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Damascus bombings kill 40, wound 170: state TV
Today's Headlines
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot

Marina Vlady (French) aka Yolande in "Quelques jours de repit (A Few Days of Respite)(2011)" aka Juliette Jeanson in "2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (2 or 3 Things I Know About Her)(1967)" aka Kate Percy in "Campanadas a medianoche (Chimes at Midnight)(1965)" aka Regina in "L'ape regina (The Conjugal Bed)(1963) " aka Chantal Duvivier in "Splendor (1989)" aka Jacqueline in "The Lady from Boston (1951)" (age 74)




Hard to Port
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 05/10/2012 4:30 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Herat: IED Blast Kills 5 Afghan Police
[TOLOnews] - At least five Afghan coppers were killed when a roadside mine went kaboom! in western Herat
...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns...
province on Tuesday evening, local officials said Wednesday.

The incident happened in Posht-Rod district of Herat province yesterday, when their vehicle struck a roadside mine, a front man for police in western Afghanistan Abdul Raouf Ahmadi told TOLOnews.

No group, including the Taliban, has grabbed credit for the blast.

Ahmadi said that the mine was planted by gun-hung tough guys to target Afghan cops.

Posht-Rod district has been considered insecure in the province because gun-hung tough guys have frequently targeted Afghan police with violence.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Paktika: Militant Ambush Kills 5 Local Education Officials
[TOLOnews] - Five education officials were killed and six others were maimed in a bad turban ambush in southeast Paktika
...which coincidentally borders South Wazoo...
province Tuesday afternoon, a statement from the Ministry of Education said Wednesday.

The incident happened at around 11:30 am local time as a delegation of education ministry were visiting schools in the Urgun district of Paktika province, the statement said.

This comes as five police and four Farah provincial education directors were killed in kaboom late Tuesday, a regional police official said Wednesday.

Investigation suggest the bomb was under the vehicle when it exploded by remote-control.

Afghan Ministry of Education strongly condemned the act calling on provincial security forces to find and arrest those who committed such attacks.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Horn
Sudan Says Regained Control Of Rebel-Held Darfur Town
[Jpost] - Sudanese army troops have pushed out rebels who had seized control of a town in the western Darfur region, a state-linked media website said on Wednesday, the latest violent incident in the troubled area.

The two Darfur rebel factions -- the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) factions led by Minni Minnawi and Abdelwahid Nour -- had captured Girayda in southern Darfur on Tuesday as part of their campaign to topple President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's government.

"The armed forces were able to defeat remnants of Minnawi's forces from the area of Girayda in South Darfur province after they stormed it yesterday with the purpose of stealing, looting and terrorizing people," the Sudanese Media Center said.

It quoted the front man for South Darfur province, Ahmed el-Tayeb, as saying nine Sudanese army soldiers has been killed and that combing operations were still going on to "cleanse the area". The Sudanese army front man was not immediately available for comment.
"I can say no more!"
to confirm the deaths.

The two rebel factions had formed an alliance, known as the Sudanese Revolutionary Front, with other fighters in Sudan's southern border states last year.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan


Death, Destruction after Darfur Rebel Attack
[An Nahar] The United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
said bodies lay in the battle-damaged town of Girayda on Wednesday, after a brief occupation by rebel troops in the war-plagued Darfur region of western Sudan.

Sudan's army regained control of Girayda town and the surrounding area but nine government soldiers died in the effort, reported the Sudanese Media Center (SMC), which is close to the security apparatus.

Foreign peacekeepers observed the aftermath when they resumed patrolling the area on Wednesday, said Christopher Cycmanick, a front man for the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
-United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID).

"There were a number of dead and there was considerable damage to the town infrastructure," he said. "Fuel had been stolen and some places had been looted."

UNAMID has a base just outside Girayda, and the area is also home to a camp for Darfur residents displaced by the conflict which is nearly a decade old.

Rebels said on Tuesday they had seized control of the town from government troops, the latest in a reported upsurge of fighting in Darfur.

The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)-Minni Minnawi faction said it carried out the attack with rebels of another SLA faction headed by Abdelwahid Nur.

SMC quoted a front man for the South Darfur state government, which includes Girayda, as saying an operation to retake the area began Tuesday night and "continued for many hours" to expel the rebels to the edge of a surrounding district.

The rebels suffered "heavy losses," the government front man said, without giving figures. He added that troop reinforcements have been sent to the region.

