[IsraelTimes] The IDF confirms launching Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s early this morning against what it says was infrastructure used by Hezbollah on the Syria-Leb ...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?... border to transfer arms.
According to the military, Israeli Air Force fighter jets hit sites at the Janta crossing, located in the Beqaa Valley of eastern Lebanon.
"The Hezbollah terror organization uses civilian infrastructure to carry out terror activity and to transfer weapons, which are intended to be used to carry out terror attacks against Israeli citizens," the military says.
[DW] German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has announced the dissolution of the country's lower house of parliament. The move paves the way for an early election in February.
Germany's head of state started the countdown to a general election on Friday by dissolving the country's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag.
"I have decided to dissolve the 20th German Bundestag to fix the date for an early election for February 23," said President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, adding that "political stability in Germany is a precious asset."
Steinmeier's decision comes after Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence in the legislature on December 16.
Steinmeier set the date for the new election for February 23.
The parliamentary leaders of Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the conservative opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) had previously agreed on the date.
WHO COULD BE THE NEXT CHANCELLOR?
Recent opinion polls have the CDU, headed by Friedrich Merz, holding a lead of around 10 points over the center-left SPD suggesting a tough bid for reelection for Scholz.
The dissolving of Germany's lower house of parliament paves the way for an early election on February 23Image: Soeren Stache/dpa/picture alliance
The populist, far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been polling strongly and has nominated Alice Weidel as its candidate for chancellor.
But other parties have so far refused to work with the AfD, meaning Weidel has little to no chance of taking the job.
Some of the key issues facing Germany include immigration, kick-starting the economy and how best to support Ukraine as it battles Russia's continued invasion.
"Hatred and violence must have no place in this election campaign, nor denigration or intimidation... all this is poison for democracy," Steinmeier said.
The president also told political parties and voters of the challenges the next government will face given the "economically unstable situation... the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine" and the ongoing debates over immigration and climate change.
#3
Among the "democratic" parties there's an iron commitment to the hard left eco-socialist policies that are destroying the country's economy.
The election will not change anything.
The likely, but not certain transition from Scholtz to Merz will bring as much change as the transition from Brezhnev to Andropov and Chernenko brought to the SU.
#4
Like France, there will likely be shenanigans. If there are, Germany will end up like France with a government that is more dysfunctional than a Jersey Shore episode and another election shortly thereafter.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/28/2024 13:06
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#5
@4 I don't think so.
The AfD is the only relevant party still opposed to the climate "Great Leap Forward".
Polls indicate that they might get 20%+ of the votes and seats at most.
Even then they will have absolutely ZERO influence on any policies, i.e. absolutely NO political power whatsoever.
As I said, the other relevant parties have an iron commitment to economic climate suicide.
#6
Over the next year, what politicians think will become less important in proportion to what the people think. Standby for heavy swells as the ship comes about.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/28/2024 14:32
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#7
We'll see. If Trumpism triumphs no one will know what's gonna happen.
How big is the preference cascade? World-wide? Could get very interesting.
#8
Watch as anything not Marxist (aka 'far-right) will be blocked by the established parties
Since the people have forfeited the confidence of the government, the only reasonable course is for the government to dissolve the people and elect another.
[NYPost] The number of migrants colonists traversing the treacherous Darien Gap in the hopes of making it to the United States has plummeted as Panama’s right-wing President José Raúl Mulino cracks down on the major migration route.
Crossings through the 70-mile stretch of jungle — the only land bridge between South and Central America — dropped by 40% this year to about 300,000, the country’s Security Minister Frank Abrego told the Wall Street Journal.
Mulino, who took office in July, had vowed to curb illegal immigration, with his government quickly signing an agreement with the US to crack down on migration through the Darien Gap. Under the deal, the US agreed to "cover" the costs of repatriating migrants colonists who enter Panama illegally.
But despite the significant drop in crossings, Mulino stressed that the numbers could creep up again without ongoing US support.
"We want the Trump administration to realize that its border is actually here at the Darien Gap and to see how complicated that area is," Mulino told the Journal.
"We are still concerned," he said.
Last year alone, human smugglers helped more than 530,000 migrants colonists navigate the remote jungle route on their way through the country.
The notable decline is thanks in large part to the country beefing up their security measures to include biometric screening — which makes it easier for border agents to identify those with criminal histories.
These numbers are promising, but ex-border chiefs previously told The Post it came more than three years too late thanks to the disastrous "border czar" reign of Vice President Kamala Harris What can be, unburdened by what has been The Darien Gap has become a favorite smuggling route and helped facilitate multiple surges of migrants colonists entering the US illegally.
Abrego said some days as many as 25,000 people would take the route on a daily basis.
Migrants who made their way through the dense jungle were then whisked via bus through Panama and onto Costa Rica, where the cycle would repeat.
Many countries along the caravan route would even provide busing to migrants colonists in the interest of moving them along to the next country, the Journal reported.
Mulino has taken hardline steps to end the free-for-all, including deploying troops and installing razor wire fences to keep migrants colonists moving single-file through the wilderness, which makes them easier to track.
Trump and Mulino don’t see eye to eye on everything, however.
The incoming commander-in-chief has made overtures for the US to take control of the Panama Canal, which was given to the country via treaty nearly a quarter-century ago.
Mulino said in no uncertain terms that the canal changing hands is not in the offing.
[IsraelTimes] Repair of Deir al-Balah plant, connected to Israel’s power grid, seen as potential roadmap for Palestinian Authority’s involvement in postwar Gaza
The quiet resumption of operations at a desalination plant in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip last month marked a small but significant step toward restoring public services in the Paleostinian territory ravaged by more than 14 months of war.
The process of restarting the plant in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, involved both Israeli and Paleostinian stakeholders who could have a hand in the territory’s future, especially amid renewed hopes for a ceasefire-hostage deal in recent days.
While its reopening has had a limited tangible impact so far, diplomats close to the project suggest it could offer a tentative roadmap for Gaza’s postwar administration.
Since being reconnected to Israel’s electricity grid, the station has been producing approximately 16,000 cubic meters of water per day, according to UNICEF.
It serves more than 600,000 Gaza residents through tankers or the networks of Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis governorates in central and southern Gaza, respectively.
"Its production capacity remains limited in the face of immense needs," an official within the Paleostinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority (PENRA) told AFP.
Residents of the devastated Paleostinian territory have struggled since the early days of the war between Israel and the Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... terror group to secure even basic necessities, including food and clean water.
Human Rights Watch last week accused Israel of committing "acts of genocide" in Gaza by restricting water access — a claim denied by Israeli authorities.
The WASH Cluster, which brings together humanitarian organizations in the water sector, reports that distribution of water has become very complex in Gaza.
The pipelines transporting water have been damaged, leaving Gazooks — many of whom are living in makeshift shelters after being displaced by bombardments — without any means of storing the essential resource.
The plant is one of three such seawater processing facilities in the Gaza Strip, which before the war met around 15 percent of the 2 million-plus residents’ needs.
In the months following the outbreak of war, sparked by the shock Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in which thousands of turbans killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251, the plant operated at minimal capacity, relying on solar panels and generators amid a persistent scarcity of fuel in Gaza.
It could fully resume operations only after reconnecting to one of the power lines supplied by Israel, which charges the Paleostinian Authority for the electricity.
PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS
UNICEF, which provides technical support for the Deir el-Balah plant, indicated in late June that it had reached an agreement with Israel to restore electricity to the plant.
Subsequently, the Israel Defense Forces’ Coordinated Office for Government Activity in the Territories (COGAT), overseeing civilian affairs in the Paleostinian territories, announced that the desalination plant had been reconnected to the Israeli grid.
But the line meant to supply the plant was heavily damaged.
"It took five months to repair the line from Kissufim" in Israel, said Mohammed Thabet, front man for Gaza’s electricity company. "These are emergency, temporary solutions."
Several diplomatic sources told AFP that the episode showed the Paleostinian Authority had proven it was in a position to have a hand in the future governance of Gaza, as its institutions were fixing the electricity line on the ground, coordinating with all actors.
The PA aims to play a central role in postwar Gaza, seeking to strengthen its influence in the territory after it was ousted when Hamas violent mostly peacefully took control in 2007.
An Israeli security source told AFP that the Israeli partners involved had acted on "instructions from the political echelons," and that the project was part of an effort to prevent an outbreak of disease, which could endanger the lives of hostages still held in Gaza.
Ninety-six of the people taken hostage by Hamas-led turbans last year are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel "facilitated the connection of the electric line specifically to the desalination plant," the source said, adding that a mechanism was in place to track usage to "prevent electricity from being stolen."
In October and November, Israel worked with a UN-led polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set. Currently the disease is only found in Pakistain and Afghanistain... vaccination drive in Gaza, pausing its bombing campaign against Hamas in areas where children were receiving the doses.
[IsraelTimes] Military says ‘small fire in an empty building’ unrelated to troop activity, attacks ‘journalistic integrity’ of outlets running accusation; Arab states rush to condemn operations
The IDF on Saturday denied Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... allegations that Israeli troops had set fire to the 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... . Nevertheless, the incident drew fierce condemnation from Arab states.
IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani pushed back on Hamas’s account. "While IDF troops were not in the hospital, a small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control," he said, adding that a preliminary investigation had found "no connection" between military activity and the fire.
"Running with unsubstantiated reports on the cause of this fire shows nothing but questionable journalistic integrity," said Shoshani.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry had accused Israeli troops of setting fires in several parts of Kamal Adwan, including the lab and surgery department, and said that 25 patients and 60 health workers remain in the hospital.
The ministry also said Israeli troops had entered the hospital, taken staff and patients outside and forced them to strip in winter weather. Unverified video circulating on social media purported to show patients and staff being marched outside in front of IDF tanks.
The Hamas ministry’s account could not be independently confirmed, and attempts to reach hospital staff have been unsuccessful.
The IDF said it had been conducting operations against Hamas infrastructure and operatives in the area, and that it had ordered people out of the hospital. However,
a hangover is the wrath of grapes... the IDF denied entering the Kamal Adwan complex as of Friday evening.
After Hamas accused Israel of storming and setting fire to Kamal Adwan, Arab states rushed to denounce Israeli operations.
Jordan’s foreign ministry said Amman "condemns in the strongest terms the burning of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip by the Israeli occupation forces, and forcing patients and medical staff to evacuate it."
The statement added that the reported Israeli military actions were "a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law."
A statement from the United Arab Emirates foreign ministry echoed the Jordanian statement, stressing Abu Dhabi’s "categorical rejection of this heinous act that violates international humanitarian law, and the systematic and reprehensible destruction of the remaining health system in the Strip."
Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... also issued a statement decrying the Israeli operations and claiming they violate "international law, international humanitarian law, and the most basic humanitarian and ethical standards."
Hamas has fought from within hospitals throughout the war and even periodically hid some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped in its October 7, 2023, massacre inside. International law prohibits targeting hospitals during wartime, but hospitals can lose this protection if used for military purposes.
The IDF, which last operated against Hamas at Kamal Adwan in October, said earlier Friday that the hospital had "once again become a key stronghold for terrorist organizations and continues to be used as a hideout for terrorist operatives."
The IDF also said it had "facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients, and medical personnel prior to the operation" to mitigate civilian harm.
Since October, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in northern Gaza, stating its goal is to prevent Hamas from regrouping in the area.
The IDF said it “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients, and medical personnel prior to the operation” to mitigate civilian harm. The civilians were taken to other hospitals in Gaza in an effort coordinated by the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) with local health officials and international organizations, the military said.
“The IDF and COGAT continue to make extensive efforts to enable patients to continue receiving care in other hospitals by facilitating the evacuation of patients from the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the ongoing transfer of supplies, food and fuel to the area, and the restoration of operations of hospitals in the area, while maintaining ongoing communication with hospital officials,” the army added.
According to Munir Al-Bursh, the director of the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, the IDF ordered 350 people to leave Kamal Adwan for a nearby school sheltering displaced families. They included 75 patients, their companions, and 185 medical staff.
Youssef Abu El-Rish, the deputy Gaza health minister, said soldiers were transferring patients and medical staff to the Indonesian Hospital, which had already been put out of operation due to heavy damage resulting from Israeli fire a day earlier.
[IsraelTimes] Ludmila Lipovsky stabbed outside her assisted living facility; security services say assailant from West Bank helped bust terror networks, was moved to Israel after cover was blown
An 83-year-old woman was stabbed and killed in a terror attack in Herzliya on Friday. The assailant, a 28-year-old Paleostinian from the West Bank, had been a Shin Bet informant and was transferred to Israel after his cover was blown, the security agency said.
The victim, Ludmila Lipovsky, a Holocaust survivor, had just left her assisted living complex and was waiting for a ride to a doctor’s appointment at the time of the attack, Hebrew-language media reports said.
The attacker — identified by Ynet as Ibrahim Shalhoub, from the West Bank city of Tulkarem — reportedly pounced on Lipovsky and began stabbing her.
"[Lipovsky] went out and waited for her daughter to take her to the doctor and the terrorist started stabbing her, five or six times. She has been a resident of the nursing home here for many years. I heard screams, I went out and saw her lying on the floor," an unnamed staffer at the facility told the Walla news site.
Security guards in the area shot the attacker, seriously wounding him and "neutralizing" him, authorities said. He was then arrested by police. No details were given on his condition.
Lipovsky was rushed by the Magen David Adom ambulance service to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, where doctors pronounced her dead.
