's works.
#7
Say what you will about Obama and Biden, Lord knows there is a lot to be said, but in my heart of hearts, Jimmy will always be Worst President Ever.
#9
While he did many things that were good in his lifetime, his initial push for universal health care in the 70's was the eyeopener for who he actually was.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/30/2024 12:09
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#11
badanov, #2, I just ate breakfast and you show me that? Gag me with a spoon. That's just as bad as Hillary.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2024 13:27
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#12
Maybe some of you don't remember Lyndon Johnson. I dunno, maybe you do. But I'd rank him as the worst president in my memory; crooked, war monger, manic depressive, Great Society guns and butter asshole. He ruined the country's economy while tearing it apart with his ill-advised adventure in Vietnam. Sometimes I think we still haven't recovered from his time in office. That's when inflation really got going and it hasn't stopped since.
Biden ties for second with Baraq Obama. The only difference between those two is that Obama was awake.
Carter is a distant third.
Bill Clinton deserves an honorable mention for his discovery that illegal immigrants could be registered to vote and then persuaded to vote for Democrats. Before then, California produced politicians like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Sam Hayakawa, George Murphy and my all-time favorite Pete Wilson. California turned blue after Clinton left the border open.
If you wanna go back before my time, Franklin Roosevelt was probably the worst ever.
Of course, that doesn't let Carter off the hook. Carter could proclaim himself to be a born again Christian all he wanted but, as far as I'm concerned, he was just another Democrat.
I can easily remember three main failures of the Carter administration: 1) It's the economy, stupid. See Malaise. 2) Panama Canal. 3) Iran.
Then there was the USSR which I contend would still be in business if Ronald Reagan hadn't defeated Carter in 1980.
Sorry. I do not mourn his demise.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2024 13:53
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#13
Nice reminder about LBJ Abu. Obama, Biden, Carter, Clinton, FDR, Wilson, the Evil Pantheon of Democrat Presidents...
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] French politician, leader of the opposition movement "Patriots" Florian Philippot called on France to leave the European Union after the ruling of the EU Court, according to which the country is obliged to pay family benefits to families of illegal immigrants.
"The European Court of Justice has ordered France to pay family benefits to families of illegal immigrants. And yet their presence in France is illegal... Let us remember that this right is above any of our national rights, including the French Constitution! When will we get out of this madhouse?!" Filippo wrote on his page on the social network X.
He noted that the only way to maintain control over the situation is Frexit - France's exit from the European Union. Filippo also called hypocrites those who condemn the described situation, but do not call for France to leave the EU.
But thus far leaving has not been permitted, no matter how devoutly the populace might desire it.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, earlier Filippo called on France to leave the EU in order to save its agriculture. In his opinion, such a step must be taken due to the European Commission's plans to speed up the adoption of a free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur.
…a regional economic group of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, founded in 1991.
Filippo recalled that this decision was announced in Brussels at the height of farmers' protests in Europe. He called for the EU to be liquidated before it destroys the French economy.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] By the end of 2024, the asymmetric conflict between Iran and Israel had entered a state of relative calm. Tehran and Tel Aviv temporarily transferred the confrontation to the diplomatic plane in order to prepare for a new round of confrontation.
The "Axis of Resistance", consisting of groups and movements loyal to Tehran, is leaving for recovery in varying states, while others are on the verge of defeat. However, despite the victorious reports of the Israelis, they have not yet managed to finally defeat any of the proxy groups.
No. But they’ve killed and maimed an awful lot of bad guys, and broken billions of dollars of their things while awaiting the replacement of the Biden Iran-lovers with the much more sensible Trump team.
HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH: ROUND TWO
The Palestinian Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah bore the brunt of the confrontation with the Israelis in 2024. Both groups suffered heavy losses during the year: about 80% of the "old guard" (including top officials) were eliminated, and control over strategically important facilities was lost.
High-ranking Iranian military advisers who coordinated the allies' actions "on the ground" were also killed.
Nevertheless, both proxy forces retained their general outlines and core of supporters, and the reduction in the intensity of hostilities due to the conflict moving into the diplomatic realm made it possible to partially restore their previous combat effectiveness.
However, Tel Aviv is unlikely to allow Hamas and Hezbollah to fully recover. The "second round" of the struggle is approaching, during which the Israelis will seek the complete defeat of the enemy.
Preparations for the attack are underway: Israeli forces have invaded Syria and partially “cut off” the approaches to southern Lebanon from Syrian territory, effectively blocking the Iranian “transit corridor” through which weapons and volunteers were flowing to Lebanon.
