[BLOOMBERG] Kenya and other East African nations will begin withdrawing their troops from Somalia in 2018 because of improved security in a country that’s been ravaged by civil war for more than two decades, President Uhuru Kenyatta told U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... Somalia’s army and the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... mission, known as Amisom, have registered "remarkable progress" in their battle with al-Qaeda-linked myrmidons, Kenyatta told Kerry during Monday’s meeting in the capital, Nairobi, according to an e-mailed statement from the presidency. With a gradual pullout of troops planned for two years’ time, Kenyatta said it was important to build the capacity of the national military to assume the mandate.
Amisom, which comprises troops from Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Æthiopia, is battling al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... , an Islamist myrmidon group that’s waged a 10-year-old insurgency in the Horn of Africa nation in a bid to impose a strict version of Islamic law. Somalia has been embroiled in civil war since the ousting of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.
The country’s politicians are scheduled to choose a new president on Oct. 30, a process the government says is necessary because the electoral commission doesn’t have the capacity to conduct a nationwide vote.
The "success of the electoral process depends on the support from the international community and partners," Kenyatta said, according to the statement.
Kenyatta also discussed with Kerry regional initiatives to "restore normality" in neighboring South Sudan, where a bid to end a more than two-year civil war with a transitional government has been thrown into turmoil by renewed violence.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[ALMASDARNEWS] In a blow to ending Libya’s political crisis, Libya’s internationally recognized government has rejected UN efforts of establishing a unity government on Monday.
The Government of National Accord is seen by the international community in being pivotal in restoring stability to the war stricken country and defeating ISIS on the coastal city of Sirte.
The House of Representatives, Libya’s recognized legislature based in the far east, refused to give its support to the GNA.
"The majority of politicians present at the parliament session voted no confidence in the government," said parliament front man Adam Boussakhra.
Libya’s rival government in the eastern portions of the country have refused to give up power and delayed any re conciliatory process over a lack of quorum.
Monday’s vote was "the first time quorum has been reached in five months," Boussakhra said.
After one such vote postponement in February, 100 politicians in the 198-member legislature said they supported the GNA but had faced intimidation.
Mattia Toaldo, a Libya expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations, warned Monday’s vote could lead to "a new institutional crisis" in the war-wracked country and called for "immediate international mediation".
"We will have to see if Sarraj and the members of the (House of Representatives) who support him will accept the legitimacy of the vote," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[MIDDLEEASTEYE.NET] An al-Qaeda-linked krazed killer has admitted wrecking holy shrines during Mali's 2012 conflict and apologised at the start of his trial at the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... on Monday, the court's first case to focus on cultural destruction as a war crime.
Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi asked for forgiveness and said he had been swept up in an "evil wave" by al-Qaeda and the Ansar Dine ...a mainly Tuareg group that controlled areas of Mali's northern desert together with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and MUJAO in early 2012... Islamist groups which briefly seized control of Timbuktu during the fighting.
Prosecutors said they hoped the case would help put an end to wrecking of cultural sites reported in wars from Libya in the west to Afghanistan in the east.
Prosecutors say Mahdi led a group of inquisitors religious police using pick-axes and crowbars to destroy nine mausoleums and the door of a mosque, and at times took part himself.
Most of the sites dated from Mali's 14th-century golden age as a trading hub and centre of Sufi Islam - a branch of the religion seen as idolatrous by some hardline Moslem groups.
Timbuktu's very name evokes centuries of history and has been dubbed "the city of 333 saints" for the number of Moslem sages buried there.
"This is the first and last wrongful act I will ever commit," Mahdi told The Hague court in a measured and grave opening address.
"I regret what I have caused to my family, my community in Timbuktu, what I have caused to my home nation Mali," he added.
Court officials said the trial would proceed despite his confession, as the judges still needed to be satisfied he was guilty. However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... lawyers are armed with videos, graphics and 360 degree landscapes, all aimed at documenting the destruction, ICC prosecutors said.
In the build-up to the hearing, prosecutor Fatima Bensouda compared the attacks to 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.... 's smashing of monuments in the Syrian city of Palmyra and the Taliban's 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan ...a place in Afghanistan that used to have some historically interesting statues of the Buddha carved into a mountainside. Then the holy men showed up and now all they have is some big holes... Buddha statues in Afghanistan.
On Monday, she praised Mahdi's cooperation while setting out the charges against him and saying she hoped his case would help bring an end to destruction of cultural objects by drawing attention to the fact it is a war crime.