Girayda is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Nyala, the South Darfur state capital.

In April, the head of UNAMID expressed concern
...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended...
that rebels in Darfur were exploiting tensions between Sudan and South Sudan along their disputed frontier.

The U.N. estimates that at least 300,000 people have died as a result of the Darfur conflict, which began in 2003 when rebels from non-Arab tribes in Sudan's far west rose up against the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime.

In response, the government unleashed state-backed Janjaweed militia in a conflict that shocked the world and led to allegations of genocide. Since then, much of the violence in the vast region has degenerated into banditry.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan


Sudan war planes bomb South, violating UN resolution: army
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Sudanese war planes have launched renewed air strikes against South Sudan, violating a UN Security Council resolution to end weeks of a bitter border conflict, the South's army said Wednesday.

"The Republic of Sudan has been randomly bombarding civilian areas," said Southern army front man Kella Kueth, who said the air strikes hit the border states of Upper Nile, Unity and Western Bahr el-Ghazal on Monday and Tuesday.

It was not possible to independently confirm the reports of bombing, and Sudan has repeatedly denied it has bombed the South.

"The people of Khartoum, they just deny," Kueth said, adding that both fighter jets and Antonov airplanes carried the air raids.

Both sides say they are complying with a United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
Security Council resolution which ordered them to stop fighting from last Friday, after international concern the rivals could return to all out war.

A border war with South Sudan began in late March, escalating with waves of Sudanese air strikes against South Sudanese territory and the South's 10-day seizure of the Heglig oil field from Khartoum's army.

The South's army confirmed it had pulled back 10 kilometres (six miles) south of the contested border line, in accordance with the UN deadline Wednesday to do so. However the border is undemarcated.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan


Al Shabaab Arrests 100 local Elders in south-Central Somalia
(Sh. M. Network) -- Fighters of Al shabaab jihad boy group linked with Al Qaeda on Wednesday apprehended nearly 100 elders in three locations in central Somalia, a politician confirmed to Shabelle Media.

Dahir Sheik Amiin Jesow, a Somali MP said the arrests took place today at three areas called Buqda-Aqable, El-Ali, Mukeyle located in Hiran, Lower Middle Shabelle regions of south and central Somalia.

The Arrested elders were said to have been accused of planning to travel to Mogadishu as to join the continuing Somalia Traditional elders convenes in the capital which is intended to select a national constituent assembly that will adopt the draft constitution and the upcoming Somali parliament.

Al shabab has already declared its stiff stance against Mogadishu meeting, saying he who attends it will be out of Islam, according to Sheik Ali Dhere, the front man of the group.

Locals expressed concern
...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended...
the group's move against the elders and some residents demanded for immediate safe release. But fighters loyal to the group have captured and tossed in the slammer
You have the right to remain silent...
.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Africa North
Mali Islamists attack UNESCO holy site in Timbuktu
A few days old but we didn't report on this before. Hat tip to Walter Russell Mead.
May 5 - Malian fighters from the Ansar Dine Islamist group attacked and burned the tomb of one of the town's saints, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, residents and a regional official said on Saturday.

The militants broke off doors, windows and wooden gates from the grave and burned them, they said, in the first reported attack on a shrine in Mali.

El Hadj Baba Haidara, an elected member of parliament from Timbuktu told Reuters some young people were discussing how to react despite being unarmed. "There is a risk the people may revolt because this is something that affects their dignity. This tomb is sacred, it is too difficult to bear," Haidara said.

Ansar Dine, along with Tuareg rebels and other armed groups, swept through northern Mali in March and April, seizing the northern half of the country and its ancient towns of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal after the government collapsed in a March 22 coup.

While the rebel MNLA has declared an independent state in the north, al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine - led by veteran Tuareg leader Iyad Ag Ghaly - has rejected that idea and said the group's objective was to impose Islamic law in Mali.
Of course that's their goal. The goal of the holy warrior is always to subdue those who live in the world of war, converting them to the world of Islam or putting them to the sword.
In 2001, the Taliban dynamited and destroyed two 6th century statues of Buddha measuring 55 and 37 metres (180 and 121 feet) high, carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan.

Timbuktu Muslims on their way to Friday worship at the tomb of Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar and those of other saints were stopped and threatened by armed men from Ansar Dine, one resident said.