A wedge has been driven between Hezbollah and like-minded Lebanese parties.
Similar work is being carried out against Hamas.
Israel continues to strengthen its hold on the occupied territory of Gaza, while simultaneously encouraging neutral Palestinian factions to join efforts to push Hamas out of the enclave.
On the other hand, Tel Aviv’s plans are being hindered by Arab countries and Türkiye, which have their own plans for the post-war structure of Gaza.
Iran is well aware of the “rat fight” around the enclave and is trying to turn it to the advantage of the “Axis of Resistance” – albeit with varying success so far.
HOUTHIS: CLOSER THAN THEY SEEM
In 2024, the role of the Yemeni Ansar Allah (Houthis) movement in Iran's proxy group system increased significantly.
It was one of the first to engage in a real fight against Israel, paralyzing shipping in the Red and (partly) Mediterranean Seas, and after neutralizing Hamas and Hezbollah, it became the main executor of attacks on the territory of the Jewish state.
At the same time, unlike the missiles and UAVs launched by Iraqi and Lebanese proxies, Ansar Allah’s products were better at penetrating the Iron Dome system and reached their targets much more often.
More often than Iran’s Iraqi Shiite sock puppets, yes, but only a few of the Houthi thingies have gotten through the gauntlet. Hezbollah had a higher percentage of success, though in the end they couldn’t close the deal.
In fact, by the end of 2024, the Houthis had moved up to first place in the ranking of Tel Aviv’s opponents.
That’s because the other parties have already been taken off the table. Winning because Israel’s attention was elsewhere for mos of the year is only lucky timing, not ability. And soon the Houthis will have lost as badly as their fellow Axis of Resistance parties.
Israel, no matter how hard it tried, has not yet succeeded in the fight against the Houthis - powerful air strikes supported by the US and Great Britain, although they damaged the infrastructure of the movement, did not reduce its combat potential. Moreover, Ansar Allah responds to each such attack proportionally, expanding the range of weapons used.
The few Houthi leaders have also failed to be caught. The Israelis have attempted to locate the flagship command posts more than once, but to no avail.
The lack of a common border with the Houthis has a negative impact on the effectiveness of Israeli operations. There are also no loyalists in Yemen on whom one could theoretically rely when conducting a combined operation. Tel Aviv's Arab allies (in particular, the UAE) are also not eager to use their own creature to solve Israeli military-political problems.
Israel has some hopes for normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, as rapprochement with Riyadh would open up opportunities for gradually moving closer to the Yemeni borders, or at least for increasing the efficiency of identifying targets for airstrikes.
That’s formal normalization. Israel and Saudi Arabia have been informally normalized for years. But then the Biden[-Harris] administration started sabotaging the situation, and the Saudis saw an opportunity to get America to sweeten the pot. We’ll see how long that holds up with The Donald in the White House.
However, the normalization process is being deliberately delayed by the Saudis. So Tel Aviv will have to look for alternative ways to fight Ansar Allah, who are not even thinking about reducing the degree of confrontation with the Jewish state.
Tehran also sees the zeal of its protégés and is ready to use the resources they have to the fullest.
IRAQI PROXIES IN AMBUSH
Throughout 2024, Iran used its Iraqi proxy forces in a fairly limited format - numerous but still fairly disparate groups were involved either in carrying out retaliatory operations (True Promise) or conducting harassing fire on American military bases in Iraq.
However, during the time of being in the "ambush", the pro-Iranian formations have done a lot of work to build a new command structure. The disparate (and often small) groups are gradually being replaced by a "proxy confederation", in the center of which are concentrated the most numerous and combat-ready forces: "Kataib Hezbollah" and "Hashd al-Shaabi".
At the same time, the Hashd al-Shaabi, being integrated into the country’s armed forces, also act as an instrument of influence on official Baghdad.
The strengthening of Iranian proxies in Iraq is making Tel Aviv increasingly nervous. Israeli "hawks" have repeatedly hinted at their readiness to attack Iraq if the threat from it "exceeds the permissible level."
The United States, acting as one of the guarantors of stability in Iraq, does not want an open conflict between partners and is trying to put pressure on the leaders of the Shiite militias through the Iraqi government.
However, Tehran also takes advantage of the continuing divisions in Iraqi society (as well as official Baghdad’s dependence on economic relations with the Iranian side) to get its protégés out of harm’s way. By the end of 2024, the diplomatic game between Tehran and Washington had effectively reached a stalemate.
