[DAWN] The leadership of Afghan Taliban has disassociated itself from a process Pakistain has been facilitating to encourage the group's dialogue with the government of Afghanistan for peace and reconciliation.
The myrmidon group's move has come as a setback for an interaction planned for this month. At the same time it has revealed a growing split within the Taliban ranks, which will make the task of reconciliation even more complex.
"If something as such has happened or is planned for the future then it is mere personal interaction which can in no way ever represent the Islamic emirate," a statement emailed to journalists on Wednesday by Taliban front man Zabiullah Mujahid on behalf of what was described as "Leadership council of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" said.
The statement did not directly refer to a statement of Adviser on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz ...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in good jihadis and bad jihadis as a matter of national policy... before the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee earlier this week, but the mention of "something happening in past or planned for future" left no doubt that the myrmidon group was responding to him.
Mr Aziz told the committee that Pakistain had facilitated last month a meeting of Afghan High Peace Council Secretary Masoom Stanekzai with Taliban representatives in the Chinese city of Urumqi and another meeting was planned this month.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
they'd rather conquer than join
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/26/2015 7:28 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV] A delegation representing one of the Libyan rival factions has arrived in Morocco to hold a fresh round of peace talks brokered by the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... in a bid to resolve the ongoing conflict in the North African state, a UN official says.
Libya has two rival governments battling for control of the country, with one faction, the General National Congress (GNC), governing Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , and the other, the country's internationally-recognized government, controlling the cities of Tobruk and Bayda.
Officials from the Tripoli-based government arrived in Morocco on Thursday to participate in the peace talks scheduled to be held on Friday.
"The delegation from Tripoli has arrived along with some independent figures. The one from Tobruk arrives tomorrow and we will officially resume discussions," Samir Ghattas, the front man for the UN Support Mission in Libya, said on Thursday.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] The United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... Security Council (UNSC) has urged Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... to lift its blockade on Yemen.
The UNSC released a unanimous statement on Thursday, stressing that ships carrying food, fuel and other vital supplies must be permitted to enter ports 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. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... which is on the brink of famine.
The 15-member council said in its statement that there is "an urgent need for ongoing commercial supplies to enter Yemen as a humanitarian imperative."
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the UN envoy for Yemen, had earlier called for an immediate ceasefire in Yemen, saying that some 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and one million people have been displaced in the fighting in the country.
"We are one step away from famine," the UN envoy said, adding, "We want to really find a way to lessen the suffering of the population."
Saudi Arabia has imposed an aerial and naval blockade on Yemen amid its deadly Arclight airstrikes on the impoverished Arab country.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Famine? Someone say Famine? 2-1 shot on the boards, but Famine loves the high heat and a dusty track. Serious punters need to look closely at this skinny steed. Stay away from long-shot Disease unless the monsoon is heavy. Crowd favorite War is always a safe wager but return is small.
[Dhaka Tribune] War crimes convict Quader Mollah and Kamaruzzaman were killed in a planned way through a controversial trial, said Jamaat Nayeb-e-Ameer Mujibur Rahman at an iftar party in presence of BNP Chairperson the loathesome Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... yesterday.
Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... , a component in the BNP-led 20-party opposition alliance, hosted the party at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in the capital.
"The government was basically trying to eliminate Jamaat," said Mojibur Rahman in his welcome speech. He urged the Jamaat leaders and activists to stand united to foil the government's "evil plan."
A good number of Jamaat leaders attended the programme. They said this was the only programme where they can gather
publicly.
The BNP chief entered the venue a few minutes after the Iftar started as she was stuck in traffic jam. BNP standing committee members Nazrul Islam Khan and MK Anwar also attended the programme.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] The chief of recently emerged Bangladesh Jihadi Group had launched the krazed killer platform as a means of changing his financial condition by sending members to Syria and Iraq to fight for the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , detectives say.