"What you are doing is haram! (forbidden). Ask God directly rather than the dead," one of the armed men told the residents, according to Ahmed Ibrahim, a resident who witnessed the scene.

Most Many Some Islamists view shrines as idolatry but traditional Muslims, especially Sufis, see shrines as part of accepted Islamic custom. Salafists have attacked several Sufi shrines in Egypt and Libya in the past year.

"After uttering those words, three of them (armed men) entered the mausoleum, ripped and burnt pieces of white clothing that surrounded the tomb of the saint in front of everyone," Ibrahim said.

Haidara told Reuters the act by the Islamist group could spark a violent reaction from the population, and that he had urged the U.N. body to help protect Timbuktu's heritage sites.

"They attacked the grave, broke doors, windows and wooden gates that protect it. They brought it outside and burn it, because to build a tomb is contrary to the principles of Islam," he said. The men said they would return to destroy other tombs.

No one at UNESCO was immediately available to comment.
Did you look under their beds?
"We have learned with indignation of the desecration of tombs perpetrated by lawless individuals. The government condemns in the strongest terms this unspeakable act in the name of Islam, a religion of tolerance and respect for human dignity," Mali's government said in a statement read on national television.

Timbuktu has 333 tombs of holy saints among which 16 are classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites including that of Sidi Mahamoud Ben Amar, a learned scholar considered the most sacred in Timbuktu, Haidara said.

The town has been a World Heritage Site since 1988 and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova in April appealed to the rebels to spare its "outstanding earthen architectural wonders".

These include the Sankore, Sidi Yahia and Djingarei-ber mosques - the latter Timbuktu's oldest, built from mud bricks and wood in 1325 - the famous manuscript libraries and the 16 mausoleums of Timbuktu.
Posted by: Steve White || 05/10/2012 13:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  actually we did report this on May 6

but it certainly merits a re-report
Posted by: lord garth || 05/10/2012 13:18 Comments || Top||

#2  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2822131/posts

Good read.
Posted by: Gruth McGurque5303 || 05/10/2012 16:54 Comments || Top||

#3  You're right. Apologies!
Posted by: Steve White || 05/10/2012 16:56 Comments || Top||


Egypt Officer Found Shot Dead In North Sinai, Among Other Adventures
(Ma'an) -- Egyptian authorities found the body of an army officer who had been rubbed out in the northern Sinai late Monday, officials said.

Military officials identified the victim as 35-year-old officer Abdullah Abdul-Minem. His body was found with a bullet wound in the head in Sheikh Zuweid city near El-Arish.

Separately, another police officer was shot by unidentified gunnies on Monday on his return home to El-Arish. The man was found in a pool of blood after having been shot several times in the abdomen, and was evacuated by helicopter to a military hospital in Cairo.

Early Monday, Egyptian security forces made a sweep of arrests in the northern Sinai, detaining 38 suspects in El-Arish, a security official told Ma'an.

Separately, families in the Egyptian border city Rafah turned in to the authorities two men suspected of planning a kaboom on the central security headquarters in the city.

Egyptian security are battling for control of the peninsula since the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
last year loosened the grip of state security in the isolated Sinai.

Military officials also warned that Jihadi groups want to oust state forces and have launched a number of deadly attacks on security officers.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Jihadi groups want to oust State forces" > ION ISRAELI MILITARY FORUM > [FrontPage Magz = David Levi] CAN ISRAEL FACE [+ win] A NINE-FRONT WAR?

Against both Third-Party NGOS + Main Govts-States, namely ...
> Nuclear wannabe Iran.
> Hizzies Hezzies Hussies Hazzies, etc. = Beiruit = Lebanon.
> Sinai.
> Egypt = Muslim Brotherhood.
> Syria = Baby Assad, versus post-Baby Assad pro-Islamist Govt.
> Hamas + PA.
> Hamas versus rival Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

All thats missing is Jordan + Turkey + Pakistan ... Oh, wait.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 05/10/2012 1:05 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Briton to go on trial in Kenyan bomb plot
A British man accused of links to Somalia's Islamist terrorists militants will go on trial in Kenya for allegedly plotting a bomb attack.

Jermaine Grant, 29, made his first appearance in court on Thursday, amid chaotic scenes in Mombasa. He was arrested last December and denies allegations that he possessed explosive material. He had already been jailed for being in Kenya illegally.

A Kenyan government lawyer said the case failed to start Wednesday because Grant's criminal file was incomplete.