Given that there is no way out of the diplomatic impasse yet, Iraq could well become the arena of confrontation between Iran and Israel in 2025.
They trumpet their war status against Israel. It would certainly be a learning experience if Israel took it hot…
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Sergey Adamov
[REGNUM] The Russian army completed all the tasks assigned to it in the SVO zone in 2024, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov said on December 18.
Over the course of the year, the Russian Armed Forces liberated 189 settlements and seized the strategic initiative along the entire line of combat conflict, President Vladimir Putin reported at an expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board on December 16. Since then, over the past two weeks, the Russian army has liberated a number of other settlements in Donbass.
Defense Minister Andrey Belousov released detailed figures on the progress of the SVO. According to him, Russian troops have liberated 4.5 thousand square kilometers of territory since January 1, 2024. Less than 1% of the LPR territory and 25-30% of the DPR, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions remain under Kiev's control. At the same time, the speed of advance of Russian troops by the end of the year was about 30 square kilometers per day.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered huge losses in 2024: they are estimated at 560 thousand servicemen killed and wounded. And since the beginning of the Central Military District, the enemy's losses have approached a million people.
If 2023 can be considered the year of "positional warfare", then 2024 will be the beginning of a radical turning point in military operations. During the year, the Regnum news agency published weekly reports from the fronts, which regularly noted that Ukrainian troops were retreating from their positions, often without even attempting to counterattack.
This was largely the result of a series of successful operations by the Russian army. At the same time, problems for the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the beginning of 2024 came from an unexpected source. And throughout the year, the crisis snowballed.
By the beginning of 2024, the situation for the Ukrainian Armed Forces was developing, if not favorably, then at least “normally,” Ukrainian sources noted. The Ukrainian Armed Forces were able to recover from the unsuccessful “counteroffensive” and replenish losses in manpower and armored vehicles through several waves of mobilization and new Western supplies.
However, since the beginning of the year, the situation with military aid supplies to Kyiv has deteriorated sharply. The Republican majority in the US Congress unexpectedly blocked all bills on providing military aid to Ukraine, citing the internal situation in the country.
Congress also stated that Ukraine had emptied the arsenals of the American army, so there could be no talk of any supplies. From February to April, political games continued in Washington, which directly affected the state of the Ukrainian army
According to the VSSU officers themselves, a total shell shortage began in the troops. The Ukrainian army, which had almost completely switched to "Western" caliber weapons, found itself dependent on foreign supplies, which were non-existent. Often, Ukrainian batteries did not receive artillery shells at all for several weeks.
Of course, the Russian army took advantage of this. In January 2024, the final assault on the Ukrainian fortified area in the Avdiivka region began. As a result of a series of tactical operations, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were forced to literally dig in in residential areas, hoping to tie down Russian troops with urban combat.
However, the Russian Armed Forces made an unexpected maneuver, cutting the enemy group in two, dividing the Ukrainian Armed Forces units operating in the area of the Coke Chemical Plant and directly in Avdiivka itself. In February, the Azov Regiment (a terrorist organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation) was transferred to the city, which, in fact, played the role of a fire brigade, allowing at least part of the garrison to be withdrawn from the emerging encirclement.
By February 17, the city came under the control of Russian troops. The liberation of Avdiivka made it possible to solve several problems at once. The enemy was driven out of the most powerful defensive node created on the outskirts of Donetsk over the course of five years. The successful completion of the Avdiivka operation also made it possible to launch an offensive in several directions at once and consistently drive the enemy out of other satellite cities of the DPR capital. Thus, the enemy lost even a hypothetical chance of breaking through to Donetsk.
ATTEMPTS TO STABILIZE THE FRONT
After the loss of Avdiivka, the Ukrainian command consistently tried to stabilize the front line. At first, the defense was organized along the suburbs of Avdiivka, then it was announced that the front would be tightly organized along the Volcha River.
However, the "Avdiivka effect" continued to operate. The units withdrawn from the city after long months of heavy fighting were not withdrawn for rotation to the rear, but, in fact, remained in the open field with orders to hold the defense. At the same time, the Ukrainian troops were only getting worse with shells, and their armored vehicle reserves were melting away.
As a result, throughout the spring and summer, the Ukrainian Armed Forces gradually rolled back further and further from Donetsk. The last attempt to stabilize the front was made in mid-summer, when Ukrainian troops rolled back to the “Poroshenko line” — a system of fortifications created back in 2015–2017.