Md Asaduzzaman alias Milon alias Milu alias Abdullah alias Anik, the suspected commander of the group jugged Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! on Wednesday, was unable to bear the family needs with Tk100 that he used to get by assisting a lawyer.
At the court, Asad had met with the brother of Harkat-ul Jihad Al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B Founded in 1984 by Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Qari Saifullah Aktar. The Bangla branch was established in 1992 with assistance from Osama bin Laden. Recruits come mostly from Deobandi madrassahs. HuJI and Fazlur Rehman Khalil are signators of bin Laden's declaration of war on the west. ) chief Maulana Abdur Rouf and soon became close to work together.
The group also planned robbing banks to raise funds. But most of its members including the second-in-command, Maulana Nurullah Kashemi, were arrested before committing the robbery at a private bank in Saidpur.
Both Asad and Kashemi met with Rouf at the jail before launching the platform in October last year, officials at the Detective Branch of police say.
Asad completed his LLB from Darul Ihsan University, but did not get a job anywhere. He then started working as an assistant of a lawyer at the Dhaka Judge's Court. But since the pay was tiny, he had to lend money from his relatives and other lawyers.
"He was feeling helpless, and at some point decided to change the society and the people through jihad," DB Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam told news hounds yesterday.
Brother of the HuJIB chief often went to the court to deal with Rouf's cases and came in contact with Asad.
Kashemi had served as resident preacher at a mosque while staying in Kuwait. Returning home recently, he opened a branch of Al-Azhar University of Egypt. But failing to make profit from the business, he shut it down. He later started writing Islamic books and giving sermons at different religious functions. During his bad times, Kashemi contacted a number of people to do something significant for Islam, but none supported him. Then he met Asad, who took him to Rouf.
The group was recruiting students from madrasas and private universities with radical views as members, and working to send them to the Middle East as IS fighters after training in Shariatpur and some bordering areas in the northern part of the country.
"Asad was planning to go abroad to collect funds," Monirul said.
The platform had invited the members of all banned and little-known krazed killer organizations to work together to establish a Shariah state by undermining the democratic process, castigating the rulers and terrorising the secular forces and the law enforcers.
A team of counter-terrorism and transnational crime unit of the DB police arrested Asad and Firoz Md Tomal, the key financier of Bangladesh Jihadi Group, during a drive in the capital's Mohammadpur area.
Detectives also recovered three foreign pistols, 16 rounds of bullet, 1kg explosives and two laptops from their possessions, Monirul said.
A case was filed against the arrestees with Mohammadpur police under the Anti-Terrorism Act. They were placed on a five-day remand yesterday by a Dhaka court.
The duo were arrested on information given by the nine members of the group including Kashemi held on June 7. Their explosives suppliers, a lab assistant of Dhaka University and three others, were arrested on June 16.
Ex-defence, police trained recruits
As part of their plan to provide extensive training to the new recruits, the Jihadi Group leaders were trying to convince terminated and retired officials of different forces to work as trainers, Monirul said adding that some of them had already agreed to assist the group.
Once the training was completed, their target was to send the members to Syria to work for IS. On return, they were supposed to work to establish Shariah rule in Bangladesh.
Tomal financed
Hailing from a rich family, Tomal had completed graduation on electrical engineering at Independent University of Bangladesh. His father, an assistant commissioner of customs, has at least 17 houses and flats in the capital. Tomal used to collect the rents, Monirul said.
"Tomal used to finance the outfit through Asad. But as it was difficult to run the outfit only by one financier, they were planning to conduct bank robbery."
Both the arrestees admitted that Tomal owned the recovered pistols.
Sanowar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of DB police, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had got identities of 25-30 members of the group and hoped that the others would be arrested
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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[RUDAW.NET] The United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... has called on The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... to allow the maimed from Kobani across its border for medical care, the secretary-general's deputy front man told Rudaw on Thursday.
Farhan Haq also said that the UN would continue to deliver aid and supplies to Kurdish refugees across Syria's Kurdish regions, or Rojava.