Police say that when they raided the house Grant was staying in last year, they found material needed to make a bomb: hydrogen peroxide and ammonium nitrate, batteries, and electrical switches. The prosecution will allege that Grant was, together with three Kenyan co-defendants, planning to target civilians with their explosives.

A recent report by a security think-tank claimed Britons accounted for about a quarter of the estimated 200 foreigners fighting with al-Shabab.

Grant was first detained in Kenya near the Somali border in 2008, but escaped police custody. He is said to have been sprung from a police station by a group of al-Shabab terrorists militants.
Posted by: ryuge || 05/10/2012 06:08 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab

#1  Waiting for his parents to come on british tv saying what a lovely lad he is and this must be wrong nonsense.
Posted by: Gruth McGurque5303 || 05/10/2012 12:35 Comments || Top||


Islamist Militants Killed, Hurt in Nigeria Attack on Troops
[An Nahar] Soldiers in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri killed a suspected member of the Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
Islamist sect and maimed two others on Wednesday after repelling an attack, the army said.

"The JTF (Joint Task Force)... at about 11:15 hours (1015 GMT) today... successfully repelled a suspected Boko Haram attack on one of its locations," an army front man said in a statement.

"One Boko Haram terrorist was killed, two injured, two tossed in the clink
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
," he said.

No soldier or civilian was killed or injured in the encounter that lasted less than five minutes, he said, without giving further details.

Soldiers in Nigeria's largest northern city of Kano on Sunday killed four suspected members of the sect in a raid on their hideout, the army said.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram


2 civilians killed in northeastern Nigeria attack
[Iran Press TV] Gunmen have killed two people in an attack on a market in Nigeria's northeastern city of Maiduguri in the latest act of aggression blamed on the Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
thugs.

Witnesses said that on Wednesday, the attackers stormed the market, shot two traders dead, and fled, while shooting wildly into the air, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.

Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, a Nigerian Army front man, accused the snuffies of the attack and said that the military had killed one suspected member of the group and locked away
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
two others, while repelling a Wednesday attack on a military post in the city, the thugs' home base.

Last week, gunnies killed seven people, including two police guards, in two separate attacks blamed on the turban group.

The group has taken responsibility for a number of deadly gun and kabooms in several parts of Nigeria since 2009.

Human rights groups report that violent actions by Boko Haram since mid-2009 have claimed more than 1,000 lives, including over 300 this year alone.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram


Arabia
Qaida Militants Kill 2 Yemeni Troops in Southern Town
[An Nahar] Al-Qaeda gunnies killed two Yemeni soldiers Wednesday when they shelled their camp with two mortars in the southern town of Loader which the turban group has been trying to take over, an army officer said.

Another soldier was maimed in the assault to which the army responded by shelling al-Qaeda hideouts on the outskirts of Loder, the officer added.

Loder residents told Agence La Belle France Presse that the faceless myrmidons also shelled the town and burned down a mosque and a house.

"The (al-Qaeda) network is trying to forcefully enter Loder," a tribal source said.

Loder and Mudia are the only towns in Abyan
...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues...
province which are still out of the control of the Islamic fascisti who overran the scenic provincial capital Zinjibar in May.

Fierce battles between the army and residents on one side and the Islamic fascisti on the other for the control of both towns left more than 200 people dead early in April.

Residents of these towns have formed anti-Qaeda militias -- known as Popular Resistance Committees -- which fight alongside the army to keep out the jihadists who have renamed themselves as Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law).

On Monday, al-Qaeda gunnies launched spectacular attacks on two army posts outside of Zinjibar, killing at least 22 soldiers, to avenge the death of a top turban in an air raid.

The attacks came after Yemeni al-Qaeda leader Fahd al-Quso, who was wanted in connection with the deadly 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, was killed in an air strike in eastern Yemen on Sunday.

U.S. media reported on Tuesday that Quso's killing came after information provided by a man who was a double agent. The man had infiltrated the turban group and was ordered by al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia


Home Front: WoT
US: Bomb threat halts 2 Southwest Airlines flights
[Ynet]- Two Southwest Airlines flights with ties to Phoenix and Orange County's John Wayne Airport were grounded Tuesday night following a threatening phone call, authorities said. Both planes were cleared later in the evening.
 