However, the task of defending the old-new defensive line fell to newly formed units from among the mobilized. Often, the command of the Ukrainian brigades preferred to throw recruits into the most difficult sections of the front, which naturally led to the collapse of the "Poroshenko line".
The Ukrainian media reported a mass exodus from positions near the village of Novooleksandrivka by servicemen of the 53rd Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who simply refused to carry out the command's orders. The scandal, however, was quickly hushed up, and the Ukrainian command did not take any specific measures.
By autumn, the fighting gradually moved towards the city of Pokrovsk, which had a population of about one hundred thousand people as of 2014. Here, the Ukrainian Armed Forces again attempted to stabilize the front along the line of several large settlements: Kurakhovo - Gornyak - Selidovo - Novogrodovka.
Apparently, the enemy expected that the Russian army would launch a frontal assault, but this did not happen. Instead, the assault units wedged themselves between the enemy's defensive nodes, encircling them one after another. As a result, the Ukrainian Armed Forces refused to hold the settlements in principle, so the cities of Selidovo and Ukrainsk were surrendered almost without a fight.
By early October, Russian troops had also stormed the city of Ugledar, a strategically important defensive hub for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and had broken through to Kurakhovo in the north and the borders of the Zaporizhia region in the west.
THE ADVENTURE FAILED
The collapse of the front in the Pokrovsk direction and the failures of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of Chasov Yar, Toretsk and in the Donbass as a whole became possible, among other things, due to Kyiv’s strategic miscalculation.
In April, the Ukrainian Armed Forces got a chance to stabilize the front line after the US Congress unexpectedly became generous with military aid. Notably, in 2024, the US has not once reported deliveries of artillery, armored vehicles, or other offensive weapons to Ukraine. The aid packages only include ammunition, spare parts, and other consumables.
Probably, the Pentagon decided to keep the deliveries secret. What is characteristic is that Kyiv also stopped reporting on the arrival of new weapons. Although the residents of Poland have repeatedly recorded the movement of army columns with armored vehicles to the Ukrainian border.
By the beginning of summer, the Ukrainian Armed Forces also had a reserve of brigades that had undergone training at NATO training grounds and received new armored vehicles to replace those destroyed in the summer of 2023.
Rumors began to appear in the media and social networks that Kyiv was concentrating reserves for a new offensive on one of the sections of the front. However, instead of throwing elite units at the most problematic section of the front, Kyiv preferred to organize a new adventure.
In early August, a group of Ukrainian troops invaded the territory of the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region. The calculation of the Ukrainian command was extremely simple: to break through as far as possible into Russian territory with mobile groups of wheeled armored vehicles and create an operational crisis.
However, this did not happen. The Russian army units transferred to the new section of the front stopped the breakthrough. The groups of Ukrainian armored vehicles that had broken through were destroyed, and some of the vehicles got stuck in the fields and were captured as trophies.
According to the analytical portal Lostarmour, whose users study photo and video materials from the war zone, during 2024 the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 1,100 units of armored vehicles.
The statistics included, in particular, 14 Leopard 2 tanks (a total of 39 units out of 100 delivered were lost), 18 M1 Abrams tanks (a total of about 30 units were delivered), 56 Bradley IFVs (a total of 101 units were lost), 27 Stryker APCs (total losses - 41 units) and 27 Marder IFVs (total losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces - 41 units).
The data for 2024 also included 183 self-propelled artillery units (SPGs), mostly of NATO manufacture. The figures provided were obtained from open sources - in reality, the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces may be much higher.
The Kursk adventure of the Ukrainian Armed Forces led to the fact that at the decisive moment the troops in Donbass were left without reinforcements, and well-equipped and trained units of the Ukrainian army suffered heavy losses in a theater of military operations that was secondary for Kyiv.
As a result, by the end of 2024, Russian troops are a few kilometers from the borders of the Dnipropetrovsk region and are preparing to storm Pokrovsk, the last major stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the eastern part of Donbass.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Overall, it can be stated that 2024 was an extremely unsuccessful year for Ukrainian troops - in all respects. A number of tactical and strategic mistakes made by the Ukrainian Armed Forces command, high losses and low morale in the Ukrainian army units led to the collapse of the Ukrainian front in Donbas.
In the future, the Russian Armed Forces will have the opportunity to attack Zaporozhye and Kherson, since Kyiv has almost no reserves left for planning large-scale strategic operations.