On Thursday morning, holy warriors of the so-called Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) group sneaked into the Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria, launching a wave of boom-mobiles and assaults that reportedly killed 75 people and injured 55 others.
Kobani was liberated in January after months of heavy fighting. The town is a powerful symbol of Kurdish resistance to ISIS, some referring to it as the "Kurdish Stalingrad."
In Ankara, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgic told news hounds that 63 maimed people had been brought to Turkey after the attack and that two of them, one a child, had subsequently died. Bilgic said Turkey had "immediately" opened its border to the maimed.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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Negotiators are working toward a June 30 deadline for a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.
Should the negotiations ultimately fail and the talks fall apart, the Obama administration and any future US president will have what Michael Crowley of Politico describes as an awe-inspiring "plan B" -- the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP).
According to Crowley, the US has practiced at least three attack runs over the New Mexico desert. These runs have been flown by B-2 bombers and are meant to test the US' trump card against any attempt to procure a nuclear weapon, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator.
MOP, which is 20 feet long and weighs 15 tons, "boggles the mind," according to a former Pentagon official who spoke to Politico after watching footage of the tests.
There's no publicly available footage of the tests, but this footage of a BLU-109 in action gives an idea of how the MOP works. Bunker-buster munitions burst through a target's defensive layering before the warhead detonates:
The BLU-109 has a 535-pound warhead and weighs about a ton. The MOP carries about 5,300 pounds of explosives, giving it an explosive yield about an order of magnitude greater than the weapon in the video.
The MOP is the world's largest nonnuclear weapon. Designed to hit hardened targets, bunkers, and locations deep under ground, the MOP hits the ground at supersonic speed after being released from a B-2 bomber. After impact, the bomb can burrow through 200 feet of earth and 60 feet of concrete before detonating.
In the event that negotiations fail, the US is in a position to launch a series of MOP strikes against Fordow, a once secret nuclear facility contained within a hollowed-out mountain and specially hardened against aerial attack. The centrifuges at Fordow are capable of enriching uranium, which could be used for a nuclear weapon.
Destroying Fordow would be a difficult endeavor despite the size and sheer force of the MOP. Politico notes that the total destruction of the facility would likely require multiple B-2s dropping MOPs at the same GPS-designated location to ensure that the bombs would be able to drill through both the side of the mountain and the facility's hardened shell before detonating.
But the MOP is supposed to be used in exactly these kinds of coordinated strikes. According to The Wall Street Journal, the bomb is designed to be dropped in pairs. The first is meant to clear a path for the second hit, heightening the bombs' potent penetration capabilities.
Unnamed officials told The Journal that the MOP's devastation potential is unlike any nonnuclear weapon ever built.
The weapons have been designed by the US to destroy hardened facilities within North Korea and Iran.
Should the US decide to carry out bombing runs against Iranian nuclear sites, the US could run into substantial difficulties.
Russia has announced that it would be willing to sell the S-300 air-defense system, which can hit aircraft at high altitude from a 150-mile range, to Iran. Russia. Always on the side of good. Which, by definition, is whatever pi$$es off the USA.
If Iran were to acquire the S-300s, Tehran would be able to set up a formidable ring of defense around its nuclear sites.
This would make Iranian air defenses much more difficult to overcome, raising the scale and the stakes of any US bombing run against the country's nuclear facilities.
The MOP is unique for its ability to penetrate enemy defenses, but it is not the largest bomb the US has ever built. That title goes to the T-12 Cloudmaker, a World War II-era bomb that clocked in at over 40,000 pounds.
#1
Drop two, at the same target point, with the second one just slightly delayed, timed to enter the cavity formed by the first before the rubble blasted out by the first falls back in. Or drop 10, each phased to follow similarly. Ought to be able to burrow through any cover, as long as your targeting and timing are accurate enough.
Heck, maybe we could burrow to the mantle and open up a volcano.