"What must it have felt like in that fateful day in 2012... to witness the wanton destruction of that cultural heritage, a deliberate assault on one's identity, spiritual beliefs and prized cultural possessions?" she said.
"All of this was reduced to dust by a destruction operation led by the accused," she added.
Mahdi faces a maximum sentence of 30 years, but prosecutors are expected to ask for a lesser sentence, given his cooperation. He told the court he was not sure of his age, but estimated it at 45.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
Well, just you send in the UN to arrest those miscreants!
Jeddah- Two security experts have stressed that the chaotic methods used by Houthi militias are a blatant violation of human and international laws. The experts said their strategies follow no rules and reveal the weakness of the militias.
The experts called upon the U.N. to stop the violations of the insurgents and recruitment of children in the war, in addition to kidnapping and blackmailing.
Security expert Ahmed al-Ansari said that what Houthis are doing is a heinous violation of humanitarian laws.
He said this armed militia had taken control of the authority in Yemen without following any rules and uses any means possible to terrorize others.
The expert pointed out that all departments, whether military or political or legal, criminalize targeting civilians. He explained that such practices do not lead to war victory but rather to contradictory results.
He also mentioned that everything used by Houthis in the war is a violation of rights and law.
Ansari stated that Houthis recruit children in their war and resort to kidnapping and blackmailing people. He believes that the goal of gaining power united Houthis with former president Ali Saleh and the only language they understand is that of force.
Ansari also added that Houthis and Saleh did not only destroy and kill people in Yemen, but helped in increasing the crime rate in the Yemeni society, in addition to human rights violations, poverty, and illiteracy. He went on to say that the consequences will be fully revealed once the war is over.
As for Iran-made weapons and missiles, Ansari said that these arms reached Yemen when Houthi was in power. He added that there were direct flights from Tehran to Sana’a, reaching to six flights on a daily basis.
He explained that the weapons would then be assembled in Sana’a by militias and members of the Lebanese so-called Hezbollah.
Security expert Ahmed al-Mawkli told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that targeting civilians reveals the failure of Houthis and insurgency militias. He added that war is not random but rather ruled by laws and regulations that protect civilians, children, and media personnel.
He drew question marks on the role of rights and humanitarian organizations regarding what Houthis are doing.
Mawkli said that targeting civilians is a point of weakness for the Houthis and Saleh, and shows their failure in confronting the coalition forces that were formed according to U.N. Resolution 2216.
[Chicago Tribune] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... vowed Monday to fight 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.... Death Eaters at home and to "cleanse" the group from its borders after a weekend suicide kaboom at a Kurdish wedding, an attack that came amid recent gains by Syrian Kurdish militia forces against the forces of Evil in neighboring Syria.
The bombing Saturday in the southern city of Gaziantep, near the border with Syria, killed at least 54 people -- many of them children. Nearly 70 others were maimed in the attack, the deadliest in Turkey this year.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but officials said it appeared to be the work of the Islamic State group. Authorities were trying to identify the attacker, who President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... initially said was a child. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Monday that it was unclear whether the bomber was "a child or a grown-up."
"A clue has not yet been found concerning the perpetrator," Yildirim told news hounds following a weekly Cabinet meeting. He said the earlier assertion that the attacker was child was a "guess" based on witness accounts.
At least 22 of those killed were children younger than 14, according to a Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with Turkish government rules.
The attack came after the Syria Democratic Forces, a coalition led by the main Kurdish militia groups in Syria, captured the former IS stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria under the cover of Arclight airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition.
"It appears to be an act to punish the PYD," said Nihat Ali Ozcan a security and terrorism expert at the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey, referring to a Syrian Kurdish group whose militia is fighting IS. "It's the cross-border settlement of scores by two actors fighting in Syria."
[Hurriyet] Details continue to emerge regarding the Aug. 20 suicide blast carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the southeastern province of Gaziantep, with the mechanism of the bomb used in the wedding attack that claimed at least 54 lives reportedly being the same type as ones used in previous attacks.
ISIL militants used iron marbles to strengthen the effect of the bomb and most of the deaths occurred because of the marbles hitting people, according to the preliminary autopsy report on the attack that killed a total of 29 children, daily Hürriyet reported on Aug. 22.
The mechanism of the bomb was the same as the ones used in the Oct. 10, 2015 suicide attack at the train station in central Ankara and the ISIL attack in the Suruç district of Şanlıurfa. Both claimed a total of 142 lives and wounded scores of others.