If the current situation continues in 2025, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will suffer a crushing defeat on all fronts. Kyiv's opportunities to change the situation in its favor are currently exhausted.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 20:18 The 122mm BM-21 Grad MLRS crew of the Center group of forces delivered an artillery strike on the UAV control point, the concentration of manpower and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. 20:15 The Ukrainian Armed Forces unsuccessfully attempted to counterattack in the Krasnoarmeysk region of the DPR, said the head of the region, Denis Pushilin.
19:22 The Russian Armed Forces are fighting in the area of the Kurakhovskaya thermal power plant in the DPR, said the head of the region, Denis Pushilin.
18:03 In the Belgorod Region, a Ukrainian Armed Forces drone injured a man. The victim was taken to the district hospital with a tangential wound to the face. In addition, as a result of another attack by Ukrainian nationalists, a passenger car was damaged, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported.
17:42 A Ukrainian terrorist drone was shot down over the Oryol region, Governor Andrey Klychkov reported.
16:14 The ZALA UAV crew of the West Forces Group helped servicemen of the artillery unit of the West Forces Group to detect and destroy self-propelled artillery unit "Krab" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the SVO.
16:13 Four Ukrainian UAVs were destroyed over the Rostov, Bryansk and Oryol regions, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.
16:05 A drone attack in the city of Salsk in the Rostov region resulted in minor damage to a building on the territory of a locomotive depot; no one was injured, acting head of the region Yuri Slyusar reported.
14:00 Air defense forces destroyed a Ukrainian Armed Forces missile in the Kursk region, the regional government.
13:57 Air defense forces shot down a Ukrainian drone in the Ust-Donetsk district of the Rostov region, said acting head of the region Yuri Slyusar.
12:18 New briefing from the Russian Ministry of Defense:
– Russian troops liberated the settlement of Novotroitskoye in the DPR;
– The Russian Armed Forces have damaged the infrastructure of military airfields of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the UAV launch site;
– The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 420 fighters and four field ammunition depots due to the actions of the West group of forces;
– Russian air defense systems shot down 61 Ukrainian drones in one day;
– The fighters of the “South” occupied more advantageous positions, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 220 soldiers;
– The “North” and “Dnepr” groups killed up to 110 Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters in one day.
12:15 Crew of the Su-34 multifunction supersonic fighter-bomber of the Aerospace Forces inflicted an attack on personnel and a stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border area of the Kursk region.
11:24 Gladkov: The Ukrainian Armed Forces fired more than a hundred rounds at the Belgorod region in one day.
10:41 Crew of the Giatsint-B gun of the Dnepr troop groupstrucka Czechoslovakian self-propelled artillery unit "Dana" of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, camouflaged in a forest belt, in the Orekhov direction.
10:35 A cleanup of soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has begun on the territory of the Kurakhovskaya thermal power plant in the DPR, law enforcement agencies told TASS.
“They started to clear out the Kurakhovskaya thermal power plant,” the security forces said.
They emphasized that the Ukrainian Armed Forces group in Kurakhovo is completely blocked.
09:37 Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have struck 21 settlements in the Belgorod region, one person was injured, the head of the region Gladkov reported.
09:33 Air defense systems destroyed two Ukrainian drones over Crimean territory at night, the Defense Ministry reported.
09:25 Strela-10 SAM system crews of the combined arms army of the West group of forces destroyed UAVs "Leleka-100", "Valkyrie", "Furia" and "Spectator" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of a special military operation.
Linked article is available only through a VPN
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Kharkov direction, the Sever Group of Forces hit formations of a mechanised brigade of the AFU and a territorial defence brigade close to Volchansk and Tikhoye (Kharkov region).
The enemy lost up to 40 troops, a motor vehicle, a 152mm D-20 gun, a 152mm Giatsint-S gun, and two 122mm D-30 howitzers.
One electronic warfare station and one ammunition depot were neutralised.
The Zapad Group of Forces improved the situation along the front line, inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of a tank brigade, two mechanised brigades of the AFU, a territorial defence brigade, and a national guard brigade near Kunye, Zapadnoye, Dvurechnaya, Glushkovka, Petropavlovka, Lozovaya (Kharkov region), Yampol, and Torskoye (Donetsk People's Republic).
Four counter-attacks launched by AFU armed forces were repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 420 troops, an armoured personnel carrier, six motor vehicles, a UK-made 155mm Braveheart self-propelled artillery system, and a 152mm D-20 gun.
One Anklav-N electronic warfare station and four field ammunition depots were destroyed.