#6
...If only we had the stones to say nothing about the attack afterwards other than, "Wun't us."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/26/2015 17:32 Comments ||
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#7
Personally, I want the ability to steer comets from the Oort cloud to precision strikes. A 200m diameter comet on the coordinates would do far more than a dozen of these MOPs. Would also scare the crap out of a few dozen other enemies, it would.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/26/2015 21:01 Comments ||
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#8
I still want the rods from God option then have the WH say it was just a meteor.
[BloombergView] The FBI has been rounding up more potential "lone wolf" terrorists, Congressional leaders and the Justice Department say, in response to the perception of a mounting threat of domestic attacks inspired by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... .
Since the thwarted attack on a "Draw Muhammad" conference in Garland, Texas, on May 3, the Justice Department has announced the arrests of 10 individuals it says were inspired by and supporting the Islamic State. The politicians say there have been more arrests that have not yet been announced.
They say the FBI has shifted its approach toward arrests rather than keeping suspects under surveillance, and is also targeting individuals thought to be planning attacks in the U.S., unlike the bureau's past focus on volunteers preparing to join ISIS's fight abroad.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Culling the amateurs; the pros will still be able to work at State, the Feebs, and certain electoral campaigns.
[DAWN] Pakistain said Thursday that India is trying to politicise the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... Security Council's Sanctions Committee by making unfounded allegations, according to a report published on Radio Pakistain.
During a weekly news briefing in Islamabad, Foreign Office spokesperson Qazi Khalilullah said that UN's sanctions committee had decided not to take any action against the allegations levelled by India.
India had demanded of the UN to take action against Pakistain in the wake of the release of alleged criminal mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks Lakhvi.
India has relentlessly sought him since the attacks killed over 160 persons, including several foreigners, causing international uproar and a diplomatic storm.
Earlier this week, China blocked India's move in the United Nations calling for action against Pakistain over Lakhvi's release on grounds that India did not provide adequate information.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Talking to media personnel on Thursday, Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan said the sensitive disclosures made in the BBC report confirmed Pakistain's suspicions about India's involvement in the country.
Nisar said intelligence agencies had in the past reported India's interference inside Pakistain, adding that recent statements from the Indian leadership were a clear indication of foreign involvement.
The interior minister also said he held a meeting with British High Commissioner Philip Barton on Thursday, during which he asked the high commissioner for his government's assistance in accessing details of the disclosures made in the BBC report.
"The high commissioner has recommended that I write an official letter from the government of Pakistain to the British government, requesting access to details relating to the disclosures made in the BBC report," said Nisar.
The interior minister said he will formally write to the UK government tomorrow (Friday) requesting Pak authorities' access to key information in relation to the serious allegations levelled by the BBC against MQM.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Not to rain on this happy parade of paranoia, but yesterday's Burg article said the Beeb was quoting an unnamed "authoritative Pak source". Which makes it less a parade and more of a circle jerk, I guess.
There is prolly a Pakisourcesaurus joke in there somewhere, but I'm not digging for it.
#2
In Pakistain if you believe hard enough it must be true. Eventually you develop the ability to believe five impossible things before breakfast.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 1:13 Comments ||
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#3
the ability to believe five impossible things before breakfast
But only five, please.
An unpublished fragment of Remus:
Brer Rabbit larned all six Kalimas!
Dem infants of asphalt
Led him to be hassled
By less pious Moes and Fatimas.
Wikipedia: "M. M. Hasan, An Inspector-General's diary, 1996, p. 70 recounts a case of a man arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of being an Indian spy because he was able to recite all six kalimas, which was deemed unlikely in a real Muslim."
#6
In Pakistainthe White House if you believe hard enough it must be true. Eventually you develop the ability to believe five impossible things before breakfast.
[RUDAW.NET] The Pentagon has a contingency plan to work with ground partners should united Iraqi forces fail against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin E. Dempsey said Wednesday.