Following the attack, the Shin Bet security service revealed that the assailant was a former informant for the agency, and had been involved in uncovering terror networks in the West Bank, before his cover was blown and he was transferred to Israel. Transfer him back to Paleo control. They'll deal with him
Tel Aviv District Commander Haim Sargrof said the investigation into the attack was being managed together with the Shin Bet, and noted, "We are at a very high level of preparedness, this was a quick response that ended the incident."
Since October 7, 43 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in festivities with terror operatives in the West Bank.
Israeli Deep State giving covert support to the protest cadres or Israeli intelligence surreptitiously building cases? What did his activist wife know, and when did she know it?
[IsraelTimes] ‘I have no intention of presenting myself for questioning,’ says Likud MK, amid investigation into her social media posts about protest leader Shikma Bressler’s partner
Likud MK Tally Gotliv cited parliamentary immunity on Thursday as she refused to present herself for police questioning over social media posts a year ago in which she revealed that a protest leader’s partner was a member of the Shin Bet security service.
"I have no intention of presenting myself for questioning," Gotliv wrote in an extensive post to X, which she said was the text of her response to the summons.
"I am entitled to substantive immunity, set down in clause 1 of the Immunity Law, according to which I am immune from any criminal liability as a result of any statement or expression of an opinion in the framework of performing my duties," she wrote.
Gotliv went on to defend her actions from last January when she outed the partner of Bressler, who in 2023 was a leader of protests against the government’s contentious judicial overhaul.
"Revealing the details of the dangerous Shikma Bressler’s partner was done for the sake of, and in the framework of, performing my duties," Gotliv claimed.
"A Shin Bet employee whose spouse leads a civil rebellion, encourages refusal to serve, and opposes the government in a way that is dangerous and endangers others, has an obligation to be fully transparent and to identify himself," she added.
Opposition to the judicial overhaul effort drew hundreds of thousands to the streets in 2023 and included calls by some IDF reservists not to volunteer for duty. The overhaul was shelved when the Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... terror group attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, starting the ongoing war — though some in the government have repeatedly threatened to revive it.
Last January, Gotliv repeatedly circulated unfounded claims that connected Bressler and her partner to Hamas and its October 7 onslaught, including a conspiracy theory that US intelligence agencies had intercepted a conversation between Bressler’s partner and then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The claims led Bressler to sue Gotliv for defamation, seeking NIS 2.6 million ($715,000) in damages.
Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar at the time advised Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to open an investigation into Gotliv over her posts identifying Bressler’s partner.
"The identities of past or present security service workers are confidential, and their publication is forbidden," Bar wrote at the time, in a letter to the attorney general citing the Shin Bet Law.
In her post to X on Thursday, Gotliv called her summons to questioning "an abuse of power, in order to silence me," and asserted that "an MK can only be arrested if they are about to carry out a crime that will harm security."
Last month, after Baharav-Miara approved the investigation into Gotliv, the Likud MK introduced a bill in the Knesset to ban any criminal investigation into a politician unless it was approved by a Knesset supermajority, of 90 out of 120 MKs.
Knesset legal adviser Sagit Afik said that Gotliv must publicly affirm in the Knesset plenum that the bill will not retroactively apply to civil litigation in which she is engaged, in order to prevent the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Gotliv also said on X Thursday that she would call for investigations into Bar and former top IDF intelligence official Aharon Haliva, both of whom she accused of having "carried out a military coup."
She also appeared to suggest that her summons came in retaliation for her comments on the Knesset floor earlier this week assailing left-wing MK Yair Golan, leader of the 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... party.
[IsraelTimes] But both Ragheb Alama and the Emirati singer he ostensibly spoke to say his voice was faked using AI in phone call in which Alama supposedly said Lebanon ‘relieved of Nasrallah’
Hezbollah members set fire to a school owned by popular Lebanese singer Ragheb Alama on Monday night, hours after he was heard in a viral video seemingly praising the killing by Israel of the terror group’s leader, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> , though it later came to light that it wasn’t him making the comments.
A video posted online Monday showed Emirati singer Abdullah Bilkhair on what was supposedly a phone call with Alama, who could be heard saying multiple times that Nasrallah was dead, media reports said.
At some point, Alama could be heard inviting Bilkhair to visit Leb ...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration.... , saying: "It has now been relieved of Nasrallah."
After the video was spread online, Hezbollah Lions of Islam set fire to the entrance of the Saint Georges school in southern Beirut, which Alama owns, and spray-painted graffiti on its walls reading: "At your service, Nasrallah."
In one video on X, a group of men could be seen arriving on cycle of violences and setting fire to the school. One man in the video could be seen waving a Hezbollah flag.
In a post on X on Monday, Alama denied that it was him in the call, claiming that someone had used artificial intelligence to mimic his voice.
"I deny this communication completely and in detail. I will pursue the matter legally to reach this person," he wrote.
According to CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... Arabic, Bilkhair later confirmed this, saying he had been tricked by someone who was faking Alama’s voice using artificial intelligence, and added that he had been surprised when he thought the Lebanese singer had called him because the two had not communicated for a long time.
According to an interview given by Alama’s wife Jihan to the Lebanese paper Annahar, the artist has opened a number of private schools in Beirut’s impoverished southern suburbs, where he grew up, as a charity initiative to benefit the local community. The Shiite-majority area is a central Hezbollah stronghold, and hosts most of the terror group’s leadership.
In a social media post condemning the vandals, Jihan Alama wrote: "These mostly young men are roaming the streets at a time when the country is trying to heal its wounds from the war that has affected each of us in different ways. Some of them may have had the opportunity to learn in one of the schools built by Ragheb Alama. Yet, we now see them destroying those same institutions. It is painful to see this ingratitude towards efforts that were intended to uplift and educate them."
Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in Beirut in September after Israel ramped up its response to near-daily cross-border attacks that were initiated by Hezbollah, unprovoked, on October 8 last year, a day after its ally Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... ’s October 7 onslaught in southern Israel.
[KhaamaPress] The Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... authorities report that a Pak Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in Paktika ...which coincidentally borders North Wazoo and Kurram Agency... province has killed at least 46 people and injured 6 others. The attack has drawn widespread condemnation.
Hamdullah Fitrat, Deputy Spokesperson of the Taliban regime,, told Khaama Press on Wednesday, December 25, that the Pak military bombed four areas in the Barmal district of Paktika.
According to Fitrat, the airstrike killed 46 individuals, including women and kiddies, and left six others injured. The attack has been described as particularly devastating.
On Tuesday evening, December 24, the Pak Army launched an attack on "Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) bases" in the Barmal district of Paktika province. The Taliban have vowed to retaliate against this attack.
Media outlets close to the Pak Army reported that several snuffies were killed in these targeted strikes, and four operational bases of the TTP were destroyed.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Defense, however, stated that the attack targeted "Wazooi refugees," disputing the claim that the strikes were solely aimed at holy warriors.
The Ministry of Defense warned that this attack would not go unanswered. It emphasized its commitment to safeguarding Afghanistan’s territorial integrity and responding to such aggression.
unverified video of one incident:
Wild scenes from the Durand border from Afghan Taliban vs Pakistan clashes.
[IsraelTimes] Rare raid in Jenin aims to bring law and order to a hotbed of terrorism, while trying to position Ramallah to take over governance in Gaza after the war there ends
Gunfire has rung out for days from the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp. But this time, it’s not Israeli forces that are facing off against gangs. It is the forces of the Paleostinian Authority clashing with Paleostinian button men.
The Paleostinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, launched a rare crackdown earlier this month that has sparked one of the worst armed confrontations between Paleostinians in years. The PA says it wants to bring law and order to what’s long been a hotbed of terrorism and a place where it has little control.
Its ability to contain terror groups there will reverberate far beyond the West Bank. The Paleostinian Authority wants to position itself to take over governance in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip once the war there between Israel and Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... ends, though Jerusalem objects to this. But confronting Paleostinians at a time when many view the authority as a subcontractor for Israel could deepen divisions in Paleostinian society.
Here is a look at the days of fighting between Paleostinians in the West Bank:
FIGHTING RAGES ON THE STREETS AND AT LEAST 5 ARE DEAD
Earlier this month, PA security forces stormed into Jenin refugee camp, a restive terrorist stronghold, and began a crackdown against gangs.
Fighting has raged in the streets of the camp, and armored cars are seen patrolling. Paleostinian security forces have taken over part of a hospital, using it as a base and shooting from inside, according to the United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... At least one gunman from 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 group and three security force members have been killed, including a captain in the intelligence services whose death was announced Wednesday, according to PA security forces. About 50 people have been arrested.
At least two uninvolved civilians have been killed and some maimed. The fighting prompted the main UN agency for Paleostinian refugees and their descendants, UNRWA, to suspend its services, including schooling. The violence has disrupted safe access for Paleostinians to other services, including water and health. It also has complicated the restoration of services destroyed in previous Israeli raids of the camp.
THE JENIN REFUGEE CAMP EXPLAINED
The urban, built-up refugee camp in the northern West Bank houses Paleostinians whose families were displaced in the 1948 War of Independence surrounding Israel’s creation. It has long been a center for Paleostinian terrorism and a bastion of armed struggle against Israel. The terror groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas operate freely there, and its streets are regularly lined with posters depicting slain fighters as deaders for the Paleostinian cause.
The Paleostinian Authority, which administers the main Paleostinian population centers of the West Bank as part of interim peace agreements with Israel from the 1990s, has little presence in Jenin. Many people view the PA forces with suspicion and see them as serving Israel’s interests because of security coordination that has facilitated Israel’s own crackdowns on Paleostinian terrorism.
The camp and the adjacent city of Jenin have long been targets of Israel in its stated bid to stamp out terrorism. Since the start of the ongoing war against Hamas, sparked by the terror group’s October 7, 2023, massacre, Israel has raided or carried out Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s in Jenin multiple times.
According to the PA health ministry, more than 716 West Bank Paleostinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were button men killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or holy warriors carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 42 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of Israeli security forces were killed in festivities with terror operatives in the West Bank.
RESTORING ORDER — AND LOOKING TO POSTWAR GAZA
According to PA security forces spokesperson Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab, the raid is meant to impose law and order and restore peace and security. The troops were focused on "eradicating" Iran-backed terror groups that were trying to incite "chaos and anarchy," he added. The raid will end when those goals are reached, according to the security forces.
But the raid is also shining a spotlight on the Paleostinian Authority’s ability to impose order and security in a restive area. With no clear vision for who will administer postwar Gaza, the raid could convince skeptics that the authority has what it takes to rule the coastal enclave. 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....> is considering an agreement with Hamas that would create a committee of politically independent technocrats to administer the Gaza Strip after the war. The committee would report to him.
US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created ... by the — you know — you know, the thing... ’s administration sees a rehabilitated Paleostinian Authority as the best option to govern and secure postwar Gaza. The US has for years invested heavily in training the PA’s security forces, and the administration has seen its reentry into Gaza, after being routed by Hamas in 2007, as a feasible replacement for Hamas.
Israel rejects any role for Hamas in Gaza after the war the terror group started last year, and has also said it does not trust Abbas’s PA to run the enclave.
The incoming Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... administration has not yet laid out its vision for postwar Gaza, but Trump’s first term was overwhelmingly supportive of Israel’s positions.
Paleostinians are not strangers to divisions within their society, with the most prominent the rift between Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah party. The parties fought bloody street wars in Gaza before Hamas forced Fatah out of the territory, and the sides have failed to reconcile since.
Since then, the Fatah-dominated Paleostinian Authority has tried to diminish Hamas’s influence in the West Bank, often with Israel’s help.
Reeling from the years-long internal rift, Paleostinians have staged general strikes and protests calling for unity. But the raid could deepen the perception of the Paleostinian Authority as a controller of Israel’s desires and potentially undermine any popular support for it to return to effectively rule Gaza.
BREAKING: 3 teens ages 12–14-years-old have been shot while attempting to rob an elderly man in Harris County TX. The teens were all armed with pistols when the victim pulled out his gun, shooting three of them in self-defense. pic.twitter.com/RYyHmI8I5r
#3
Dunno why this is making national news, happens quite a lot in Texas. Probably just another attempt at "How dare someone shoot the feral animals we refer to as 'kids'."
The Israeli army withdrew Thursday from the southern areas of Qantara, Adsheet al-Qusayr and Wadi al-Hujeir after it made a several-hour incursion that forced residents to flee and involved the abduction and wounding of a Lebanese UNIFIL employee.
The Lebanese Army said the Israelis retreated after "a series of contacts by the five-party committee overseeing the ceasefire agreement (Mechanism)."
Lebanese troops meanwhile removed sand barriers that the Israeli forces had erected to block one of the roads in Wadi al-Hujeir, the Lebanese Army said, adding that it is following up on the situation in coordination with UNIFIL and the ceasefire committee.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/28/2024
2024-12-28 01:36 ||
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A UN worker hurt in an air strike on #Yemen’s main international airport has been evacuated to #Jordan for further medical treatment, #WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says on X.
The wife and daughter of one of Bashar al-Assad’s cousins were arrested at the Beirut airport, where they attempted to fly out with allegedly forged passports, Lebanese security officials say. Assad’s uncle departed the day before.