The threat was made while Flight 1184 was en route to Phoenix from Orange County, Southwest spokeswoman Ashley Dillon said. The plane was taken to an isolation pad after it landed in Phoenix.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I thought it was three???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 05/10/2012 0:43 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
MQM man among three shot dead
[Dawn] Three persons, including an activist of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement
...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead...
, were rubbed out in the city on Tuesday, police said.

They said that the first incident took place within the remit of the Orangi Town cop shoppe.

Mirza Sarfaraz, 38, was going to open his general store in Orangi Town's Sector 12-L from his Liaquatabad residence and when he reached near Chamcha Hotel two gunnies riding a cycle of violence targeted him. He suffered seven bullet wounds and was struck down in his prime. However,
a lie repeated often enough remains a lie...
the assailants escaped, the police said.

The body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities. Scores of MQM workers also reached the health facility after hearing the news of the killing.

Area DSP Tariq Malik said the victim was an active worker of the unit 119 of the MQM's organizational structure and a resident of Al-Azam Square in Liaquatabad. He was unmarried.

He said as the victim belonged to the Shia community, the police were unsure about the motive of the murder, which could be either political or sectarian.

The police found seven spent bullet casings of 9mm pistol at the scene.

The body was later taken to Shah-e-Karbala Imambargah in Rizvia Society, where tension gripped surrounding areas and all shops and markets were closed. The victim was buried in Wadi-e-Hussain graveyard.

Till late in the night, no case was registered at the Orangi Town cop shoppe regarding the killing.

In another incident, a man was rubbed out in an Orangi Town locality within the remit of the Pirabad cop shoppe on Tuesday.

Police said the incident took place near Iqra Medical Centre in Qasba Colony, where Naseeb Ullah, 39, was sitting when two gunnies came on a cycle of violence, opened fire on him and rode away. He suffered two bullet wounds on the head and neck and was struck down in his prime.

The body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities.

DSP Tariq Malik said that victim was a watchman of a factory and was employed there for the past seven years. He lived in Qasba Colony, but originally hailed from Kohistan
...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns....
in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
The area DSP said personal enmity could be a likely motive behind the incident.

No case was registered till late in the night.

Meanwhile,
...back at the game, the Babe was wondering why the baseball kept getting bigger and bigger. Finally it hit him...
an unidentified young man was found rubbed out in a street in the Gurumandir area early Tuesday morning, police said.

They said the victim, aged around 24, was rubbed out on the same place from where his body was found. His hands were tied with a plastic rope used in packaging. The police said that it was not clear how the victim was brought to the place.

Wearing jeans and shirt, the victim was shot thrice to the head.

The police found three spent bullet casings of a 9mm pistol from the crime-scene.

A duty officer at the Soldier Bazaar cop shoppe said the body was found in a Gurumandir street close to the KMC Masjid.

"The man was shot on the spot...his legs were not tied but hands were tied," said the duty officer.

The police shifted the body to the Civil Hospital Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
for medico-legal formalities. Later, the body was taken to the Edhi morgue in Sohrab Goth for want of identification.

A case (FIR 152/2012) was registered under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistain Penal Code against unknown persons on behalf of the state at the Soldier Bazaar cop shoppe.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Bullet-riddled bodies of militants found in Bara
[Dawn] The bullet-riddled bodies of two suspected gun-hung tough guys were found in Bara while two more gun-hung tough guys were killed when rival groups clashed in Tirah valley of Khyber Agency on Tuesday.

Officials said that bodies of Taj Mohammad and Haider were found at Niazi Market early on Tuesday morning. The unidentified killers had left a chit with the bodies, warning locals that anyone found assisting or harbouring activists of proscribed bully boy organization Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) would meet the same fate.

Local sources said that both the dear departed went missing on Monday when they were leaving their homes after local administration served notices on Shalobar rustics to vacate the area.

Though nobody grabbed credit for the killing of the two persons belonging to Shalobar and Sipah tribes, Hussain Afridi, a front man for LI in Bara, told local journalists by telephone that they were killed by the relatives of Hazrat Khan, one of their dissidents.

Hazrat Khan was publicly beheaded in Spin Qabar Chowk a month ago after he was kidnapped along with his relatives. He had rebelled against LI some two months ago and was reportedly assisting security forces in their operation against the bully boy organization in Bara.

Meanwhile,
...back at the pond, the radioactive tadpoles grown into frogs. Really big frogs, in fact...
two members of a banned bully boy group were killed and four other injured when they clashed with the rival group in the remote Tirah valley of Khyber Agency on Tuesday.