In footage obtained from nearby surveillance cameras, two people can be seen fleeing the scene shortly after the attack. Investigators are exploring whether the duo dropped the suicide bomber to the area and watched the child’s actions, the report said.
Police are also investigating whether the order to stage the attack was given by Deniz Büyükçelebi, the ISIL militant “responsible” for the group’s actions on the Turkish Syrian border.
Büyükçelebi reportedly replaced Yunus Durmaz, an ISIL “emir” who blew himself up in a police operation targeting the jihadist group on May 19. Durmaz was the mastermind of the Suruç and Ankara bomb attacks and the former Turkey “emir” of ISIL, according to an indictment of a case opened in March.
The police on had found notes regarding ISIL plans to attack Kurdish weddings during the operation in which Durmaz blew himself up, according to a separate Hürriyet report. Durmaz had written to “higher-level” jihadists within the organization and asked for permission to carry out attacks in the aforementioned places, according to the report.
“There are weddings taking place these days. If you approve we will take action,” Durmaz wrote.
According to daily Cumhuriyet, Durmaz also asked for Kurdish-speaking militants to join ISIL, in order to “infiltrate them” to carry out the attacks.
Meanwhile, police caught ISIL militants linked to Durmaz on Aug. 11 in a secret operation in Gaziantep, sending a warning the next day to police units that ISIL could stage attacks on sites linked to the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) or the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in retaliation for the operation, daily Milliyet’s Tolga Şardan reported.
Three ISIL militants, identified only by the initials as T.G., A.D. and G.D., were arrested in the operation in which suicide vests and bomb-making objects were found. It was also reportedly determined that G.D. is Durmaz’s sibling.
The Hurriyet daily said that DNA tests were under way to ascertain the identity, nationality and gender of the bomber.
It is possible that the bomber had come over the border from Syria but IS is also known to have built homegrown cells inside Turkey in Gaziantep and even Istanbul, wrote its well-connected columnist Abdulkadir Selvi.
Turkey has “no clue” who was behind the attack on a Kurdish wedding in a city close to the Syrian border that left 54 people dead, the prime minister said on Monday.
“We do not have a clue about who the perpetrators behind the attack were. Early information on who did the attack, in what organization’s name, is unfortunately not right,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters in Ankara, after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the bomber was a child aged between 12-14 acting on orders of Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[JPOST] If the US is engaging Turkey about extradition at the highest levels, at the very least Turkey should be extraditing Saleh al-Arouri, who murdered US citizens living in Israel, argues Shurat HaDin.
Oh, there's a nice counter-gambit...
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[DAILYTIMES.PK] India is preparing to install the Israeli radar technology in the jungles of the Indian-held Kashmire and along the Line of Control (LoC), Indian media reported.
Representatives from India's Border Security Force (BSF) are due to visit Israel as part of the acquisition of the detection system. During the trip, the Indian forces would receive training on the system's operations.
The radar is equipped with high-sensitivity sensors that can track human and vehicular movement in areas of dense foliage, the Indian media added.
The Indian government would established a 24/7 control room to monitor the signals received from the Israeli technology installed throughout the Kashmire Valley and the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistain.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistain Proxies
[PTINEWS] The alleged financier of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, who supplied nearly Rs 4 million to the LeT men, has been sent to judicial remand after the Pak anti-terrorism court hearing the case did not allow the FIA to have his custody for more days.
Sufayan Zafar has joined the other six suspects - Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Mohammad Younis Anjum - in the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, where they are lodged since 2009.
Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... (LeT) operations commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, the criminal mastermind of the Mumbai attack, is living at some holy man's guesthouse an undisclosed location after being released from jail on bail over a year ago.
The anti-terrorism court sent Zafar on the judicial remand on Saturday noting that the Federal Investigation Agency had been given enough time to probe the suspect, a source in the FIA told PTI today.
He is accused of providing Rs 3.98 million to co-accused Riaz through account no. 2338-2 of the Moslem Commercial Bank's Drigh Road branch in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and account no. 2464-0 of the Allied Bank's Drigh Colony branch in Karachi prior to the Mumbai terror attack.
During interrogation by the FIA, he was quizzed over providing millions of rupees to the suspected holy warriors of the Mumbai attack case, his relations with them and other absconding suspects, the source said.
"The FIA has interrogated Zafar for providing financial assistance to the co-accused in the Mumbai case besides his connection with the holy warriors and the LeT. He was also interrogated for the channel/source from which he got the huge sum of money to provide it to the co-accused," he said.