#Turkey has decided to allow parliament’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party to hold face-to-face talks with militant leader Abdullah Ocalan on his island prison, the party says, setting up the first such visit in nearly a decade.https://t.co/vCAb9wjLtt
Budget carrier flydubai has suspended flights from Dubai to the southern Russian airports of Sochi and Mineralnie Vody, Russian tour operators’ association ATOR says.https://t.co/vaPEvqN6dW
John Everard, former UK Ambassador to #NorthKorea, discusses the significance of #Ukraine capturing a North Korean soldier, emphasizing the rare opportunity it presents to highlight North Korea’s involvement in the war and the potential value of such prisoners for prisoner swaps. pic.twitter.com/EwhIgCfooE
A car bomb has exploded in the center of the flashpoint northern #Syria town of #Manbij, causing damage but no casualties, a war monitor says.https://t.co/l1GK8KIAmF
North Korean forces are experiencing mass casualties on the front lines of #Russia’s war against #Ukraine, with a thousand of their troops killed or wounded in the last week alone in the Kursk region of Russia, White House spokesperson John Kirby says.https://t.co/QTz8bwFkfM
Posted by: Throlush Dark Lord of the Nebraskans2736 ||
12/28/2024 10:56
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#3
Mass frontal assaults might result in mass casualties but I bet it scares the hell out of the Ukrainians.
Posted by: Large B. Hayes6878 ||
12/28/2024 12:02
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#4
Oh, so we see in the next post about the Ukrainian Perspective that this information comes from John Kirby, the White House spokesperson. There's a reliable source. /sarc
Posted by: Large B. Hayes6878 ||
12/28/2024 12:07
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#5
#4 Ditto that. Western media, one lie after another—nothing about 2000 Ukrainians dead in a week.
[IsraelTimes] Security chiefs mistrust Syria’s new rulers and don’t think Hezbollah is finished; assess Iran will seek the bomb but wait to see how Trump will act; favor a hostage deal, for moral and practical reasons
Almost 15 months after Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... invaded, a catastrophic Israeli political and military complacency regarding this country’s fundamental safety in the region has now been replaced by a recognition that every front is potentially unstable.
While much of the international community has rushed to embrace Syria’s new jihadist leadership, for instance, Israel is not merely wary, but has been proactive in minimizing the military consequences should the rebels’ ostensible congeniality prove only as superficial as their suits. Hence the ongoing Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on weapons stores and infrastructure, and the IDF’s seizure and retention of the border buffer zone.
Hezbollah is down, but is regarded as emphatically not out. There is no expectation in Israel that the terror group will now skulk off into oblivion, nor any confidence that internal change in Leb ...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?... will compel it to do so. Rather, the assessment is that Hezbollah will work assiduously to rebuild its capabilities and to revive efforts to attack — including to infiltrate across the border — however many years this may take. Last month’s ceasefire is holding for now, but the IDF is bolstering its defenses on the border.
The threat du jour, posed by the Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , underlines the multiplicity of challenges for an Israeli security establishment — notably including an intelligence corps — that has limited resources. New Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened on Tuesday that Israel will target Houthi chiefs, but the fact is that Israeli intel has, until now, hardly been focused on providing the information and assessing the means for carrying out any such missions.
Early in this war, Israeli security chiefs were wont to say that the Houthis were beyond anyone’s control — and that includes their Iranian backers and suppliers — and shrug helplessly when asked how Israel would be able to deter them. With millions of Israelis now forced to dash for the bomb shelters several nights a week, the military echelons know they can’t afford to shrug any longer. More, and more potent, Israeli strikes are in the offing, but there is no great confidence that these will stop the Houthi fire. As my colleague Lazar Berman writes here, a wider international coalition would be more likely to succeed.
In the West Bank, meanwhile, there has been a relative decline in terrorist attacks and attempted attacks, and the IDF is watching as the Paleostinian Authority intensifies its activities against terrorist cells in Jenin. Unlike many key figures in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, the military does not see an Israeli interest in the collapse of the PA, but neither does it trust the PA.
The lightning-fast ouster of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... ’s regime in Syria has also underlined that all bets are potentially off even in the apparently fairly stable regimes in Israel’s two other neighboring states, Egypt and especially Jordan, with which it has maintained peace treaties for decades.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... , too, has entered more deeply into Israeli calculations — because of the intensity of President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... ’s loathing of Israel and the strength of his military. Where Ankara is concerned, the Israeli mindset might best be summed up as cooperation when possible, mistrust at all times.
Regarding Iran, the Israeli assessment would now seem to be that the ayatollahs — exposed and humiliated by the radical degradation of their two main proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas — are likely to try to attain nuclear weapons. Israel further appears to believe that it knows what 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... is doing or not doing when it comes to weaponization.
Here, as on many of these active and potential war fronts, Israel would appear to be waiting for the return to office of US President-elect Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... . If all else fails, Israel has always said it will do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. But as the New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... ’ astute and well-informed David Sanger noted in an overview on Tuesday, "destroying Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would be extremely difficult for Israel, unless Mr. Trump authorized the kind of help that his predecessors refused to offer."
A GAZA TURNING POINT
Trump’s attitude to the region will also shape Israel’s ongoing policy 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... , where 100 hostages, unthinkably, remain in captivity 446 days after Hamas and other terror groups invaded and kidnapped them while slaughtering 1,200 others across southern Israel.
The IDF continues to seek intel and attempt to create opportunities for rescue operations, but the murder of six hostages by their captors at the end of August would appear to have been a turning point where such efforts are concerned.
As its own probe, published on Tuesday, confirmed, the IDF did not have concrete, real-time information regarding those six hostages and, indeed, incorrectly and fatally assessed that no hostages were being held in the specific Tel Sultan area of Rafah. The determination to ensure no repetition of this tragedy radically constrains the IDF’s ability to attempt hostage rescues, and also radically constrains the IDF’s ability to battle Hamas in even the general Gaza areas where it knows or assesses hostages may be held.
As things stand, therefore, the IDF is focused on tackling Hamas guerrilla forces in the far north of Gaza, from where almost all civilians have been evacuated, ahead of a potential pilot project under which one or more private American security firms might come in and take responsibility for aid distribution. Except that, for now, there is no sign of this happening.
Extremely limited in their operations in southern Gaza, security chiefs see a wide Israeli interest in a hostage deal — in line with the formal goals of the war; the sacred obligation to the hostages, their families and the nation; and the potential for more forceful efforts to prevent a Hamas return anywhere in Gaza once the hostages are returned. To put it brutally, the sooner that all or even almost all of the living hostages are released, the greater the IDF’s capacity to step up operations against Hamas in southern Gaza. Unfortunately, this is an equation that Hamas understands all too well.
THE VITAL STATE INQUIRY
One final word: It is outrageous that, almost 15 months after Hamas was able to burst across the border, no state commission of inquiry has yet been established, much less issued its findings, into what went wrong and who was to blame.
The prime minister has, to date, managed to prevent the establishment of such a probe because he knows that its conclusions and recommendations would prove politically devastating for him. The abiding failure to shed the fullest light on the catastrophe, and thus, crucially, to maximize the ability of the political and security leadership to prevent further such disasters, however, is deeply dangerous and potentially devastating for all of Israel.
#2
This may be stupid, but it looks like Houthi missiles would have to go over Saudi airspace to reach Israel. SA was fighting a proxy war against the Houthi. Seems as if they would not want low quality Iranian missiles flying across their skies on a regular basis.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/28/2024 12:57
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[IsraelTimes] Cecilia Sala left for Iran December 12 with a journalism visa and was scheduled to return a week later, but went dark a day before; Italian defense minister calls arrest ‘unacceptable’
Italia on Friday denounced the "unacceptable" arrest in 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... of an Italian journalist, whose employer said she was being held in solitary confinement in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on unclear grounds.
Cecilia Sala, 29, who works for Rome-based newspaper Il Foglio and Italian podcast company Chora Media, was said to have been detained in Tehran on December 19.
Chora Media said news of Sala’s arrest was not immediately made public as her family and Italian authorities had hoped that keeping it quiet could help secure her swift release.
The Italian foreign ministry said it was in contact with Iran to clarify Sala’s legal situation and the conditions of her detention. There was no immediate confirmation of the arrest by Iranian officials.
Italia’s ambassador to Iran, Paola Amadei, visited Sala in prison on Friday and the journalist has also been in phone contact with her family, Italia’s foreign ministry said, adding that she has been allowed to make two phone calls to relatives.
Italian sources with knowledge of the matter said she was "very tired" but "physically fine."
It was unclear whether Sala’s reported arrest was related to tensions between Rome and Tehran. Iran last week summoned a senior Italian diplomat and the Swiss ambassador, who represents US interests in the country, over the recent arrest of two Iranian nationals, one of whom was detained in Italia at Washington’s request.
Italian police said Wednesday that the man, 38, was detained while in transit through Milan’s airport. Police said the unidentified man had been accused in a US court of supplying Iran’s Revolutionary Guard with supplies to build combat drones.
Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said on X that Sala’s arrest was "unacceptable," adding that Italia was using "high-level political and diplomatic action" to try to secure her release.
Elly Schlein, leader of Italia’s center-left Democratic Party, urged the government to act swiftly.
"We immediately call on the government to take every useful initiative to shed light on this matter, to clarify the reasons for this detention and, above all, to bring Cecilia Sala back to Italia as soon as possible," she said.
Chora Media said Sala had left Rome for Iran on December 12 with a valid journalism visa and was due to return on December 20.
The company said she had conducted several interviews and produced three episodes of her "Stories" podcast.
But Sala went quiet on December 19 and then did not board her flight. Shortly afterward she called her mother to say she had been arrested, the podcast company said.
"She was taken to Evin prison, where dissidents are held, and the reason for her arrest has not yet been formalized," Chora said in a statement.
The Il Foglio newspaper said she had been in Iran "to report on a country she knows and loves."
"Tehran has chosen to challenge everything the West universally holds sacred: our freedom," the publication wrote on X.
"Journalism is not a crime, even in countries that repress all freedoms, including those of the press. Bring her home," it said.
The Iranian constitution gives the Islamic Theocratic Republic broad leeway to shut down press reports "detrimental to the principles of Islam."
Iran has a dismal press freedom record and has detained news hounds who documented the brutality of its morality police, setting off large-scale protests there in 2022. In November, the US accused Tehran of plotting to kill Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad, who is critical of the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
The #US has sanctioned #Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, a former prime minister widely seen as the country’s de facto leader, saying he is undermining democracy and allowing #Russia to benefit.https://t.co/h9Sp7hcZCR
[IsraelTimes] Haifa court judge says ‘no apparent evidence’ for terrorism accusations, warns of ‘dark results’ if such claims wielded too freely
The Haifa District Court on Thursday ordered four anti-government activists accused of firing flares at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Caesarea released to house arrest, after almost six weeks in detention.
Judge Zaid Falah wrote in his decision that he was unconvinced by the grave terror charges against the men, and gave warning that using such charges too lightly could lead to "dark results" with regards to freedom of expression and protest in the country.
The judge did, however, write that he believed charges of recklessness and negligence by the men were well founded.
Falah ruled that the four defendants could be transferred to house arrest in their own homes with electronic tagging.
Following the decision, the State Attorney’s Office initially said it was "considering it steps," implying it could appeal to the Supreme Court. However,
you can observe a lot just by watching... prosecutors decided Thursday to not take any further action, and the men were released on Thursday evening.
Rear Adm. (res.) Ofer Doron, 63, his son Gal Doron, 27, and two other longtime anti-government activists, Itay Yaffe, 62, and Amir Sadeh, 62, were indicted in the Haifa District Court earlier this month on charges of carrying out an act of terror through the reckless and negligent use of fire, and attempted arson.
The first two men were also charged with obstruction of justice for initially lying to Sherlocks about who had fired one of the flares.
The fact that the indictment leveled terrorism charges at the four men had lent justification to the state’s demand they be held in jug until the end of legal proceedings against them.
In his ruling on Thursday, the judge wrote that he did not believe the terror allegations could be justified.
He also noted that the four men had clean criminal records. In light of "the weakness of the evidence" for terrorism; "their full cooperation" under investigation; and the regret they had expressed, Falah determined that the danger they pose was low, and that they could be relied upon to comply with house arrest conditions.
On November 16, the four men made their way to an area several hundred meters (yards) west of the Netanyahu’s residence and fired two flares into the sky, one landed 150 meters from the prime minister’s home and scorched some leaves and the other landed at the entrance to the house’s courtyard and was immediately extinguished by a security guard.
No one was harmed in the incident, no damage was caused, and the Netanyahus were not home at the time.
The activists were arrested the same day and were kept in jug since then.
The terror charges against the four men, which carry hefty prison sentences upon conviction, were strongly criticized in some quarters as a politicized step which could have a chilling effect on anti-government protests.
And in his decision on Thursday, Falah made clear that he, too, was highly skeptical of the justification for terror charges.
"The requirement for fulfilling the conditions of an act of terror is [an act that] ’coerces the government’ and not ’an act that applies pressure on a government,’" wrote Falah.
"Otherwise any protest of any type... which is accompanied by an additional crime such as violence, is likely to be included under the cover of ’an act of terror,’" he continued.
"The slippery slope is likely to lead to dark results — and this is not what the legislature intended when it held an in-depth debate and chose the word ’coerce’ and not more complex language, in order to avoid the danger of broadening the incidents which could come under the definition of an act of terror."
Falah concluded that he did not believe there was enough evidence to convict the men on terror charges.
He did, however, write that there is apparent evidence that the defendants may be guilty of the recklessness and negligence charges since, he said, they fired the flares "in the general direction of the prime minister’s residence" and in the knowledge that there were security service personnel in that area and that the flares could endanger them.
He also said he did not accept their claim that they had sought to fire the flares over a nearby protest compound and not the prime minister’s home.
Falah noted that there was a "logical contradiction" in alleging a crime of recklessness and negligence with a deliberate arson attempt. He acknowledged that there was evidence with the potential to convict the defendants on the arson charge, but argued that evidence was not especially strong.
"The State Attorney’s Office will study the court’s decision and its treatment of the crimes attributed to the defendants and will weigh its position on the issue," the State Attorney’s Office said in response to the decision.