Sources said that festivities took place between Ansarul Islam and Lashkar-e-Islam in Toor Zangal area when both groups tried to capture each other's positions. It was learnt that both sides used heavy weapons against each other that resulted in killing of two members of Ansarul Islam and injuries to four others.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar-e-Islami


Iraq
Iraq Demo Over 'anti-Islam' Magazine Turns Violent
[AFP] - Thousands erupted into the streets of the Iraqi Kurdish capital Arbil on Tuesday as a rally to demand swift punishment for a magazine editor who ran a story decried as "against Islam" turned violent.

Demonstrators gathered in front of the Kurdish parliament building in Arbil to protest the article published in the latest issue of Al-Hamsa (The Whisper), a monthly magazine published in Kurdish and Arabic in the regional capital.

The article relays a conversation between the author of the piece and God, and was deemed offensive to Islam by regional religious leaders, with Kurdish prime minister Nechirvan Barzani meeting with Islamic groups on Monday, the same day the publication's editor Hayman Ari was jugged
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
On Tuesday, protesters gathered opposite Arbil's parliament compound and began throwing rocks and water bottles at security forces and clashing with riot police, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.

Groups of demonstrators attempted to scale the concrete walls surrounding the compound, while others attacked nearby stores selling alcohol and other buildings.

"The government are allowing others to abuse Islam and abuse the Koran, and we do not accept this," said Karwan Salim, 19.

Ahmed Ali, 52, added angrily: "We are Mohammedans, we do not accept such humiliations published by magazines and newspapers. We do not accept any sentence against him (Ari) -- he must be handed over to us so we can execute him ourselves."

Provincial governor Nawzad Hadi said several protesters had been jugged
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
and multiple police had been injured during the demonstration and ensuing violence, but he did not give details.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yeah, you use the islam thing for power too. It's un-governable. Predominately because the Shariah and Hadith may be used an way any man wants to use them. You will also disagree with eachother to the point of death so you must embrace the Caliphate that says freedom of religion is paramount to get anywhere.
Posted by: newc || 05/10/2012 2:56 Comments || Top||


Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka rescues drifting Somali men
(Sh.M.Network)- Sri Lankan fishermen have rescued four Somali men who were drifting in a small boat off the island's coast -- where pirates from the African nation are known to be active -- police said on Tuesday.

A Sri Lankan trawler found the men last Wednesday in international waters in the Indian Ocean, thousands of kilometres from Somalia, a police official said.

"The (Somali) men were handed over to us today," police front man Ajith Rohana said. "What we gathered from the fishermen is that the Somalis were not armed at the time of the rescue. But, we can't say if they are pirates or not."

In January last year, Somali pirates operating in theIndian Oceanregion killed two Sri Lankan fishermen and seized three men along with their trawler.

A Bolivian-flagged vessel seized by Somali pirates in Maldivian waters two months ago was later freed with its Iran-bound sugar cargo.

Two decades of lawlessness have carved upSomaliainto mini-fiefdoms ruled by gunnies and militia, encouraging rampant piracy.

At least 40 vessels and more than 400 hostages were still being held in or just offSomaliaat the end of last year, according to the Ecoterra International group which monitors piracy in the region.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Pirates


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Damascus bombings kill 40, wound 170: state TV
Forty people were killed and 170 others were wounded in two successive powerful explosions that shook the Syrian capital early on Thursday, the state reported, as both the government and the opposition traded blames over the cause of the bombings.

The state television said the two “terrorist attacks” killed and wounded dozens “on the freeway in the south of Damascus.” The television added that the blasts occurred “as people were heading to work and children to school.”

It showed footage of the blasts with mangled bodies lay in the street amid the carcasses of shouldering vehicles.

Major General Robert Mood, chief of a U.N. observer mission in Syria, visited the site to survey the aftermath, Al Arabiya correspondent reported

Haitham al-Maleh, of the opposition Syrian National Council, accused the regime in Damascus of masterminding the bombings, while London-based Syrian activist and journalist Bassam Jaara described the bombings as “the regime’s response to the U.N. condemnation of its acts.”
Posted by: tipper || 05/10/2012 05:26 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  More news from the region of the RoP.

Is there anywhere in the world today that is involved in violent conflict where Muslims are not on at least one side?