Zafar was absconding after being declared proclaimed offender in the Mumbai case. He was tossed in the slammer Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! early this month (on August 3 or 4) from his hideout in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... province. A resident of Gujrawala district of Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... - some 80 kms from Lahore, Zafar is among 21 other absconding suspects wanted in this high-profile case.
According to court documents, the other suspects who allegedly arranged funds for the attacks include undertrial Ahmed and Anjum and proclaimed offenders Mohammad Usman Zia, Mukhtar Ahmed, Abbas Nasir and Javed Iqbal.
The FIA wanted more time to investigate him further, the source said, adding that the agency would indict him along with the seven other suspects of the case in the trial court after completing his challan.
The trial court will resume the hearing of the case on September 7 after over a month-long court summer vacation.
Defence lawyers are of the view that indicting Zafar along with the seven accused may further delay the conclusion of the case, which has been pending in an anti-terrorism court (ATC) since 2009, due to repeating the exercise of cross- examining witnesses in the light of the new arrest.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Taiba
[NST.MY] The Malaysian government has urged the Guantanamo Prison's Periodic Review Board to reject an appeal for the release of former Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) Lion of Islam leader Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, as he could still pose a security threat in Southeast Asia.
Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohammed said that Hambali was a former Lion of Islam group leader who may still have strong influence over the group's remnants in this region and could spur a resurgence of the JI Lion of Islam activities, particularly in Malaysia.
"The Lion of Islam JI group may still have followers and they may be waiting for Hambali's release to revive the movement, although it was mopped out some 10 years ago.
"This is a matter of national security and great priority should be given to this. These factors should outweigh the release of a placed in durance vile Book 'im, Mahmoud! man who is capable to train anyone into a radical soldier," said Nur Jazlan after a working visit to the Home Ministry Complex in Taman Setia Tropika, today.
He said although Hambali was from Indonesia, the man had been residing in Malaysia for many years in the past and was involved in recruiting new JI members, including at a former base camp in Ulu Tiram, here.
Hambali is one of 61 detainees at the Guantanamo facility in Cuba where high-value detainees and bandidosbully boyz are held.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Jemaah Islamiyah
#1
Probably the same face I make when someone says their food is absolutely terrible, here try it.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iran’s defense minister criticized Russia on Monday for having "kind of show-off and ungentlemanly" attitude for publicizing that it used an Iranian air base to launch Arclight airstrikes on Syria, the first sign of government dissent over the unprecedented stationing of foreign troops in the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
The comments by Gen. Hossein Dehghan come after he chastised parliament this weekend for asking questions about Russia using the Shahid Nojeh Air Base to refuel its bombers striking Syria.
His remarks Monday, reported by state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
, signal officials beginning to recognize how unpopular the decision could be with the public. There was no immediate response from Moscow.
Last week, Russia announced it used the airfield some 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of the Iranian city of Hamedan. Iranian officials only confirmed Russia’s presence a day later.
On Monday, state TV quoted Dehghan as saying that Russia "will use the base for a very short and fixed span, corresponding (to) operation in Syria." So far, Russia has carried out three days’ worth of strikes from the base.
Responding to a question about why Iran didn’t initially announce Russia’s presence at the airfield, Dehghan appeared prickly on the state TV broadcast. "Russians are interested to show they are a superpower to guarantee their share in political future of Syria and, of course, there has been a kind of show-off and ungentlemanly (attitude) in this field," he said.
His remarks also suggest Russia and Iran initially agreed to keep Moscow’s use of the air base quiet. Its announcement likely will force a response from Iran’s Sunni-ruled Mideast neighbors, which host American military personnel.
For Iran, allowing Russia to launch strikes from inside the country is likely to prove unpopular. Many still remember how Russia, alongside Britannia, invaded and occupied Iran during World War II to secure oil fields and Allied supply lines. But while Britannia withdrew, Russia refused to leave, sparking the first international rebuke by the nascent United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... Security Council in 1946.
Analysts have suggested Russia potentially leveraged Iran into allowing it to use the airfield over either economic or military interests, such as Tehran wanting to purchase Sukhoi-30 fighter jets or its deployment of Russian S-300 air defense missile systems. Russia initially held off on supplying the missile system to Tehran amid negotiations over Iran’s contested nuclear program.
Over the weekend, photographs of President Hassan Rowhani were published in Iranian state media near a Bavar-373 missile defense system. That system is designed to be the local equivalent of the S-300 - perhaps an Iranian signal back to Moscow that it’s capable of defending itself without the Russian missile system.