Islamist chants are publicly broadcast across East London… White British are only 24% of the population in Tower Hamlets. This is what happens when indigenous White Brits become a minority in their own areas. Replace the politicians before they replace you. pic.twitter.com/sOICDArIJ8
#8
Couldn't help laughing at the crows (just watched some Pennyworth (Batman's butler Alfred's backstory: every Brit cliche shaken and stirred wokewise; principal baddies: Raven Society)).
#9
Embalmed all in linen and resin,
A toothless old lion. "It says in
The Book we should wash him,
But I say, just cosh him
Again, Mo, and call the muezzin."
[YouTube] This is an in-depth and wide-ranging discussion with former Assistant Secretary of the Army Casey Wardynski. Everything is covered from the highest-ranking generals who worked against President Trump in his first term, to the failures of the military response to the storm disaster in Western North Carolina, to what the DOD’s participation in January 6 might have been.
[JPost] Hackers targeted around ten official websites in Italy on Saturday, including the websites of the Foreign Ministry and Milan's two airports, putting them out of action temporarily, the country's cyber security agency said.
The pro-Russian hacker group Noname057(16) claimed the cyber attack on Telegram, saying Italy's "Russophobes get a well deserved cyber response".
A spokesperson for Italy's cyber security agency said it was plausible that the so-called "Distributed Denial of Service" (DDoS) attack could be linked to the pro-Russian group.
In such attacks, hackers attempt to flood a network with unusually high volumes of data traffic in order to paralyse it.
The spokesperson said the agency provided quick assistance to the institutions and firms targeted and that the attack's impact was "mitigated" in less than two hours.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/28/2024
08:11 ||
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[JPost] Responding to a recent libel on X/Twitter that Jews eat human flesh, United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese stated that not all Jews should be blamed for Israel's actions. In another post, she wrote that it was important not to "invisibilize" the "few" Israelis who were against occupation, apartheid, and genocide.
In a post on X, Albanese referenced an opinion piece published in Haaretz, a left-wing Israeli newspaper, which cited an IDF veteran's anonymous report that he saw his commander break a 4-year-old Palestinian boy's arm and leg with his bare hands.
Albanese said that the report referenced in Haaretz proved that "not only the Israeli army is ROTTEN to the core, but so are all governments that allow these sickening crimes to be normalized."
Stories like the Israeli commander breaking the bones of a 4 year old Palestinian child with bare hands, are a confirmation that not only the Israeli army is ROTTEN to the core, but so are all governments that allow these sickening crimes to be normalized. https://t.co/O9DXb1Ye8bpic.twitter.com/spEiYdsLz8
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) December 24, 2024
An account commented below her original thread and said that the purported violence was "not surprising coming from the Jews." The comment continued to assert that "Jews are capable of eating human flesh."
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/28/2024
08:05 ||
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May their prison stay be brief, so they can go to hell where they belong.
Seriously GAYS adopting kids??????????
[WRDW] A Walton County couple will spend the rest of their lives in jail without parole after being convicted of sexually abusing their two adopted children.
The Alcovy Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, which oversees Walton and Newton counties, said William and Zachary Zulock were convicted of the following charges:
William Zulock: six counts of aggravated sodomy, three counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of sexual exploitation of children and other sexual offenses.
Zachary Zulock: two counts of aggravated sodomy, three counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of sodomy, three counts of sexual exploitation of children, two counts of pandering for a person under 18 and other sexual offenses.
William pleaded guilty to all the crimes in August. In October, Zachary also pled guilty to every charge except one, which he was found guilty of after a bench trial, the district attorney’s office said.
Both were sentenced by a judge last Thursday.
The Walton County Sheriff’s Office began investigating the case in July 2022, when the GBI’s Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit contacted deputies about a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The tip was about suspected homemade child sexual abuse material that was uploaded to a Google account and connected to an IP address in Walton County.
Deputies searched the home associated with the IP address and found Hunter Lawless, who admitted to the crime and said he received the material from Zachary. Lawless pled guilty to sexual exploitation of children and was sentenced to 20 years, with the first 12 to be served in prison.
Investigators then searched the Zulock’s home, where they lived with two young boys they adopted a few years before. During an interview, both men admitted to sexually abusing the children, the district attorney’s office said.
Law enforcement reviewed two weeks of footage from the home’s interior surveillance cameras, which showed several acts of abuse in different parts of the house. Their cell phones also had graphic material and text and social media messages about the abuse, according to the district attorney’s office.
A cell phone review found that Zach had sent messages to Luis Vizcarro-Sanchez about the abuse. Vizcarro-Sanchez pled guilty to pandering for a person under 18. After also pleading guilty to stealing computers from his workplace, a Kroger in Loganville, he was sentenced to 16 years, with the first 15 to be served in prison.
[Lloyds List/HT Insty] Listening equipment was placed on Eagle S and related tanker Swiftsea Rider to monitor Nato naval and aircraft activities, Lloyd’s List was told
Eagle S, the Russia-linked tanker suspected of damaging an underwater electricity cable on Christmas Day, was kitted out with special transmitting and receiving devices that were used to monitor naval activity, according to a source with direct involvement in the ship, which has since been detained by Finnish police
RUSSIA-LINKED dark fleet* tanker Eagle S (IMO: 9329760), seized by Finland on December 25 for damaging an undersea cable, had transmitting and receiving devices installed that effectively allowed it to become a "spy ship" for Russia, Lloyd’s List has learnt.
The hi-tech equipment on board was abnormal for a merchant ship and consumed more power from the ship’s generator, leading to repeated blackouts, a source familiar with the vessel who provided commercial maritime services to it as recently as seven months ago.
As well as Eagle S, another related tanker from the same ownership cluster, UK-sanctioned Swiftsea Rider (IMO: 9318539), also had similar equipment installed, Lloyd’s List was told.
Cook Islands-flagged Eagle S and Honduras-flagged Swiftsea Rider are two of 26 elderly Russia-linked tankers with opaque ownership structures connected to three related shipmanagers, including two sanctioned by the UK government 12 months ago for "propping up Putin’s war machine".
The sanctions-circumventing tankers were bought between 2022 and 2023 and placed under bareboat charter arrangements with Eiger Shipping, the shipping arm of Russia oil trader Litasco.
Eagle S was boarded by Finnish forces investigating sabotage of the Estlink 2 undersea cable that disrupted the supply of electricity to Estonia from Finland.
The tanker slowed and dragged its anchor around the cable around midday, December 25, Finland’s police said. Another three cables were also damaged.
The source, who declined to be identified to protect their safety, supplied at least 60 confidential documents about Eagle S to Lloyd’s List in June, including the vetting report that outlined many safety deficiencies discovered during an inspection undertaken while at anchor in Danish waters that month.
These documents, and others relating to dark fleet tankers providing confidential and private information about class, insurance, and flag, and other technical and regulatory requirements, were verified as genuine at the time.
In July, Lloyd’s List reported the serious deficiencies on Eagle S that compromised environmental and crew safety, and underscored the poor maintenance and absence of adherence to regulatory and technical standards for the wider dark fleet.
The source has since provided additional information, telling Lloyd’s List that an unauthorised person, who was not a seafarer, had been identified on board Eagle S.
They said listening and recording equipment was brought on to the 20-year-old tanker via "huge portable suitcases" along with "many laptops" that had keyboards for Turkish and Russian languages when calling at Turkiye and Russia.
The equipment was kept on the bridge or in the "monkey island", they said. The monkey island is the top-most place on the ship.
The transmitting and receiving devices were used to record all radio frequencies, and upon reaching Russia were offloaded for analysis.
"They were monitoring all Nato naval ships and aircraft," Lloyd’s List was told.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/28/2024
04:35 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] Ukraine has sent 500 tonnes of flour to Syria as a humanitarian gesture following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, the country's president announced on social media on Friday.
''500 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat flour are already on their way to Syria as part of our ''Grain From Ukraine'' humanitarian program in cooperation with the WFP,'' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X, referring to the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP).
Zelensky emphasized his support for the Syrian people in a ''time of need.''
''The wheat flour is planned to be distributed to 33,250 families or 167,000 people, in the coming weeks,'' he added.
He expressed his hope for Syria's stable recovery and safety following 13 years of civil war.
Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/28/2024
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Mexican authorities have discovered 12 bodies buried in clandestine graves in Mexico's northern Chihuahua state, officials said Thursday.
Authorities discovered 11 graves containing 12 skeletons in Ascension municipality near the US border, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement.
''The discovery was made during tracking operations that took place on December 18, 19 and 20,'' it said.
''The unidentified skeletons and evidence were transferred to the laboratories of the Forensic Medical Service'' to the city of Ciudad Juarez, it said.
Chihuahua has been hit for years by violence linked to organized crime as a route for drug trafficking and the smuggling of migrants colonists colonists to the United States.
It has recorded 3,927 missing persons since 1952, according to official figures. Jalisco and Tamaulipas, the states hit hardest by violence, have recorded more than 13,000 missing persons each in the same period.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/28/2024
01:32 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] An air strike hit Yemen's capital on Friday, a day after deadly Israeli raids, according to the Iran-backed Houthis who blamed the US and Britain for the latest attack.
A Houthi statement cited ''US-British aggression'' for the new attack, as witnesses also reported the blast.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, the United States or Britain.
''I heard the blast. My house shook,'' one resident of the capital Sanaa told AFP.
The attack followed Thursday's Israeli raids on infrastructure including Sanaa's international airport that left six people dead.
The strikes came in response to a series of Houthi attacks on Israel.
They have also been firing on the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping route for months, prompting a series of reprisal strikes by US and British forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/28/2024
01:13 ||
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#5
Just another potential ten wasted seconds on the automatic phone help menu.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/28/2024 13:20
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#6
#3 Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan are most likely red and have as much 'love' for Ottawa as most flyover country in the States has for the Swamp.
A beautiful example of Moslem muruna. (See definition of that and other types of Moslem untruths below.)
[IsraelTimes] Apparently speaking on behalf of al-Sharaa, official says they ‘don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security,’ and Jerusalem’s concern over new regime is ‘natural’
In an interview with the US public broadcaster NPR, apparently on behalf of Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, the governor of Damascus said Thursday that the newly-installed government wants to have cordial relations with Israel.
"We have no fear toward Israel, and our problem is not with Israel," Maher Marwan told NPR, "There exists a people who want coexistence. They want peace. They don’t want disputes."
"And we don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security or any other country’s security," he said. "We want peace, and we cannot be an opponent to Israel or an opponent to anyone."
He added that Israel’s initial trepidation after the fall of former president Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... was "natural."
"Israel may have felt fear," he said. "So it advanced a little, bombed a little, etc."
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, but "if this regime allows 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... to reestablish itself in Syria, or allows the transfer of Iranian weapons or any other weapons to Hezbollah, or attacks us, we will respond forcefully and we will exact a heavy price from it."
He warned the rebels that "whoever follows Assad’s footsteps will end up like Assad did. We won’t allow an krazed killer Islamic terror entity to act against Israel from beyond its borders... we will do anything to remove the threat."
Syria’s new de-facto leader 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.
"We do not want any conflict whether with Israel or anyone else and we will not let Syria be used as a launchpad for attacks. The Syrian people need a break, and the strikes must end and Israel has to pull back to its previous positions," al-Sharaa told The Times of London earlier this month.
Al-Sharaa also reiterated his position that Israel had a right to target Iranian-backed forces prior to the government’s fall earlier this month, but has no legitimate basis to keep operating in Syria.
Israel and Syria do not have diplomatic relations and have formally been in a perpetual state of war since Israel declared independence in 1948.
Syria was one of a number of Arab countries that attacked the newly born Jewish state, and despite an armistice agreement signed in 1949 that demarcated a border between the two countries, Syria has never formally recognized Israel’s existence.
Syria also attacked during the 1967 Six Day War, before the IDF pounded Syrian forces and seized the Golan Heights, which Israel later annexed unilaterally. Syria attacked again in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War and was pushed back after a major advance into the Golan Heights, after which the 1974 disengagement agreement was signed between the states, marking the demilitarized zones on the Israel-Syrian border.
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.
[TheReligionOfPeace] The Hadith makes it clear that Muslims are allowed to lie to unbelievers in order to defeat them or protect themselves. There are several forms:
Taqiyya - Saying something that isn't true as it relates to Muslim identity (i.e whether one is a Muslim or what that means). This is a Shiite term: the Sunni counterpart is Muda'rat.
Kitman - Lying by omission. An example would be when Muslim apologists quote only a fragment of verse 5:32 (that if anyone kills "it shall be as if he had killed all mankind") while neglecting to mention that the rest of the verse (and the next) mandate murder in undefined cases of "corruption" and "mischief."
Tawriya - Intentionally creating a false impression by saying something that is technically true, when knowing that the listener will interpret it in a different way. This practice has a broader application than taqiyya.
Muruna - 'Blending in' by setting aside some practices of Islam or Sharia in order to advance others.
Though not called taqiyya by name, Muhammad clearly used deception when he signed a 10-year treaty with the Meccans (known as Hudaibiya) which allowed him access to their city while he secretly prepared his own forces for a takeover. The unsuspecting residents were easily conquered when he broke the treaty two years later. Some of the people in the city who had trusted him at his word were executed.
Another example of lying is when Muhammad used deception to trick his personal enemies into letting down their guard by pretending to seek peace. This happened in the case of Ka'b bin al-Ashraf (as previously noted) and later against Usayr ibn Zarim, a surviving leader of the Banu Nadir tribe, which had been evicted from their home in Medina by the Muslims.