The Yug Group of Forces took more advantageous lines, engaged formations of two mechanised brigades, a motorised infantry brigade, an airmobile brigade of the AFU, and a territorial defence brigade of the AFU close to Dalneye, Minkovka, Ostrovskogo, Yantarnoye, Razliv, Chasov Yar, and Kurakhovo (Donetsk People's Republic).
Two enemy counterattacks were repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 220 troops, a tank, a pick-up truck, a UK-made 155mm FH-70 howitzer, a U.S.-made 105mm M-119 gun, and an electronic warfare station.
The Tsentr Group of Forces liberated Novotroitskoye (Donetsk People's Republic) as a result of the successful offensive.
The Russian Armed Forces inflicted losses on the manpower and hardware of three mechanised brigades, a motorised infantry brigade, a naval infantry brigade, a territorial defence brigade, and an assault brigade of the National Police of Ukraine near Krasnoarmeysk, Zarya, Vozdvizhenka, Dzerzhinsk, Shevchenko, Dachenskoye, Novoolenovka, and Peschanoye (Donetsk People's Republic).
In addition, 11 AFU counterattacks were repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to more than 480 troops, three infantry fighting vehicles, five armoured fighting vehicles, five pick-up trucks, a Polish-made 155mm Krab self-propelled artillery system, a 152mm D-20 gun, a 152mm Msta-B howitzer, and a 122mm D-30 howitzer.
The Vostok Group of Forces advanced further to the depths of the enemy's defence and hit formations of a mechanised brigade, a motorised infantry brigade of the AFU, and a territorial defence brigade near Ravnopol and Zelenoye Pole of the Donetsk People's Republic.
Two counterattacks launched by enemy assault detachments were repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 170 troops, a tank, three motor vehicles, a U.S.-made 155mm Paladin self-propelled artillery system, a 152mm 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled artillery system, and a 152mm D-20 gun.
The Dnepr Group of Forces engaged manpower and hardware a mechanised brigade, an infantry brigade of the AFU , and two territorial defence brigades close to Kamenskoye (Zaporozhye region), Antonovka, Sadovoye, and Mikhaylovka (Kherson region).
The AFU lost up to 70 troops, two motor vehicles, an electronic warfare station, and a Dutch-made Squire reconnaissance radar station.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack drones, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have engaged the infrastructure of military airfields, the launch site of unmanned aerial vehicles as well as clusters of manpower and military hardware of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 137 areas.
Air defence units shot down 61 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 650 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 38,813 unmanned aerial vehicles, 590 anti-aircraft missile systems, 20,083 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,504 MLRS combat vehicles, 20,073 field artillery guns and mortars, and 29,621 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise an enemy group, which broke into the territory of Kursk region.
During the offensive, the Sever Group of Forces inflicted fire damage on formations of a heavy mechanised brigade, four mechanised brigades, three air assault brigades, a naval infantry brigade, two territorial defence brigades, and an assault battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine close to Daryino, Kurilovka, Leonidovo, Loknya, Malaya Loknya, Maryevka, Nizhny Klin, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Novaya Sorochina, and Cherkasskoye Porechnoye. Three attacks of enemy assault groups were repelled.
Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, and Artillery strikes engaged AFU manpower and hardware close to Aleksandria, Viktorovka, Guyevo, Kruglenkoye, Lebedevka, Nikolsky, Pogrebki, Russkoye Porechnoye, Sverdlikovo, Staraya Sorochina, Sudzha as well as Belovody, Bogdanovka, Zhuravka, and Miropolye in Sumy region.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 400 troops during the day, three tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles, an armoured personnel carrier, three armoured fighting vehicles, 14 motor vehicles, four artillery guns, a mortar, 13 FPV-drones, and an electronic warfare station.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk region, the AFU losses amounted to more than 45,220 troops, 262 tanks, 203 infantry fighting vehicles, 142 armoured personnel carriers, 1,349 armoured fighting vehicles, 1,231 motor vehicles, 336 artillery guns, 42 MLRS launchers, including 11 of HIMARS and six of MLRS made by the USA, 13 anti-aircraft missile launchers, seven transport-loading vehicles, 83 EW stations, 13 counter-battery warfare radars, four air defence radars, 28 units of engineering and other materiel, including 13 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, six armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] On the last day of the outgoing year, December 31, snowfalls are expected in Moscow, the air temperature may rise slightly above zero. This was reported on Sunday, December 29, by leading specialist of the Phobos weather center Evgeny Tishkovets.
"There will be snowfalls on December 31, and the thermometer will rise slightly above zero. By midnight, the snow storm will subside, and on New Year's Eve, there will be light frosts of -1…-6," he wrote on his Telegram channel.