The only place I can think of are the narco wars of Mexico and Colombia which is really just organized crime on a large scale.
Posted by: AlanC || 05/10/2012 14:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Nice to see that all that time some young Syrians spent in Iraq wasn't wasted.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/10/2012 15:09 Comments || Top||


Roadside Bomb Hits Syrian Military Truck; 10 Wounded
A roadside bomb hit a Syrian military truck on Wednesday, just seconds after the head of the United Nations observer team drove by in a convoy, and demonstrated the fragility of the international plan to end the country’s bloodshed.

The attack, which the government said wounded 10 Syrian soldiers, also emphasized the limits of the international community’s plan to use unarmed observers to monitor a cease-fire between government troops and rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The team of 70 military observers now in Syria is expected to grow to more than 100 in the coming days, but it is unclear when the full team of 300 will arrive. They are to oversee an internationally brokered cease-fire agreement that was intended to allow for talks on a political solution to the conflict but began fraying shortly after it was scheduled to take effect on April 12.
Posted by: tipper || 05/10/2012 02:13 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Lebanese Woman Killed in Cross-Border Fire
[An Nahar] A 70-year-old Lebanese woman was killed on Wednesday in a cross-border fire in eastern Leb's al-Qaa village, the National News Agency reported.

Halima Suleiman Krombi was shot in the head and taken to Hermel state hospital, NNA said. But she later died from her wounds.

While the agency did not name the side that opened fire on the woman, other media reports said Syrian troops were behind the cross-border fire that also injured her daughter.

Last month, al-Jadeed TV cameraman Ali Shaaban was killed by gunfire from Syrian troops across the border in the northern Wadi Khaled area.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Ban Says Syria Bomb Attacks Cast Doubt on U.N. Mission
[An Nahar] Bomb attacks like the one near a U.N. convoy in Syria on Wednesday cast doubt on the future of the ceasefire monitoring mission in the country, U.N. leader the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
said.

There was no immediate evidence that U.N. monitors in the convoy were the target of Wednesday's attack, Ban said through a front man. But he expressed deep concern at the growing use of roadside and other improvised bombs across Syria.

"Such incidents, in addition to the continued violence reported in many cities in Syria, call into question the commitment of the parties to the cessation of violence and may have a direct impact on the future of the (U.N.) mission," Ban said in a statement released by U.N. front man Martin Nesirky.

The roadside blast at a military checkpoint near the protest city of Daraa injured 10 Syrian troops escorting U.N. observers, according to the statement.

"We have no evidence to believe that the kaboom was intended to target the UNSMIS convoy; however, this incident demonstrates the difficult and challenging conditions under which our United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
observers are operating," said Ban.

"It also demonstrates the volatile and dangerous situation in which the Syrian people have been living for months."

Ban "strongly condemns this attack and calls on all parties to adhere to the cessation of violence and to cooperate with, support and protect the UNSMIS observers."

Ban reaffirmed that the U.N. mission and efforts of U.N.-Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
envoy Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
"are possibly the only remaining chance to stabilize the country and avert a civil war," said the statement.

U.N. officials say there are now 70 military observers and 43 civilian staff in the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), which was set up by the U.N. Security Council to monitor a shaky cessation of hostilities started on April 12.

The U.N. says well over 9,000 people have been killed in Syria since an uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
started in March last year.

Reacting to the roadside blast, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said "it is further evidence that the ceasefire is not holding and we really have to continue to pressure the Assad regime and all actors.

"And this is further to why we've got to get the monitors into as many places as we can so we have eyes on the streets and the opportunity to protect the Syrian people," Nuland said in Washington.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Several Dead, Hurt across Syria as Blast Hits U.N. Observer Convoy in Daraa
[An Nahar] A roadside blast hit troops escorting U.N. observers in Syria's south on Wednesday, a day after envoy Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
warned that his peace plan could be the last chance to avoid civil war, while several people were killed or maimed in violence across the country.

The bomb, apparently planted underground, maimed six Syrian soldiers escorting the convoy as it entered the city of Daraa, cradle of a 14-month uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...
's regime.

Major General Robert Mood, the head of the 70-strong U.N. mission, was in the four-vehicle convoy but escaped unharmed along with 11 other observers and his front man, Neeraj Singh, said an Agence La Belle France Presse photographer traveling with them.

The Norwegian general said the attack was "a graphic example of violence that the Syrian people" were suffering on a daily basis.

"It is imperative that violence in all its forms must stop," Mood was quoted as saying by Singh, who added: "We remain focused on our task."