At the time, Usayr ibn Zarim was attempting to gather an armed force against the Muslims from among a tribe allied with the Quraish (against which Muhammad had already declared war). Muhammad's "emissaries" went to ibn Zarim and persuaded him to leave his safe haven on the pretext of meeting with the prophet of Islam in Medina to discuss peace. Once vulnerable, the leader and his thirty companions were easily massacred by the Muslims, probably because they were unarmed - having been given a guarantee of safe passage (Ibn Ishaq 981, Ibn Kathir v.4 p.300).
Such was the reputation of early Muslims for lying and killing that even those who "accepted Islam" did not feel entirely safe. Consider the fate of the Jadhima. When Muslim "missionaries" approached this tribe, one member insisted that they would be slaughtered even though they had already "converted" to Islam (to avoid just such a demise). However, the others insisted that they could trust the Muslim leader's promise that they would not be harmed if they simply offered no resistance. (After convincing the skeptic to lay down his arms, the unarmed men of the tribe were tied up and beheaded by the missionaries - Ibn Ishaq 834 & 837).
Today's apologists often rationalize Muhammad's murder of his critics at Medina by falsely claiming that they broke a treaty by their actions. Yet, these same apologists place little value on treaties broken by Muslims. From Muhammad himself to Saddam Hussein, promises made to non-Muslim are distinctly non-binding in the Muslim mindset.
The American THAAD missile defense system was used to intercept the Houthi ballistic missile yesterday. This is the first time the system has been used to combat a ballistic missile. pic.twitter.com/IS7fr3HOeO
Posted by: Fred ||
12/28/2024
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#1
...Beastie worked on the first shot, and under real world conditions. Not too shabby, and there should be some heads exploding in bad places over this.
The THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, was used to try to intercept a projectile from Yemen sometime during the last 24 hours, and an analysis would determine its success, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
It is the first time that the THAAD system deployed in Israel has been used.
I’m not at all certain what that first bit means, but it sounds like it’s a good thing.
[KhaamaPress] The Pak military has announced that in separate festivities between its security forces and snuffies in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, one senior army officer and 13 members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban ...the once and current oppressors of Afghanistan... Pakistain (TTP) were killed. Recently, the conflict between Pakistain’s security forces and the TTP has escalated in this region.
The Mighty Pak Army identified the slain senior officer as Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Owais.
On Wednesday, the Pak military also reported that it had killed 13 snuffies in the South Wazoo region.
Earlier, the TTP had attacked a security checkpoint in South Waziristan, killing 16 Pak security personnel.
Pak officials have consistently claimed that TTP snuffies find safe havens in Afghanistan. However,
those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... the Afghan Taliban has denied these claims.
Meanwhile,
...back at the barn, a little lightbulb figuratively appeared over Bossy's head... on Tuesday evening, Pak fighter jets bombed several locations in the Bermal district of Paktika ...which coincidentally borders North Wazoo and Kurram Agency... province.
A Pak official told Rooters that the Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s targeted a camp of the Pak Taliban (TTP) murderous Moslems. However,
those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban, stated that at least 46 people were killed in the attacks, the majority of whom were women and kiddies.
The ongoing military confrontations between Pakistain’s security forces and the TTP continue to exacerbate tensions in the region. These festivities highlight the persistent security challenges that both Pakistain and Afghanistan face, particularly concerning cross-border militancy.
The allegations of civilian casualties in airstrikes underscore the need for greater efforts to minimize harm to non-combatants and to seek long-term solutions for regional stability.
[People, h/t Mrs. Bobby] More than 400 train passengers avoided harm on Christmas Eve after a driver jumped from the cab, leaving the train unmanned, the company says.
French national railway company SCNF told PEOPLE in a statement that the incident occurred on a high-speed line around 8 p.m. local time on Christmas Eve in the Seine-et-Marne region to the east of Paris when a train driver died by suicide "while the train was moving."
The company said that the train avoided disaster as it was equipped with a new technology called the "Automatic Standby with Downforce Control," which checks to ensure that there's an "active" driver running the train "at all times." The system kicked in and safely brought the train to a stop on the tracks. One hundred twenty years ago, the device was called "the dead-man's pedal". Sort of a very early 'artificial intelligence'. Today, in the U.S., it's Positive Train Control - very high-tech.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/28/2024
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#1
My lawn mower won't start without someone on the seat.
[KhaamaPress] Sources report that fighters from the Tehrik-e-Taliban ...Arabic for students... Pakistain (TTP) killed 11 Pak security personnel in different areas of North Wazoo.
According to reports, the TTP fighters involved in the attacks on Thursday, December 26, were from the group of Hafiz Gul Bahadur ...a member of the Madda Khel clan of the Uthmanzai Waziris. Educated in a Deobandi madrassa located in Multan, he is affiliated with the Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) political party. Upon the formation of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in December 2007, he was announced as the group's overall naib amir under Baitullah Mehsud, who was based in South Wazoo, but has largely distanced himself from the TTP due to rivalries with the Mehsuds and disagreements about the TTP's attacks against the Pak state.. The reports also added that the attacks took place in the Mirali area, specifically in the Khaiderkhel, Khadki, and other regions, with at least 16 other security personnel reported injured.
The Pak government has not yet made any statements regarding the incident.
Earlier, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) carried out an attack on a security checkpoint in South Waziristan, killing 16 Pak security personnel.
Pak officials have consistently claimed that members of the TTP find safe haven in Afghanistan. However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... the Afghan Taliban has denied these allegations made by Pak authorities.
Meanwhile,
...back at the pond, the radioactive tadpoles grown into frogs. Really big frogs, in fact... on Tuesday evening, Pak fighter jets bombed several locations in the Bermal district of Paktika ...which coincidentally borders North Wazoo and Kurram Agency... province.
A Pak official told Rooters that the Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s targeted a camp of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) turbans. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban, stated that at least 46 people were killed in the attacks, the majority of whom were women and kiddies.
The ongoing airstrikes and cross-border conflicts between Pakistain and Afghanistan continue to cause significant loss of life and highlight the growing security challenges in both countries. The fact that civilians, including women and kiddies, are often caught in the crossfire underscores the devastating impact of such military actions on non-combatants.
The increasing violence in regions like North Waziristan highlights the fragile security situation in Pakistain’s tribal areas, where turban groups like the TTP continue to operate with relative freedom. These deadly festivities not only undermine the stability of the region but also place civilians at great risk, caught in the crossfire between Death Eaters and military forces.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Members of the radical Islamist group "Vilayat Khorasan" who were preparing a terrorist attack near a police station were eliminated in Moscow.
Good. More like this, please.
This was reported on Friday, December 27, by the Public Relations Center of the FSB of Russia.
“When detained, the terrorists offered armed resistance to Russian FSB officers and were ultimately neutralized by return fire,” the special service emphasized.
It is alleged that the perpetrators purchased a car and placed gas cylinders in it, after which they began to assemble a homemade explosive device.
The investigation opened a criminal case on the attempted terrorist act, on the organization of the activities of a terrorist organization and participation in its activities. Firearms, ammunition and explosive components were found at the place of residence of the militants. On one of the seized mobile phones, a video was found with two men wearing black headbands with Islamist symbols. They shake hands with each other against the background of a flag with similar symbols.
On December 25, the FSB detained seven Russians, including three minors, who, on instructions from the Ukrainian special services, were preparing a terrorist attack against the head of one of the enterprises of the military-industrial complex. It was noted that before this, the detainees helped Ukrainian telephone scammers.
[GeorgiaToday] The presidential inauguration has no legal force, so I remain the president and will continue my work. This is what everyone needs to know. Details will be revealed on Sunday,” – said Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili in an interview with the British podcast Rest Is Politics.
When asked what she plans to do on Sunday, the day scheduled for Mikheil Kavelashvili’s inauguration, the president responded that further details will be announced on Sunday.
“I cannot answer this question now because the ruling party should only learn about Sunday’s plans on Sunday itself, not beforehand. The most important thing to know about Sunday is that the presidential elections, as well as the inauguration, have no legal force. Therefore, I remain the president and continue my work. This is what everyone needs to understand. Details will be disclosed on Sunday,” the President emphasized.
#1
Sounds like Joe Wilson has invited Zurabishvili to Trumps inauguration and will introduce the Georgian Nightmare Non-Recognition Act, which will prohibit U.S. recognition of the illegal dictatorial regime in Georgia and recognize @Zourabichvili_ i_S as the only legitimate leader in Georgia until such a time as free and fair elections are held.
I have seen snips but can’t yet find a good English lang source. So 72hr rule in effect.
#3
There is federal law allowing imprisonment, fines and even a death penalty with respect to conspiring to deprive an individual of his civil rights, under 18 U.S.C. § 241. I expect this might be used against the perps in addition to whatever the class action lawsuit is about.
#4
Because Suing the DOJ is actually Suing us, the US Taxpayers.
True....or, since that money will be sent to some NGO if not taken, establish and win that case, funding people who have legitimate beef with the current state of things, expose the GayGB's Abu Ghraib, then use those finding and precedent to pinpoint individuals for such a follow up suit.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered local authorities to take measures to prevent mass killings in the country. This is reported by the Associated Press (AP).
"China's leader Xi Jinping wants to ensure that the recent wave of mass killings that rocked the country does not happen again. He has ordered local governments to prevent future 'extreme cases,'" the publication said.
It is noted that local officials were quick to promise that they would consider all types of personal disputes that could provoke aggression: from marital problems to disagreements over inheritance.
"The Justice Department has vowed to curb conflicts by looking into disputes over inheritance, housing, land and unpaid wages. But many have expressed concerns about how such disputes will be identified," AP writes.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on November 12, in Guangdong Province, a car driver ran over pedestrians in Zhuhai. As a result, 35 people died, and 43 were injured. The police detained the 62-year-old driver of the car. He is in a coma after attempting to commit suicide at the scene of the accident.
In mid-November, a man in Jiangsu Province attacked students and teachers at a school in Yixing with a knife. Eight people were killed and 17 were injured.
In early October, at least three people were killed and 15 others were injured in a knife-wielding attack at a Shanghai supermarket. Police officers who arrived at the scene detained a 37-year-old man suspected of the attack.
[TH] The Democrats’ effort to use the criminal justice system against President-elect Trump to influence the outcome of the 2024 election has backfired in more ways than one.
Less than a week after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was booted from the prosecution against the president-elect, a judge ruled that state lawmakers can subpoena her office as part of an investigation into whether she engaged in inappropriate behavior during the proceedings, according to The Associated Press.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shukura Ingram filed the order Monday, telling Willis she has until Jan. 13 to submit arguments over whether the subpoenas seek legally shielded or confidential information. Ingram wrote that the would issue a final order later saying what Willis had to respond to.
Willis, though, wants the ruling overturned.
"We believe the ruling is wrong and will appeal," former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, who is representing Willis in the case, wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
A state appeals court earlier this month removed Willis from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and others, citing an "appearance of impropriety" that might not typically warrant such a removal. The Georgia Court of Appeals panel said in a 2-1 ruling that because of the romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade "this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings."
Republican state lawmakers issued a subpoena to Willis in August to compel her to testify and provide documents related to Trump’s case. A committee has been investigating Willis over her relationship with Wade and other examples of misconduct.
However, her attorney argued that the Senate committee lacked the authority to compel her testimony and was requesting confidential and privileged information. The committee in October asked the judge to compel Willis to comply with the subpoenas, arguing that her refusal delayed the conclusion of the investigation.
The Georgia Court of Appeals officially disqualified Willis from the Trump case earlier this month.
According to the 31-page decision handed down Thursday, the state’s appeals court ruled that there was, in fact, a conflict of interest that arose when Willis hired special prosecutor Nathan Wade and proceeded to have an undisclosed affair with him during the prosecutorial process.
Applying the "appearance" standard, the three-judge panel—comprised of all GOP appointees—concluded that the "significant" "appearance of impropriety" was indeed "improper."
"While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings," the ruling reads, finding that the lower court’s "remedy" was insufficient.
President-elect Donald Trump weighed in on the court’s decision, arguing that the entire case against him should be dismissed. "It was started by the Biden DOJ as an attack on his political opponent, Donald Trump," he said during an interview with Fox News, "They used anyone and anybody, and she has been disqualified, and her boyfriend has been disqualified, and they stole funds and went on trips."
After Willis’ attempt to weaponize the justice system against Trump, turnabout is fair play. The fact that she thought it acceptable to appoint Wade to the case even though she had a romantic relationship with him suggests Willis did not believe she would ever be held accountable.
Even more egregious is that Willis still tried to justify her conduct, claiming that the criticism against her was motivated by — you guessed it — racism and sexism and all the left’s favorite buzzwords. If Willis has been up to more misconduct, then this ruling indicates she might regret her decision to prosecute this ridiculous case against the president-elect — especially since it did not produce the desired outcome on Election Day.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/28/2024
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#1
I get the feeling that the usual calvary is not coming to help Fani.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/28/2024 12:49
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[X] Soooooo scary. Lookit the Israelis shaking in their shoes. Or not, whatever.
WATCH⚡️
Houthi fighter threatens Israel and the US:
“To the American and Israeli enemy: We swear to God, we will turn the Red Sea red with your blood, blacken the skies with the smoke of your planes, and set the earth ablaze with our missiles. You will find no rest—day or… pic.twitter.com/H8WXXAaC9V
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 20:28 The United States of America will announce a new package of military aid to Ukraine in the coming days. This was stated by the coordinator for strategic communications of the US National Security Council John Kirby.
19:59 Expenditures of the general fund of the state budget on the security and defense sector in January-November 2024 amounted to UAH 1.8 trillion. In particular, in November - UAH 206.4 billion. This was reported by the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine.