According to him, snowfalls will resume on January 1 in the afternoon. On January 3, it will get colder to -6, and the next day the frosts will strengthen to -10 degrees. By Christmas, snowdrifts will increase to 22-27 cm, and the daytime temperature will be up to -8 degrees.
On January 9, the temperature background will finally return to the norm of the second month of winter, in the morning the thermometers will show readings of -8... -13, by the weekend the first -20 degrees of this season are not excluded.
As previously reported by Regnum News Agency, the chief specialist of the Moscow meteorological bureau, Tatyana Pozdnyakova, warned that on December 31 and January 1, the atmospheric pressure in the capital region will be very low, 10-12 degrees below normal, which may have a negative impact on the well-being of weather-sensitive people. Wind gusts may reach 12-14 meters per second, so it will seem that frost has come.
[IsraelTimes] Leader of tiny Syrian community visits destroyed Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue in capital’s Jobar neighborhood, recounts years of site being off-limits during civil war
In this Damascus suburb, the handful of remaining Jews in Syria can again make pilgrimages to one of the world’s oldest synagogues where people from throughout the region once came to pray.
Syria’s 13-year civil war left the synagogue largely destroyed. Walls and roofs have collapsed. Some artifacts are missing. A marble sign in Arabic at the gate says it was first built 720 years before Christ.
Since snuffies overthrew president Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... in early December, people have been able to safely visit the widely destroyed Jobar suburb that was pounded for years by government forces while in the hands of opposition fighters.
Syria was once home to one of the world’s largest Jewish communities. Those numbers have shrunk dramatically, especially after the State of Israel was created in 1948 and following anti-Jewish riots and persecution.
Today, only nine Jews live in Syria, according to the head of the community, almost all older men and women. The community believes that no Syrian Jews will remain in the country in a few years.
One of the people visiting the Jobar Synagogue, also known as Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue, on Thursday was gray-haired Bakhour Chamntoub, the head of the community in Syria.
"This synagogue means a lot to us," the 74-year-old told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named during his first visit in 15 years.
Chamntoub had heard the synagogue was damaged, but he did not expect to see that part of it had been reduced to a pile of debris.
"I am frankly disturbed," he said.
Chamntoub said Jewish people from around the world have been calling him to say they are ready to help rebuild.
He had refused to leave Syria during the war, while all 12 of his siblings left. He said he was happy in Syria and surrounded by people who respect him.
Chamntoub said he had been one of the few Jews who openly spoke about his faith, adding that he never faced discrimination. He said other Jews preferred not to speak openly for safety reasons amid the animosity in Syria toward Israel and fears of being labeled spies or collaborators.
The Jewish community in Syria dates back to the prophet Elijah’s Damascus sojourn nearly 3,000 years ago. After 1099, when Christian armies conquered Jerusalem in the First Crusade and massacred the city’s Moslem and Jewish inhabitants, some 50,000 Jews reportedly fled to Damascus, making up nearly a third of residents. Another wave of Jews later arrived from Europe, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition that began in 1492.
The community in Syria numbered about 100,000 at the start of the 20th century. In the years surrounding Israel’s creation, Syrian Jews faced increased tensions and restrictions. Many emigrated to Israel, the United States and other countries.
Under the Assad family’s 54-year dynasty, Jews in Syria enjoyed freedom in performing religious duties, but community members were barred from traveling outside the country to prevent them from going to Israel until the early 1990s. Once travel restrictions were lifted after Arab-Israeli peace talks started, many more left.
Before Syria’s conflict began in 2011, Chamntoub and other remaining community members came on Saturdays to Jobar for prayers. He recalled Torahs written on gazelle leather, chandeliers, tapestries and carpets. All are gone, likely stolen by looters.
Barakat Hazroumi, a Moslem born and raised near the synagogue, recounted how worshipers on Saturdays asked him to turn on the lights or light a candle since Jews are not allowed to light fires or do physical labor on the Sabbath rest day.
"It was a beautiful religious place," Hazroumi said of the synagogue, which at some point during the war was protected by rebels. It and the whole destroyed suburb "needs to be reconstructed from scratch."
Assad’s forces recaptured Jobar from rebels in 2018 but imposed tight security, preventing many people from reaching the area.
The new rulers of Syria, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... , have said they will allow members of all religions to perform their religious duties freely. There have been some sectarian attacks but mostly against members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
After visiting the synagogue, Chamntoub returned to his home in old Damascus, close to the private Jewish school known as Maimonides that was founded in 1944 but has been closed for decades. Posters in Hebrew remain on the walls.