"We're also continually assessing our plans and our underlying assumptions. Our current plan contributes to an outcome in which Iraq will be able to achieve a government that represents all sects of the Iraqi people," Dempsey told Rudaw via a Facebook town hall Q&A.
"If that assumption does not prove to be true, then we will adapt, with the cooperation of our coalition and network of ground partners, to protect our security interests," he added. But, but, but General, some parts of the world simply do not jehah democracy as we know it. Why not look after our 'security interests' NOW and forget about political nation building ? Dempsey's words mirror those of US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who alluded last week during testimony before a House Armed Services Committee hearing that Iraq could fragment into Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite states.
"What if a multi-sectarian Iraq turns out not to be possible?" asked Carter, "That is an important part of our strategy now on the ground."
"If that government can't do what it's supposed to do, then we will still try to enable local ground forces, if they're willing to partner with us, to keep stability in Iraq, but there will not be a single state of Iraq," he said.
The Pentagon has currently deployed over 3,500 military advisors and trainers to assist Iraqi security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga and Sunni tribal forces in an effort to turn the tide against the Islamic State.
Dempsey said that US strategy is to focus on the ISIS threat at the moment.
"For now, we remain clear eyed about the nature of the threat and continue to impose heavy costs on ISIL," he said, adding that the Islamist Death Eaters can be defeated.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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#4
IMO Artic + JCoS Chair Gen. Dempsey read, IRAN.
There's Iran rivals the KSA + espec TURKEY, but Erdogan + Turkish Armed Forces thus far have failed to bust a move Regionally or Trans-Regionally like Iran has.
Prolly safe to safe TURKEY = ANKARA is still debating its "Manifest Destiny" in this Age of US-led Anti-US OWG-NWO Globalism + US-N-Only-US "Retreat/Fallback is World Peace", BUT IRAN ISN'T WAITING.
[RUDAW.NET] Crimes against civilians in the liberated town of Gire Spi, also known by its Arabic name Tal Abyad, have come to light now that the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , or ISIS, has been driven from the town earlier this month by Kurdish forces
In one instance, a cement factory was transformed into a prison where locals suffered severe tortured.
As the city rebuilds, several former ISIS prisons are being used to house much-needed humanitarian aid.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Iran held a joint funeral on Thursday for three nationals killed fighting the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group alongside forces of its close ally Syria, state media reported.
The memorial service for the three Iranians, all from Tehran, was attended by around 2,000 people, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Iran says it has no combat troops on the ground in Syria or neighboring Iraq, only military advisers.
It says most of the mounting number of dead who have been repatriated from the two countries were volunteers who had traveled to defend the holy places of their Shiite Moslem faith.
They have been accompanied by a growing number of Afghan recruits to the war against IS in Syria.
Five were buried on Thursday in Iran's second city Mashhad which is home to a large number of Afghans.
The Tasnim news agency said the five were members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade, an Afghan volunteer unit.
It said the brigade had recently been expanded to division strength, generally between 10,000 and 20,000 men.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/26/2015 00:00 ||
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Uproar in Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has relieved Gen. Qassem Soleimani,the Al Qods Brigades chief and supreme commander of Iranian Middle East forces, of his Syria command after a series of war debacles. He was left in charge of Iran's military and intelligence operations in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. This is revealed by DEBKAfile's exclusive Iranian and intelligence sources.
Since Soleimani last visited Damascus on June 2, in the aftershock of the historic town of Palmyra's fall to the Islamic State, the situation of President Bashar Assad and his army has gone from bad to worse.
The Iranian general's bravado in stating then that "In the next few days the world will be pleasantly surprised from what we (the IRGC) working with Syrian military commanders are preparing," turned out to be empty rhetoric. The thousands of Iranian troops needed to rescue the Assad regime from more routs never materialized. Since then, the Syrian forces have been driven out of more places. Hizballah is not only stymied in its attempts to dislodge Syrian rebel advances in the strategic Qalamoun Mountains, it has failed to prevent the war spilling over into Lebanon. There is strong evidence that the high Iranian command in charge of the Syrian and Lebanese arenas are stuck.