19:50 The Russian offensive in the Kursk region is causing heavy losses for North Korean forces. Over the past week, the DPRK has lost a thousand soldiers. This was stated by John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications for the White House National Security Council.
19:37 The New York Times states that the United States of America has transferred a batch of ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. They have already been used to strike Russian military targets, and before that, at targets in the occupied territories and in Crimea. The administration of US President Joe Biden then sent Ukraine up to 500 missiles from Pentagon warehouses.
18:21 Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has suffered a defeat in Ukraine and has not achieved his goals. This was stated by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in an interview for t-online . Now it is necessary to create a basis for a fair and sustainable peace in Ukraine, and for this it must be strong militarily, he noted.
18:02 The state of work on the construction of fortifications in the Zaporizhia region is 100%. This was reported by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal following the results of the visiting government meeting in Zaporizhia.
17:31 Military assistance to Ukraine is provided by eight international coalitions, each of which includes 14 to 21 countries. The details were reported by the Ministry of Defense.
16:58 Since the beginning of the day, 100 combat clashes have occurred on the front. The situation remains difficult and tense. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported the details in a report as of 16:00.
15:58 The Cabinet of Ministers has amended the Procedure for booking military personnel for the period of mobilization and wartime. In particular, priests can now be booked. This is evidenced by the resolution of December 26, 2024, No. 1498.
15:33 As a result of the HIMARS strike on the Russian headquarters in the Zaporizhia region, not only officers were eliminated. The Russians also lost 150 soldiers.
15:29 In Kharkiv Oblast, 39 searches were conducted at employees of district TCCs and VVKs who are involved in a case of falsifying documents to evade mobilization. The National Police reported details .
15.09 There are currently more than 900 fire groups in Ukraine, of which about 500 are mobile fire groups, the rest are stationary. This was reported by the commander of the National Guard, Oleksandr Pivnenko.
14.55 Soldiers of the Third Separate Assault Brigade captured Russians who turned out to be subscribers to the Ukrainian brigade’s Telegram channel.
14.00 Ukrainian counterintelligence officers have exposed a Russian GRU agent network and prevented large-scale sabotage at Ukrzaliznytsia facilities. The SBU has established that a Russian agent was preparing a homemade braking device - a "shoe" - capable of causing an accident on a train with ammunition.
12:59 The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has codified and approved for use in the troops the ground robotic complex (GRC) Ravlik, a completely Ukrainian development.
12:31 Almost half of Ukrainians (45%) believe that Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election brings peace closer. This is evidenced by the results of a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
12:04 A wounded DPRK soldier captured by Ukrainian troops died on Friday. This was reported by the Yonhap agency , citing the National Intelligence Service of South Korea (NIS).
11:53 The Security Service and the National Police detained two Russian agents "hot on the trail" who committed a contract terrorist attack in Berdichev, Zhytomyr region, on December 24. This was reported by the press service of the SBU.
10:56 Ukrainian military carried out a special operation and killed three officers of the leadership of the Russian occupation forces in the Zaporizhia region. This was reported by the Main Intelligence Directorate.
10:27 Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky held a final annual meeting on issues of training military personnel. According to him, the training of military personnel will last two months.
9:45 In the temporarily occupied Crimea, Russians are building defensive structures at the Saki airfield to protect against attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This was reported by the ATESH partisan movement.
ATESH agents conducted reconnaissance of the military air base near the settlement of Novofedorovka. The presence of special equipment and construction work was recorded, indicating that the occupiers were trying to build protective structures for aircraft.
The partisans recorded the exact number and types of aircraft stationed at the airfield, and the air defense systems covering them. All the information collected was passed on to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
9:20 On the night of December 27, Russian troops attacked Ukraine with two Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 24 Shahed-type strike UAVs and other types of drones. 13 drones were destroyed, and another 11 did not reach their targets.
8:31 Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine captured the first North Korean soldier during military operations in the Kursk region.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service has confirmed the capture of a wounded North Korean soldier by Ukrainian forces, the first such incident.
8:20 Over the past 24 hours, 171 combat clashes have been recorded at the front. In the Pokrovsky direction, the defenders stopped 42 assault and offensive actions by the Russians.
Missile troops and artillery of the Defense Forces hit ten areas of concentration of enemy personnel and military equipment, destroyed one command post, one enemy artillery system and one other important enemy facility.
7:40 As of December 27, the total combat losses of Russian troops on Ukrainian territory were approximately 782,510 people (+1,650 per day).
7:28 The Russian Navy put one Kalibrov carrier ship on combat duty in the Black Sea with a total salvo of up to four missiles.
05:28 US President-elect Donald Trump is pressuring European countries to increase aid to Ukraine. At the same time, he is signaling that security assistance from the US, Ukraine's largest supporter, will decrease. This is stated in an article in The Washington Post.
The idea is that Ukraine is a European responsibility, not an American one. So it is up to the European countries to decide the appropriate level of support — and to come up with the funds from under their couch cushions or wherever so long as it is a source that is not the American taxpayer.
01:00 Russian military attacked Zaporizhia with a ballistic missile. Local authorities reported a strike on the region's industrial infrastructure. The extent of the destruction is being determined. Preliminary, there are no casualties.
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[EngMilRu] From 21 to 27 December 2024, the Russian Armed Forces delivered one mass and 37 group strikes by precision weaponry and unmanned aerial vehicles, thus inflicting fire damage on energy facilities that ensured operation of Ukrainian defence industry enterprises, infrastructure of military airfields, ammunition depots, POL bases, workshops, storage areas, UAV launch sites, and UAV training centres. Temporary deployment areas of AFU units, nationalist formations, and foreign mercenaries were also hit.
Over the past week, units of the Sever Group of Forces continued to eliminate AFU formations on the territory of Kursk region. Aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, and artillery inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of six mechanised brigades, one assault brigade, three air assault brigades of the AFU, one naval infantry brigade, and four territorial defence brigades. In Kharkov direction, Russian troops inflicted losses on units of one mechanised brigade, one motorised infantry brigade of the AFU, and two territorial defence brigades.
Over the past week in the area of responsibility of the Sever Group of Forces, the AFU losses amounted to more than 2,450 troops, 11 tanks, including U.S.-made Abrams and German-made Leopard tanks, 13 infantry fighting vehilces, including German-made Marder infantry fighting vehicle, Swedish-made CV-90 infantry fighting vehicle, and five U.S.-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 13 armoured personnel carriers, including two U.S.-made M-113 and one Stryker armoured personnel carriers as well as 44 other armoured fighting vehicles. 69 motor vehicles, 25 field artillery guns, and nine electronic warfare stations were eliminated.
As a result of active operations, units of the Zapad Group of Forces liberated Lozovaya, Zagryzovo (Kharkov region), and Ivanovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
Strikes were delivered at manpower and hardware of four mechanised brigades, one assault brigade, two airmobile brigades, and two territorial defence brigades.
Twenty-five counter-attacks launched by AFU assault detachments were repelled. The AFU losses amounted to more than 3,080 troops, three tanks, including one German-made Leopard tank, three armoured personnel carriers, including two U.S.-made M-113 armoured personnel carriers, 38 motor vehicles, and 53 field artillery guns, including 24 Western-made guns. Eight electronic warfare stations and four ammunition depots were wiped out.
As a result of decisive actions, units of the Yug Group of Forces liberated Gigant and Ostrovskogo (Donetsk People's Republic).
Strikes were delivered at formations of four mechanised brigades, one motorised infantry brigade, one mountain assault brigade, two assault brigades, two airmobile brigades of the AFU, and two territorial defence brigades.
Over the past week, the AFU losses amounted to more than 1,970 troops, three armoured personnel carriers, including one UK-made Spartan and one U.S.-made M-113 armoured personnel carriers, three armoured fighting vehicles, 13 motor vehicles, 22 field artillery guns, including seven U.S.-made guns, as well as eight ammunition depots.
Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces continued advancing into the depth of the enemy's defences and liberated Krasnoye and Novy Trud (Donetsk People's Republic).
Losses were inflicted on units of seven mechanised brigades, two motorised infantry brigades, one assault brigade, one infantry brigade, two jaeger brigades of the AFU, two naval infantry brigades, two territorial defence brigades, two national guard brigades, and one assault brigade of the National Police of Ukraine.
In addition, 76 counterattacks of the enemy were repelled. The AFU losses amounted to more than 3,815 troops, six tanks, including one German-made Leopard tank, six infantry fighting vehicles, seven armoured personnel carriers, including one M-1117 and four M-113 combat vehicles made in the USA, and 11 other armoured fighting vehicles, including five Western-made armoured fighting vehicles. 42 motor vehicles and 26 field artillery guns were eliminated.
As a result of active operations, units of the Vostok Group of Forces liberated Storozhevoye (Donetsk People's Republic).
Russian units inflicted losses on formations of one motorised infantry brigade, three mechanised brigades of the AFU, two territorial defence brigades, and one national guard brigade. Six counter-attacks launched by AFU assault detachments were repelled. The AFU losses amounted to up to 1,140 troops, 16 motor vehicles, 22 field artillery guns, including four self-propelled artillery systems and 155mm howitzers manufactured by NATO countries.
Units of the Dnepr Group of Forces improved the tactical situation along the front line and defeated manpower and hardware of one mechanised brigade, one infantry brigade, one mountain assault brigade, one air assault brigade of the AFU, and three territorial defence brigades.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 455 troops, 22 motor vehicles, and 16 field artillery guns. Eight electronic warfare stations and three field ammunition depots were destroyed. Over the course of the past week, 51 Ukrainian servicemen surrendered in the line of contact.
Air defence units shot down four UK-made Storm Shadow air-based cruise missiles, one Neptune long-range guided missile, two French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs, 31 U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles, and 496 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 650 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 38,648 unmanned aerial vehicles, 590 anti-aircraft missile systems, 20,057 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,504 MLRS combat vehicles, 20,043 field artillery guns and mortars, and 29,584 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.
In the course of offensive actions, units of the Sever Group of Forces inflicted fire damage on formations of one heavy mechanised brigade, five mechanised brigades, three air assault brigades, one naval infantry brigade, and four territorial defence brigades of the AFU close to Aleksandriya, Viktorovka, Kruglenkoye, Kurilovka, Lebedevka, Leonidovo, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Nikolsky, Novaya Sorochina, Sverdlikovo, and Cherkasskoye Porechnoye.
Operational-Tactical and Army aviation and artillery engaged AFU manpower and hardware close to Goncharovka, Guyevo, Kolmakov, Loknya, Malaya Loknya, Martynovka, Makhnovka, Mirny, Nikolayevka, Russkoye Porechnoye, Yuzhny as well as Basovka, Belovody, Zhuravka, and Kiyanitsa in Sumy region.
Over the past 24 hours, the AFU losses amounted to more than 600 troops, four tanks, two infantry fighting vehicles, including one U.S.-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, four armoured personnel carriers, 24 armoured fighting vehicles, 20 motor vehicles, seven artillery guns, including one 155mm Bogdana self-propelled artillery system, and six mortars.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk region, the AFU losses amounted to more than 44,570 troops, 259 tanks, 199 infantry fighting vehicles, 141 armoured personnel carriers, 1,345 armoured fighting vehicles, 1,211 motor vehicles, 332 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, 82 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, seven armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
[MSN - BBC] The US has imposed sanctions on Georgia's former prime minister and billionaire founder of the Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivanishvili.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ivanishvili and his party had "derailed Georgia's Euro-Atlantic future", leaving it vulnerable to Russia.
Ivanishvilli is not an elected official but he has been described as the "honorary chairman" of Georgian Dream, which has spent 12 years in power.
The party claimed victory in recent elections amid allegations of fraud and swiftly announced the suspension of EU accession talks, sparking widespread protests.
Opposition MPs have been boycotting the new parliament, alleging fraud.
The inauguration of a new president - former Manchester City footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili of the People's Power party, who is seen as a Georgian Dream ally - is scheduled for two days' time.
But outgoing president Salome Zurabishvili, who is strongly pro-European, has said she will not step down until new elections are held.
"We strongly condemn Georgian Dream's actions under Ivanishvili's leadership, including its ongoing and violent repression of Georgian citizens, protestors, members of the media, human rights activists, and opposition figures," a statement from Blinken said.
Blinken accused Georgian Dream of "ongoing and violent repression" of Georgian citizens, protestors, journalists, rights activists and opposition figures", and said the party's actions had "curbed the exercise of fundamental freedoms".
"The result has left Georgia vulnerable to Russia, which continues to occupy more than 20% of Georgia's territory," he said.
US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller described Ivanishvili as the "honorary chairman" of Georgian Dream.
In November Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said his government would not seek EU accession talks until 2028, triggering ongoing protests.
Riot police have used tear gas and water cannon against protesters, who have fought back by throwing fireworks and stones.
The UK has sanctioned five other senior Georgian officials, including the interior minister, for their roles in suppressing pro-European protests.
Last month, the European Parliament backed a resolution describing the election as the latest stage in Georgia's "worsening democratic crisis".
It expressed particular concern about reports of voter intimidation, vote-buying and manipulation, and harassment of observers.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] Since the beginning of the day, 158 armed clashes have occurred on the front.
The enemy carried out 37 air strikes on Ukrainian territory (using, in particular, 43 KAB), used 808 kamikaze drones to destroy them, and also carried out more than 4,300 shelling attacks on the positions of our troops and populated areas.
There have been 158 combat clashes on the front since the beginning of the day. The situation in the Pokrovsk and Kurakhovsk directions remained hot today, the enemy is also active in the Limansk, Vremivsk directions and Kurshchina. This is stated in the General Staff report on Friday, December 27.