The area is known as the Jewish quarter. Many old homes have doors and windows closed with pieces of metal and a sign in Arabic saying: "The real estate is closed by the state’s Higher Committee for the Affairs of Jews."
As the Jewish community has shrunk, it has also struggled to find kosher food. Chamntoub receives packages of meat from siblings in the US at least once a year via people traveling to Syria. In the past, he went to the chicken market with a Jewish friend who would slaughter them, but the man now can hardly walk.
Chamntoub mostly eats vegetarian dishes. Almost every morning, he cooks for himself and a Jewish woman in the area with no remaining relatives in Syria.
The woman, 88-year-old Firdos Mallakh, sat on a couch Thursday under two blankets. When asked to greet an AP journalist with "Shabbat Shalom," she replied it was not yet time. "Today is Thursday and tomorrow is Friday," she said.
Chamntoub, who makes a living as a landlord, asked Mallakh why she had not turned on the gas heater. Mallakh said she did not want to waste gas.
Chamntoub hopes that with the fall of Assad, Syrians will enjoy more freedoms, economic and otherwise. In the past, he said, authorities prevented him from giving interviews without permission from the security agencies.
"I am a Jew and I am proud of it," he said.
But with so few remaining in Damascus, the city’s synagogues see no services. Chamntoub is marking the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which began on Wednesday, alone at home.
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[IsraelTimes] Judicial official, speaking anonymously, says Beirut will ask for file on Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi before deciding on extradition; Cairo convicted him in absentia for terrorism
Lebanese authorities have arrested Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian opposition activist wanted by Cairo and son of the late spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Lebanese judicial official told AFP on Sunday.
Qaradawi, also a poet, was detained on Saturday as he arrived from Syria at the Masnaa border crossing due to an Egyptian arrest warrant, the official said.
The warrant was “based on an Egyptian judiciary ruling” sentencing Qaradawi in absentia to five years’ jail on charges of “opposing the state and inciting terrorism,” the official added.
His father was prominent Sunni scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in Egypt.
The late scholar was imprisoned several times in Egypt over his links to the Muslim Brotherhood. He died in 2022, after decades in exile in Qatar.
Lebanese authorities “will ask the Egyptian authorities” to transfer Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi’s file for examination, the judicial official said, requesting anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The judiciary will make a recommendation on whether “the conditions are met for him to be extradited” and the matter will be referred to the Lebanese government, which must make the final decision, the official added.
Qaradawi was a political organizer against the government of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in 2011 in the Arab Spring uprising.
He later became a vocal opponent of current Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, who in 2013 overthrew elected president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
A family friend told AFP that Qaradawi holds Turkish citizenship and was returning from a visit to Syria, where rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham toppled longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad on December 8.
Assad’s ousting came more than 13 years after war broke out in Syria with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.
Qaradawi had posted a video online taken at Damascus’s Umayyad mosque, celebrating Assad’s fall, expressing hope for “victory” in other Arab Spring countries including Egypt, and warning Syrians of “malicious regimes” in “the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt,” who he described as “Zionist-affiliated states.”
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.
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
[IsraelTimes] British government sources tell London’s The Times that 
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
[IsraelTimes] Government document compiles grim details of abuse of hostages, including whipping, branding with heated iron, isolation, binding, starving, maltreatment and psychological torment.
...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 
[NYPOST] Washington DC's District Department of Transportation denounced a transit ad that was spotted near the Capitol that likened MAGA hat wearers to garbage.
[NYPOST] Rep. 
[IsraelTimes] Fighter jets hit rocket launchers amid resurgent fire from Strip; fourth baby dies of hypothermia in Gaza tent city; IDF says it killed six Oct. 7 perpetrators last month
......
[IsraelTimes] Death of Shatha al-Sabbagh comes as PA security services clash with terror operatives in West Bank city; family says shooting happened with no fighting nearby
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
[IsraelTimes] Identity of killer still unknown, but some media reports say perpetrator is linked to al-Qaeda
[FoxNews] China directs largest military build-up since 1930s Nazi Germany, expert warns, citing Pentagon report. Defense report says China seeks 'mind dominance' through AI, tech in latest 'psychological warfare' operation
...every time you hear the phrase 
by Leonid Tsukanov
[IsraelTimes] Leader of tiny Syrian community visits destroyed Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue in capital’s Jobar neighborhood, recounts years of site being off-limits during civil war