These reverses have occurred, our military sources report, owing to Tehran's failure to foresee five developments:
1. The launching of a combined effort by the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE -- among the wealthiest nations in the world -- in support of rebel groups fighting Bashar Assad. Their massive injections of military assistance, weapons and financial resources have thrown Iran's limitation into bold relief.
2. The ineptitude of the Shiite militias mustered by Soleimani in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight Iran's wars in Syria and Iraq. None of those imported troops met the combat standards required in those arenas and become liabilities rather than assets.
3. Those shortcomings forced Tehran to admit that it had come up short of military manpower to deploy in four ongoing warfronts: Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. Soleimani took flak for the over-ambitious plans he authored which pulled Iran into military commitments that overtaxed its resources and did not take into account the messy political and military consequences which followed. Above all, he miscalculated the numbers of fighting strength needed on the ground for winning battles in those wars.
4. In the final reckoning, Iran funds has been drained of the strategic reserves that should have been set aside for the contingency of a potential ISIS encroachment of its territory.
#4
So what, the expeditionary troops Soleimani intended for the Syrian theatre got sucked into replacing collapsed Iraqi Army divisions? Or did he just not have the logistics to put anything into Syria in the first place?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
06/26/2015 10:08 Comments ||
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#5
Or did he just not have the logistics to put anything into Syria in the first
And there you have it boys and gurls. Everything is brought in by by lorry, the odd lighter in Latakia and by Unicorn.. The Syrian government is a goner.
Amateurs think tactics
Professionals think logistics
Closers are COUNTING TRUCKS AND CLOSING ALL THE TIME
[AnNahar] The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group on Thursday sold 42 Iraqi women it had kidnapped from the Yazidi religious minority to its fighters in eastern Syria, a monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the women were being treated as "slaves" by the jihadists and were sold "for between $500 (447 euros) and $2,000 dollars (1,785 euros)."
The women were kidnapped last year in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq where IS had launched a wide offensive, the Britannia-based monitor said.
Earlier this month they were brought to the IS-held town of Mayadeen in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor province.
"Some were kidnapped with their children but we do not know their fate," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
The Yazidis, a religious minority which lives mainly in Iraq's Sinjar region, are neither Moslems nor Arabs and follow a unique faith. They are considered infidels by the jihadists.
In 2014, the jihadists massacred Yazidis, forced tens of thousands of them to flee, captured thousands of girls and women as spoils of war and used them as sex slaves.
[AnNahar] Al-Qaeda has confirmed that a U.S. drone strike earlier this year killed its English-language front man, a Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, native known as Azzam the American, SITE Intelligence Group reported Thursday.
In a special issue of Al-Qaeda English-language magazine Resurgence, editor Hassaan Yusuf wrote that Azzam, whose real name was Adam Gadahn, was killed in a strike thought to have taken place in January on an Al-Qaeda compound in Pakistain.
Yusuf also said Ahmed Faruq, an American described as a leader of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, and American and Italian hostages Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, were killed in another strike "a few weeks" prior.
The White House has said neither Gadahn nor Faruq were specifically targeted in the strikes, and U.S. President Barack Obama I am not a dictator!... said in April he took "full responsibility" for the accidental killing of the hostages.
Gadahn was a teenage death metal music fan who grew up on a California goat farm before he was drawn into radical Islam.
He was one of the most high-profile figures in the global jihadist movement and a regular online presence, taunting his homeland and inciting attacks.
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.
and soon became close to work together.
Negotiators are working toward a June 30 deadline for a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.
[DAWN] Pakistain said Thursday that India is trying to politicise the 
[DAWN] Talking to media personnel on Thursday, Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan said the sensitive disclosures made in the BBC report confirmed Pakistain's suspicions about India's involvement in the country.
[AnNahar] Al-Qaeda has confirmed that a U.S. drone strike earlier this year killed its English-language 