In his comments Monday, Dehghan said the Bavar-373 can hit targets at the height of 27 kilometers (16.7 miles) - the same height the S-300 can reach. "When we make Bavar-373 operational, we will not need to purchase another high-altitude and long-range air defense system," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Hope this news has legs, a gentle reminder of their neighbor.
[ALMASDARNEWS] Syrian government officials reportedly met with YPG and Asayish leaderships in the Russian Hmeimim Base to negotiate a lasting ceasefire under Russian supervision.
Three main points were agreed upon:
The security box in Hasakah is to remain under the control of the local police force while Brigades 121 and 123 in Kawkab region in eastern Hasakah are to be under the control of the Syrian Army.
Asayish units are to withdraw to their previous points of control.
Police stations to be given back to police officeers and interior ministry forces to be given the role of protecting governmental institutions including the prisons and immigration/passport offices.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[al-Monitor] The United States is struggling to sideline Hezbollah without further splintering faction-ridden Leb.
Congress and the Barack B.O. regime have adopted a dual strategy of trying to starve the Shiite militia of funds while bankrolling state institutions they hope can provide a US-friendly counterweight. To that end, the president signed into law new financial sanctions on Hezbollah in December, while Congress and the State Department have been steadily increasing economic and security support for the Lebanese government and its police and military forces.
Neither approach is without risk.
Lebanese politicians and banking officials have made it clear that undermining the country’s vital financial sector would be devastating to a country already reeling from the crisis in next-door Syria. A parliamentary delegation visited Washington in February to urge restraint, while the powerful Association of Banks in Leb is spending more than half a million dollars a year lobbying Congress and the State and Treasury Departments on the issue.
"We told those that we met with that any potential damage to our banking sector, or any restrictions on those remittances -- which amount to about $7.5 billion per year -- would lead to a financial and economic disaster in Leb that would turn into a security catastrophe and a total collapse of the Lebanese state," parliament member Alain Aoun told Al-Monitor at the time. The Treasury Department issued its regulations implementing the law on April 15, without causing a panic in Beirut.
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Livia had made her point with her knee to Jane's stomach... 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... has nixed a $3 billion military aid grant and what remained of a separate $1 billion commitment to Leb’s internal security force to protest Hezbollah’s continued political clout. The move earned a rebuke from the State Department.
"Our point to [the Saudis] is if the ultimate objective here is to limit the ability of Hezbollah to do what it’s doing, the solution is to invest in Lebanese institutions and not to withdraw support from them at this critical time," US Ambassador to Leb Elizabeth Richard testified at her nomination hearing in March.
The Saudi stance does have some sympathizers on Capitol Hill, however. Pro-Israel hardliners have long questioned the wisdom of providing difficult-to-track assistance to a country where a US-designated terrorist group retains major influence.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
The United States is struggling to sideline Hezbollah without further splintering faction-ridden Leb.
#2
Pro-Israel hardliners have long questioned the wisdom of providing difficult-to-track assistance to a country where a US-designated terrorist group retains major influence.
If the money is in Swiss francs and palletized, no harm done.
#3
Lebanese politicians and banking officials have made it clear that undermining the country’s vital financial sector would be devastating to a country already reeling from the crisis in next-door Syria. A parliamentary delegation visited Washington in February to urge restraint, while the powerful Association of Banks in Leb is spending more than half a million dollars a year lobbying Congress and the State and Treasury Departments on the issue.
Note: A half-million is peanuts. The Lebanese banking sector is strong with strong allied banks in Europe and the Gulf. It did not send a delegation, the politicians did. They probably visited the Clinton Foundation as well.
[NEWSWEEK] Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodx al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra... called on the world’s Moslems to reject 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.... myrmidon group (ISIS) and throw their weight behind the Afghan Taliban, in a new video released on Sunday.
The leader of one of the world’s largest jihadi groups said that ISIS and his rival leader of the group, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... , was only intent on trying to "split the ranks of the mujahideen," or jihadis.
In the video entitled ’Be Not Divided Among Yourselves,’ Zawahiri continues to say that the world’s Moslems should "rally around the emirate" in what is a reference to the Afghan Taliban, which refers to itself as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, according to The Long War Journal.
ISIS frequently attempts to paint Al-Qaeda as lesser Moslems, than its own followers. The two titans of the global jihad fell foul of one another when ISIS was on the rise. The Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), the radical group’s previous incarnation, had attempted to capitalize on the instability amid the two-year civil war in Syria in 2013.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
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.
International Criminal Court
Zawahiri