The opposition Syrian National Council accused the regime of being behind the blast, the latest breach of a month-old ceasefire agreement brokered by U.N.-Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
envoy Annan.

"We believe the regime is using these tactics to try to push the observers out amid popular demands to increase their numbers," SNC executive committee member Samir Nashar told AFP.

"(Anti-regime) demonstrators want the observers, because they provide a safety guarantee. In their presence, people can express themselves through peaceful protests," said Nashar.

"We are used to the regime's tactics of claims that there is terrorism and fundamentalism in Syria, which is not the case."

La Belle France strongly condemned the bombing.

"We hold the Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
regime responsible for the observers' security," said foreign ministry front man Bernard Valero.

In other violence, troops pounded rebels hiding out in Douma near Damascus, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In the village of Manshiya, near Daraa, several soldiers were killed and maimed when an kaboom targeted their vehicle.

Clashes between regime forces and rebel groups killed one soldier in the village of Marata, northwestern Idlib province, said the watchdog.

Two security forces members were killed in eastern Deir Ezzor, the scene of heavy shooting and kabooms, and a pro-regime gunman was killed in Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
, Syria's second city in the north.

One civilian was killed and three maimed in heavy machinegun fire by regime forces in Tell Ain al-Hamra, northwestern Idlib province, it said, adding a woman died in the central city of Hama from injuries suffered two days.

Security forces carried out arrest raids in Harasta, outside Damascus, and the villages of al-Safira and al-Hisan in Deir Ezzor province, the watchdog added.

In neighboring Leb, cross-border gunfire from Syrian forces killed an elderly woman and maimed her daughter on Tuesday, an official said, a month after Lebanese al-Jadeed TV cameraman Ali Shaaban was killed in a similar shooting.

On Tuesday, Annan told the U.N. Security Council the priority in Syria was "to stop the killing," and expressed concern
...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended...
that torture, mass arrests and other human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
violations were intensifying.

Regime forces "continue to press against the population," despite a putative truce that started on April 12, but attacks are more discreet because of the presence of the U.N. military observers, diplomats quoted him as saying.

"The biggest priority, first of all we need to stop the killing," Annan told news hounds in Geneva.

Annan briefed the council on his efforts to get Assad to implement the plan, which he said was possibly "the last chance to avoid civil war."

He stressed, however, that the peace bid was not an "open-ended" opportunity for Assad, diplomats who attended the briefing said.

Annan plans to visit Damascus for a second time in the coming weeks, his front man said, though this depended on events on the ground.

U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said Washington's goal was still the removal of Assad.

"The United States remains focused on increasing the pressure on the Assad regime and on Assad himself to step down," Rice said.

Annan updated the U.N. body on the status of his six-point plan after U.N. chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
warned world powers were racing against time to prevent all-out civil war.

The current observers on the ground "have had a calming effect" and the deployment by the end of the month of a 300-strong team would see a "much greater impact," said the envoy.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meanwhile, urged the U.N. to bolster its mission to as many as 3,000 -- well past the 300 authorized under a Security Council resolution.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria



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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.
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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2012-05-10
  Damascus bombings kill 40, wound 170: state TV
Wed 2012-05-09
  Annan Fears 'Civil War' Looming in Syria
Tue 2012-05-08
  Al-Qaeda underwear bomb plot was targeted by US drone
Mon 2012-05-07
  Nine soldiers killed, military convoy attacked in N Wazoo
Sun 2012-05-06
  Man wanted in USS Cole bombing killed in Yemen: tribal chief
Sat 2012-05-05
  Pro-Regime Gunmen Kill 12 'Qaida' Militants in Yemen
Fri 2012-05-04
  Bajaur teenyboomer kills 24
Thu 2012-05-03
  Afghanistan: Pakistani driving truck bomb arrested
Wed 2012-05-02
  Suicide bomb blast hits hotel in Somalia, two MPs believed dead
Tue 2012-05-01
  'Egyptians thwart Iranian plot to kill Saudi envoy'
Mon 2012-04-30
  US drone 'kills three militants' in Miramshah
Sun 2012-04-29
  Syria Troops Kill 10 Rebels in Damascus Region
Sat 2012-04-28
   21 Taliban Insurgents Killed in Clashes
Fri 2012-04-27
  Separate bomb blasts rock Nigeria's newspapers, at least six killed
Thu 2012-04-26
  Libya bans religious, tribal or ethnic parties

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