In the Kharkov direction, the enemy attacked twice near Volchansk.
According to preliminary estimates, Ukrainian defenders have killed and wounded 72 occupiers in this area today, as well as destroyed a tank, two artillery systems, an anti-tank weapon, four vehicles, three communications equipment and 29 UAVs, and also significantly damaged an armored combat vehicle and nine vehicles.
In the Kupyansk direction, the enemy attempted to advance toward our positions near Petropavlovka and Lozovaya five times during the day. Four enemy attacks were repelled by the Defense Forces. The battle is currently ongoing.
In the Liman direction, the enemy attacked 20 times in the areas of Pervomayskoye, Novoyegorovka, Nadezhda, Terny, Torskoye, Zarechny, Dibrov and in the Serebryansky forest. Our soldiers repelled the attacks of the occupiers.
In the Seversky direction, the occupiers tried to advance forward four times in the Belogorovka area and in the direction of Vyemka, but were rebuffed.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the activity of the occupiers since the beginning of the day amounted to five combat clashes. Assault actions took place near Vremenny Yar, Belaya Gora and Stupochki.
In the Toretsk direction, our troops repelled ten enemy attacks near Toretsk and Shcherbinovka. All attacks were stopped.
Since the beginning of the day, the enemy has tried 52 times to penetrate our defenses in the Pokrovsk direction in the areas of Mirolyubovka, Luch, Vozdvizhenka, Lisovka, Dachensky, Novy Trud, Shevchenko, Novozavetovka, Novovasilovka and Volkovoye. We received a tough rebuff from our defenders.
According to preliminary information, today our soldiers neutralized 382 occupiers in this direction, 196 of them irretrievably. Four cars, a combat armored vehicle, a Murom-M surveillance system, an electronic warfare system, seven communications systems, a Lancet UAV and a motorcycle were destroyed.
In the Kurakhovsky direction, the enemy attacked our positions 18 times. The greatest activity was shown in the areas of Petropavlovka, Slavyanka, Dachnoye and Kurakhovoye, where the Ukrainian defenders repelled all attacks.
In the Vremivsky direction, our troops stopped 17 enemy attacks near Konstantinopolskoye, Razliv, Novy Komar and Novodarovka.
In the Dnieper direction, the enemy continues to try to dislodge our units from their positions, where two unsuccessful assaults on Ukrainian soldiers' positions were carried out within 24 hours.
In the Kursk region, Ukrainian defenders repelled 22 offensive actions by the invaders. Russian aviation carried out 15 strikes, using 18 guided aerial bombs on its territory.
The General Staff recognized the soldiers of the 79th separate airborne assault Tavricheskaya brigade, the 93rd separate mechanized brigade Kholodny Yar and the 414th separate brigade of unmanned aerial systems for their effective and professional combat work.
Let us recall that from February 24, 2022 to December 27, 2024, the total combat losses of Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine amounted to approximately 782,510 people (+1,650 per day)
Let us add that recently the Ukrainian Air Force carried out a high-precision strike on a military-industrial complex facility in the city of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky in the Rostov region of the Russian Federation.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 21:10 In the Krasnoarmeysk direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are in a critical situation in several areas.
Military expert Yuri Kotenok reports that between the villages of Novovasilyevka and Novoelizavetovka, units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are pushing west.
According to him, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are trying to contain the advance of Russian attack aircraft.
“The Ukrainian Armed Forces are retreating to a defensive line in front of the Dnepropetrovsk region,” he writes in his blog.
17:26 Artillerymen of the "Center" group of forces destroyed a stronghold and a concentration of Ukrainian Armed Forces manpower in the Krasnoarmeysk direction –Ministry of Defense.
The fire was conducted from a closed firing position at a range of about 10 km. The artillerymen fired several volleys, as a result of which they destroyed the strong point and eliminated the enemy infantry.
16:39 Information is coming in about the release of Dachensky, who is lying on the highway to Krasnoarmeysk,reportswar correspondent Timofey Ermakov.
15:47 Ambulance attacked Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kherson region. The operator clearly saw what the target was in front of him and directed the drone straight at the car.
15:23 Russian Army actually went out onto the Pokrovsk-Dnepr highway, - deputy of the Druzhkovka Ukrainian city council Dovbnya.
He noted that cutting the road would be a “very strong blow” to the Ukrainian Defense Forces and humanitarian missions operating there.
15:09 Drone drivers continue to deal with enemy equipment - Ministry of Defense.
An FPV drone crew from the North group of forces destroyed a Ukrainian Armed Forces tank in the Khar'kov region.
14:04 “The last line before the Dnipropetrovsk region”: the Ukrainian Armed Forces are being pulled back to the border of the region, —states soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine "Flour".
12:23 War Chronicle:
"A video of an alleged strike by Russian FPV drones on fiber optics on Ukrainian Armed Forces transport in Kursk Oblast is being actively discussed. Much has already been said about the effectiveness of drones, but attention should be paid to something else in this video.
Civilian transport used by the Ukrainian army is becoming increasingly difficult to use for its intended purpose. Apparently, a pickup truck was trying to pull out a minibus stuck in the mud, as a result of which both vehicles and people were in the open for a long time and were discovered from the air.
Obviously, not the most severe off-road conditions have long been a problem for both sides. However, for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Kursk Oblast, the supply problem is critical, since the longer it is necessary to maintain a presence on the territory of the Russian Federation, the more supplies, rotations, and everything else are needed."
11:23 Tankers cover the enemy with dense fire –Ministry of Defense
Crews of T-80BVM tanks of the Dnepr group of forces suppressed the firing points of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Zaporizhia region.
The target coordinates were obtained from drone operators conducting reconnaissance in the tank unit's area of ??responsibility.
11:00 Investigative Committee in absentia accused former heads of the Ukrainian presidential administration Rainin and Bogdan in connection with the deaths of 123 people in the DPR.
From August 2016 to February 2020, they successively held this position and were members of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. The militants under their control shelled populated areas of Donbas, which led to the death and injury of civilians.
10:12 Crews of the 122mm BM-21 Grad MLRS of the Tula paratroopers destroyed accumulation of Ukrainian Armed Forces infantry in the border areas of the Kursk region.
10:00 Ministry of Defense:
He could not remain indifferent to the events that were taking place. Aleksandr Ershov, a serviceman of the assault unit, went to the front at the call of his heart and proved himself to be a fearless and courageous warrior. He was awarded two Orders of Courage and the Medal "For Bravery".
In this short video, he tells a little about himself and how he received his first award. Then, five stormtroopers in the group that Alexander led took an enemy stronghold and held it for nine days until the main forces arrived.
9:45 Ministry of Defense: Drone Masters Are Back on Top
The FPV strike drone crews of the Southern Group of Forces destroyed a stronghold and mortar position of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kurakhovsky direction.
9:02 Consequences of attacks on the enemy rear with gliding bombs –PHOTO.
8:14 The Ukrainian occupation administration reports that the industrial infrastructure of occupied Zaporizhia was damaged as a result of a night strike.
8:07 Ministry of Defense:
Over the course of the past night, air defense systems on duty destroyed 13 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles. Five UAVs were shot down over the territory of the Bryansk region, three over the territory of the Kursk region, two over the territories of the Belgorod and Tula regions, and one over the territory of the Astrakhan region.
8:01 Changes to map for 12/26/2024
Overall results:
+ 30.04 km²
– 0 km²
Total: 30.04 km²
7:30 Changes to map over the past 24 hours:
— positions north of Velikaya Novoselka have been improved
— the army occupied most of Zagryzovo
— our guys have reached the Velyka Novosyolka-Gulyaipole highway
— the control zone in the area of ??the Velyka Novosyolka-Gulyaipole highway has been expanded
-promotion in the Razliv area
6:15 Ministry of Defense: So that Ugledar can return to peaceful life sooner
Ugledar was liberated two months ago, but fighting is still ongoing. The enemy is currently concentrated in forest belts. Stormtroopers of the "East" group of forces are driving Ukrainian militants as far away as possible.
The deputy battalion commander with the call sign "Boa Constrictor" spoke about how our guys deal with the Ukrainian Armed Forces militants.
3:35 Explosions were also heard earlier in the Kyiv region.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Evgeniya Kondakova
[REGNUM] Elections are a domestic political matter, because they determine how the state will live in the future, but sometimes the outcome of the vote in one country has an impact on global processes. And it so happened that in the outgoing year such elections took place in a continuous series, one after another, turning the whole of 2024 into a continuous global plebiscite: a year of fateful choice.
The tone of the global election marathon was set by the election campaign in the United States. In 2024, millions of people in different parts of the world followed with interest the intrigue that lasted until the last minute.
HERE THE BULLET WHISTLED...
The 45th US President Donald Trump was eager to take revenge for his 2020 defeat, which he still does not admit. And none of his fellow party members could provide him with real competition in the primaries. Republican voters wanted Trump to reach the "final" of the race. Many Americans believe that this was not only what voters wanted, but also higher powers.
There was a debate in the Democratic camp about whether Joe Biden should run. According to the established political tradition in America, the incumbent president is re-elected for a second term, and his fellow party members do not interfere with this. However, the cognitive abilities of the White House occupant began to raise serious doubts.
No matter how much the White House tried to convince the public that the president was in good health and of sound mind, everything became obvious during the debates with Trump (by the way, this was the first time in US history that two people who held the presidential post met).
After the obvious fiasco of the Democratic Party, there was nothing left but to replace the candidate in the midst of the campaign - US Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race. Trump also risked leaving the election race following his sworn friend Biden, but then the very intervention of higher powers happened.
During a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, two days before the party's national convention, he was assassinated, but the politician, by a lucky chance, turned his head to the side in time to read the inscriptions on the posters about illegal immigrants, otherwise the bullet would have hit the target.
As security tried to escort the former president off stage, he raised his fist into the air, shouting, "Fight!" The gesture later appeared on Republican campaign posters.
As a result, Trump won the election, receiving 312 electoral votes (with 270 needed), while Harris received 226. Thus, Trump became the second president in history to serve a second non-consecutive term; previously, this achievement was only achieved by Democrat Grover Cleveland, who led the country in 1885–1889 and 1893–1897.
There are several interesting electoral features to note about these elections.
The share of independent voters has grown to 43%. In addition, in 2024, Americans began actively voting early, and, surprisingly, this method was often chosen by Republicans, although they had previously been skeptical about it, considering it a source of fraud. This became one of the factors in Trump's victory, which is due personally to his daughter-in-law Lara, co-chair of the Republican National Committee (she left this post immediately after the election), who insisted that Republican voters take part in mail-in voting.
In addition to the presidential elections, the Democrats also lost the congressional elections - both chambers came under the control of the Republicans. After this fiasco, Biden practically did not appear in public, his fellow party members were indignant about this, because two months before the inauguration, Trump actually began to determine the political course of the United States.
Harris disappeared from the radar altogether.
RIGHT TURN IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
In Europe, the trend that took place last year continued – the strengthening of the positions of right-wing political forces, both at the EU level and in individual countries. However, such a turning point in this struggle as happened overseas did not occur in the Old World.
In the European Parliament elections in June, right-wing parties increased their representation, while the allies of individual country leaders suffered defeat.
Thus, the People's Party of Spain and the Freedom Party of Austria overtook the ruling parties. In France, the National Rally of Marine Le Pen won (34.05%), the Renaissance Party of President Emmanuel Macron finished second (14.44%).
In Germany, the top two places were taken by the largest opposition force, the CDU/CSU (30%) and Alternative for Germany (15.9%), while Chancellor Olaf Scholz's SPD came in third (13.9%).
However, the majority in the European Parliament remains with the mainstream centre-right European People's Party, so the right has not been able to radically change the course of the pan-European representative body. But voters have sent a powerful signal about their mood.
This signal resonated especially strongly in France, where it alarmed the leader of the Fifth Republic so much that Marcon made a decision that was unexpected for many: to dissolve parliament and call early elections in order to obtain a majority. As a result, this undertaking resulted in a deep political crisis for France.
The National Union emerged as the leader in the first round of elections, but by uniting against the right in the second round, the left-wing bloc New Popular Front and the government coalition Together for the Republic prevented them from coming to power.
This was followed by lengthy negotiations, due to which France did not have a prime minister for almost two months, and eventually they settled on the candidacy of the former Brexit negotiator on the EU side, Michel Barnier, representing the Republican party, which took 4th place in the elections. However, he only held the post for 90 days, during which he managed to approve the social part of the budget expenditures bypassing parliament. After his resignation, Macron appointed former French Justice Minister François Bayrou as prime minister.
The right was not allowed to come to power in Austria either, although it was the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) that won the parliamentary elections with 28.8%, the ruling Austrian People's Party took 2nd place (26.3%), and the Social Democratic Party of Austria took 3rd place (21.1%). The country's President Alexander van der Bellen instructed the three parties that received the most votes to conduct coalition negotiations.
FPÖ Chairman Herbert Kickl made it clear that the Freedom Party would only participate in a coalition government if he himself were chancellor, but the other political forces did not express their willingness to join a coalition with him, and so the head of state instructed the current chancellor, Karl Nehammer, to form a government.
A vote of no confidence was also announced in 2024 for the German government. The Traffic Light coalition fell apart due to internal squabbles, resulting in a minority government (SPD and Greens) in Germany, which had to coordinate any of its initiatives with the CDU/CSU. Germans' dissatisfaction with the quality of life grew, and, as a result, there was a lack of confidence in the government, and early elections were scheduled for February.
The leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, has a good chance of becoming the next chancellor, although in the latest poll, AfD co-chair Alice Weidel was the most popular politician in Germany. For the first time in its history, the Alternative will nominate a candidate for chancellor – it will be Weidel. And for the first time, the Alternative took first place in the state elections in Thuringia, and in Saxony it became second (after the CDU).
ELECTORAL CHAOS ON THE EU PERIPHERY
The history of the presidential elections in Romania also clearly demonstrates the fatigue with systemic forces and the thirst for change.
According to the results of the first round, to the surprise of many, the victory with 22.95% was won by independent candidate Calin Georgescu, a former second-rate official who entered the elections with slogans of strengthening national sovereignty, ending aid to Ukraine and restoring good relations with Russia.
He called Vladimir Putin "a man who loves his country."
But the fight for 2nd place was fought until the last counted ballot. As a result, the head of the center-right Union for the Rescue of Romania, Elena Lasconi (19.18%), who advocates for strengthening cooperation with NATO and the EU, as well as increasing defense spending in Ukraine, was 0.3% ahead of the current Prime Minister of Romania, Marcel Ciolacu from the Social Democratic Party, who was generally considered the favorite in the elections and at the same time an inconvenient figure for Brussels.
At first, the Constitutional Court of Romania approved the results of the first round of elections, but soon - after the secret services declassified documents that allegedly testified to the illegal financing of Georgescu's election campaign, hacker attacks on the country's digital infrastructure, and the notorious "interference" of Russia - it radically changed its decision and cancelled the results, ordering that the election campaign be held anew.
As the court ruling states, “one of the candidates used aggressive propaganda by over-exploiting the algorithms of social media platforms.” This is clearly Georgescu, who, in the absence of a campaign headquarters, campaigned primarily on TikTok.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov compared the situation in Romania with the 2004 elections in Ukraine, when instead of Yanukovych winning the majority of votes, a third round of elections was called, with Yushchenko emerging as the winner.
Naturally, there was no Russian interference in the Romanian elections, as confirmed by the investigative journalism portal snoop.ro. The National Tax Administration Agency of Romania established that Georgescu's election campaign was financed by the National Liberal Party of Romania, not Moscow.
INTOLERABLE WOMEN OF THE POST-SOVIET SPACE
And in the post-Soviet space, current female presidents are holding on to their posts with all their might.
On October 26, parliamentary elections were held in Georgia. There, the ruling Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia, which advocates traditional values, national sovereignty and pragmatic relations with Russia, set itself the task of obtaining a constitutional majority (113 out of 150 seats, or ¾). It was opposed by a whole bunch of pro-Western opposition parties that sought to overthrow the Dream, which had been in power since 2012.
As a result, Georgian Dream won for the fourth time in a row, gaining 53.93% of the votes (thus receiving 89 mandates, which is significantly less than the target of 113).
The opposition did not recognize the results of the vote and staged mass riots in Tbilisi. The President of Georgia herself, French citizen Salome Zurabishvili, called for protests in protest of the ruling party's victory and demanded that a new vote be held.
On December 14, presidential elections were held in Georgia, and according to new rules: the head of state is now elected not by citizens directly, but by a panel of 300 people (all 150 members of the Georgian parliament and 150 representatives of local authorities, including members of the highest representative bodies of the Abkhaz and Adjara Autonomous Republics), and not for six, but for five years.
The opposition did not put forward its candidate for them, and the only contender for the highest post was former MP and earlier football player Mikheil Kavelashvili, who was nominated by the Georgian Dream. As a result, he gained the necessary 2/3 of the electoral votes for victory (or 224, to be exact) and is due to take office on December 29. However, Zurabishvili does not intend to give up power.
So the republic's authorities are left with two options: either to put up with Zurabishvili's presence, or to use force and literally remove her from the presidential chair. Dual power is looming on the horizon, with some TV channels planning to broadcast Zurabishvili's New Year's greetings, while others are going to broadcast Kavelashvili's.
In Moldova, Maia Sandu and Alexandru Stoianoglo are competing for the presidential post.
Sandu, who lived in the United States while serving as an adviser to the executive director of the World Bank, advocates rapprochement with the EU and NATO and is an outspoken supporter of Ukraine. Stoianoglo, a native of Gagauzia, led the Moldovan Prosecutor General's Office to make major strides in investigating the "theft of the century" — the theft of $1 billion from Moldova's banks shortly after a Western-backed coalition of pro-European parties came to power in 2009.
In the first round, Sandu won by a small margin, but in the second round, the total votes of the opposition electorate should have been enough for Stoianoglo to win. But the young lady found a way to get out of the situation. Having lost at polling stations located in Moldova itself, she snatched the overall victory thanks to the votes received at more than 200 polling stations opened in EU countries. In Russia, only two foreign polling stations were opened.
De facto, following the election results, Sandu became the president of the diaspora, and Stoianoglo the president of Moldova, as local media and social media users wrote, but de jure Maia remained in the presidential chair.
THE QUESTION OF LEGITIMACY
It so happened that 2024 will be the year of presidential elections in both countries involved in the Ukrainian conflict, although they are elected for different terms (in Russia for six years, in Ukraine for five).
The outcome of the vote in Russia was predictable - Vladimir Putin was re-elected for another term, but another aspect is important here - he gained 87.28%, and this is the highest result for all the elections in which he participated since 2000. 76,277,708 people voted for the current president. This indicates that the overwhelming majority of citizens trust the head of state and approve of the course he is implementing both within the country and in the foreign policy arena.
u Scholz, Biden and Macron." How Germany elected the Russian president
And what about Ukraine? Nothing.
Volodymyr Zelensky, citing martial law in the country, cancelled the elections, arguing that voting could not be held under such conditions. However, not everyone agrees with this interpretation.
"The law prohibits holding any elections during martial law. The Constitution of Ukraine regulates this situation with regard to parliament. According to Article 83, if the parliamentary term ends during martial law, the parliamentary powers continue until the new convocation. But there is no such clause with regard to the president," emphasizes Ivan Brikulsk, an expert in comparative constitutional law.
Putin said the same thing, adding that the only legitimate authority in Ukraine now is the Verkhovna Rada and its chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk
Zelensky has no plans to hold a vote until the fighting ends, but says he will win the next election by a landslide.
However, in December last year, the head of state (then still legitimate) did not think so, Ukrainian media reported. The presidential office cancelled the elections, seeing a threat to the dictator's rating from the increasingly popular commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny, although he had never expressed presidential ambitions. He was quickly exiled to an honorable exile in Great Britain, violating a number of diplomatic procedures during his appointment as ambassador.
The 2024 global election cycle has clearly demonstrated the main political divide of our time between conservative forces that strive for national sovereignty and peaceful coexistence, and liberals who have placed their bets on war to maintain their own power.
The "icon" of global liberals has become Zelensky, an illegitimate president who cancelled elections in his own country and banned peace talks. Liberals in Romania are clearly following his example, having cancelled election results they didn't like without any reason, and in Georgia, simply refusing to admit defeat. After all, it turns out that this is now possible.
In the US, they tried to kill a candidate who was unpopular with the liberal elites, and if they succeeded, a candidate who had not gone through any preliminary nomination procedures could have come to power.
Against this backdrop, the elites in “Old Europe” are prepared to sacrifice political stability in order to prevent the most popular politicians in society, who advocate sovereignty, traditional values and peaceful coexistence, from coming to power.
The coming year 2025 should tip the scales in favor of one of the two global political camps.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The US Government Accountability Office has found that a US Navy contractor used scotch tape and other “unauthorized materials” when repairing a battle cruiser. This is stated in an article on the Zona-militar portal.
The agency reviewed how $1.84 billion was spent during the program to repair the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, whose service life ends in 2030. In 2012, when work began, it was planned to repair 11 ships, but only three were returned to service; the rest were written off.
The Audit Office criticized the quality of contractors' work. The most striking example was the cruiser USS Vicksburg. On it, one of the ship repair companies could not achieve the tightness of the equipment and used materials that were not provided for in the project.
“Used unauthorized materials such as plastic film, tape, foam and sealant advertised on television,” the publication quoted the Audit Chamber’s report as saying.
According to the department, the poor results of the repair work are due to the fact that their progress was controlled not by the fleets that operate the cruisers, but by the Navy command, according to the material published on December 19.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in November 2021, the American portal 19fortyfive reported that the ships of the American Navy are rusting and falling into disrepair due to ineffective bureaucracy and neglect. The publication noted that experts have been pointing out the deterioration of the ships for several years now.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The capital of Yemen, Sana'a, was hit by an airstrike on December 27. Powerful explosions thundered in the city, Al Arabiya reported.
The strike targeted Sanaa airport and other vital facilities in the city itself and in the coastal province of Hodeidah, including two power plants and an oil port.
As reported by Regnum News Agency, Yemeni Houthis launched a Palestine-2 hypersonic ballistic missile attack on an Israeli military facility in the Tel Aviv area on December 16. According to Houthi spokesman Yahya Saria, this was a response to Israel's ongoing attacks on Palestine.
Since then, Sana'a has been repeatedly hit. The Yemeni capital was subjected to a massive airstrike on December 22. In addition, on December 26, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a series of airstrikes on Sana'a.
At the time, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was at the airport in the capital of Yemen. He was not injured. According to the Houthis, six people were killed and 40 more were injured.
Saria reported on December 27 that the Houthis had launched a hypersonic ballistic missile attack on Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. The airport's operations were suspended.
#2
80 years ago today AP news item 28 Dec 1944
Moscow - Doomed Nazi garrison reeled backwards in the smoke-fill streets of western Budapest today but clung with suicidal resistance to positions in the eastern section of the capital... "The Russians are now attacking from the southeast, northeast and west," the broadcast said.)
The German and Hungarian defenders were reported to have already been denied the use of one of the two remaining airports Please turn to Page Three
[Rudaw] 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) cells targeted the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria on Thursday, killing two and exploiting the security vacuum caused by the collapse of the Assad regime.
"ISIS is trying to take advantage of the chaos prevailing in Syrian territory to revive itself and have the strength to carry out terrorist acts, mainly targeting the areas of north and eastern Syria," the SDF said.
The two Kurdish SDF members were killed in separate attacks in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor province. ISIS forces of Evil also "fired an RPG shell" at a water station in Dhiban, a town on the Euphrates River, causing material damage.
The SDF noted the attacks coincided with an offensive by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... -backed militias and said "it has become clear that the danger of ISIS increases" as long as the Ottoman Turkish-backed operation continues.
On Thursday, Kurdish security forces (Asayish) announced they arrested four ISIS members on Wednesday in al-Junayna, in western Deir ez-Zor, in coordination with the global coalition. They also confiscated a cache of weapons and ammunition, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Temperatures are expected to exceed the norm in most of Russia, with negative deviations from the norm expected only in the Asian part of the Russian Federation. This was reported on December 27 by Roman Vilfand, scientific director of the Russian Hydrometeorological Center. No doubt there was much rejoicing — they’ve been terribly disappointed to not see any of the much-ballyhooed global warming, poor darlings.
“If you look at the forecast of average temperature anomalies for January, you can see that a huge area of the country is occupied by positive anomalies, that is, the class above the norm is forecast in the east of European Russia, in the Urals, in Western Siberia and in the Krasnoyarsk Territory,” the forecaster noted.
Vilfand added that the European part of Russia is expected to see normal or above-average air temperatures. In addition, according to the specialist, the rest of the Asian part of the country is likely to see abnormally low temperatures against the backdrop of an anticyclone.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on December 25, Vilfand said that on New Year's Eve, the temperature in the Moscow region will be between zero and minus five degrees, with light snow possible. The expert specified that on January 2 and 3, in the Moscow region, the temperature will vary from minus two to minus seven degrees at night, and from zero to minus five degrees during the day. In the capital, the temperature can reach a maximum of minus five degrees at night, and up to minus three during the day.
Before this, the Hydrometeorological Center reported that warm weather with air temperatures above the climatic norm will continue in Moscow and the Moscow region until the end of 2024. It was noted that there is a "mystery" in the weather expected on December 31, but the New Year will not be cold.
[Rudaw] 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 decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire... on Thursday. The process will continue in the coming days, spokesperson for Iraq’s migration ministry said.
"A total of 126 Iraqi citizens have been returned to Iraq from Tal Abyad [Gire Spi], Ral al-Ain [Sare Kani], Idlib and Azaz via the Iraqi-Ottoman Turkish border," Ali Abbas, spokesperson for Iraq’s migration and displaced ministry, told Rudaw, referring to Ibrahim Khalil border crossing in Duhok province.
The returnees are from the provinces of Salahaddin, Nineveh, Anbar, and Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... Abbas explained, adding that in the coming two days, more people are expected to be repatriated.
"Many of our citizens have been displaced since 2014, and their return through Turkey and the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing in coordination with the Iraqi embassy in Turkey, the Iraqi consulate in Gaziantep, the ministry of transportation and our ministry branch in Duhok," he said.
Following the collapse of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... ’s regime on December 8, the ministry asked Iraqi citizens residing in Syria who wish to return, to contact the embassy and register their names.
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.
...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
...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 
[JPost] Responding to a recent libel on X/Twitter that Jews eat human flesh, United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese stated that not all Jews should be blamed for Israel's actions. In another post, she wrote that it was important not to "invisibilize" the "few" Israelis who were against occupation, apartheid, and genocide.
...
French national railway company SCNF told PEOPLE in a statement that the incident occurred on a high-speed line around 8 p.m. local time on Christmas Eve in the Seine-et-Marne region to the east of Paris when a train driver died by suicide "while the train was moving."
...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 
