Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:05 ||
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Sylvia Syms aka Queen Mother in "The Queen (2006)" aka Kay O'Neill in "The World of Suzie Wong (1960)" aka Sister Diana Murdoch in "Ice Cold in Alex (1958)" aka Laura in "Victim (1961)" aka Princess Charlotte in "What a Girl Wants (2003)" aka Maisie King in "Expresso Bongo (1959)" aka Laura Galt in "The Desperados (1969)" aka Sister Mitya in "Conspiracy of Hearts (1960)" (age 78)
[Dawn] Attackers bumped off a local government official on his way to a mosque in southern Afghanistan, authorities said Thursday, in the latest hit on a government figure.
Hundreds of Afghan government officials have been killed in recent years as the Taliban pursue a sweeping liquidation campaign seeking to weaken confidence in President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... 's administration and discourage people from joining the government.
Haji Fazel Mohammad was shot on his way to evening prayers Wednesday in the volatile district of Sangin in Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province, the governor's office said. The attackers beat feet.
Mohammad served on the local council for Sangin, which has been targeted by frequent turban attacks since US and Afghan forces regained control two years ago. The district, a one-time Taliban stronghold, acts as a regional transit hub and is a gateway to a major dam that provides electricity.
Sangin also has one of the highest concentrations of concealed bombs in Afghanistan. More than 100 British troops died there during several years of operations.
The Taliban's liquidation campaign has also hit senior figures.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... on Thursday ordered the transfer of the U.S. military prison at Bagram to Afghan control within a month, citing reports of human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... violations there.
Karzai issued the order after receiving a report detailing "many cases of violations of Afghan Constitution and other applicable laws of the country, the relevant international conventions and human rights," his office said.
"President Hamid Karzai has assigned a commission to transfer the Bagram Prison fully to Afghan government control within a month's time effective today," the statement said.
Karzai acted after a briefing by Gul Rahman Qazi, the chairman of the Constitutional Oversight Commission, on a report on the Bagram detention facility -- sometimes called the "Afghan Guantanamo", after the U.S. military detention facility in Cuba.
The president "re-assigned the same commission initially tasked on January 9, 2010 to complete the transfer of the prison from the Americans within one year from January 2011 until January 2012.
"In consistence with the previous agreement on the transfer of the prison and all prisoners in foreign hands, the commission was instructed to complete the full takeover process within a month's time starting today so that any more breach of the Afghan illusory sovereignty can be avoided," the statement said.
The move comes amid signs of tensions between Karzai and his U.S. backers over plans by Taliban gunnies to open a political office in Qatar as a precursor to possible peace talks.
Karzai is reportedly concerned that he has been sidelined by the move -- announced this week -- and insists that any negotiations should be led by his government.
The detention facility was built within the sprawling U.S. military base at Bagram, north of the Afghan capital Kabul after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 and soon gained a reputation for extra-judicial brutality.
The Afghan Defense Ministry announced in January 2010 that an agreement had been signed with NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... 's International Security Assistance Force on a handover of the prison to Afghan control.
Later that month, the US said the prison would be transferred to Afghan command in one year.
The transfer would include a new prison, called the Detention Facility in Parwan, that had capacity for more than 1,000 inmates and replaced the old 650-detainee facility at Bagram.
Human rights campaigners have regularly criticized the prison, saying it fails to comply with international norms as some inmates are victims of arbitrary detention without trial or knowledge of the charges against them.
Bagram prison gained a vicious reputation from December 2002, when two inmates died one week apart.
They were officially said to have died of natural causes, but an enquiry later revealed that they had been beaten, deprived of sleep and kept constantly chained.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
..citing reports of human rights violations there.
Uncle Ralph and cousin Billy actually being treated as enemy combatants for having been caught as working 'muscle' for Taliban linked drug dealers?
#2
We should release all the prisoners to him, once they are all wearing permanent explosive radio collars. One radio signal and "boom". Or if they tamper with it, "boom"
[NY Times] Egyptian prosecutors on Thursday called for former President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... to be hanged, saying that he was ultimately responsible for the security forces' killings of hundreds of peaceful protesters in demonstrations that ended his nearly three decades in power.
Egyptian law authorizes the death penalty for the deliberate murder of a single victim, one of the prosecutors, Mostafa Khater, told the court, so what is the appropriate sentence for the killing of hundreds? he asked. "There is life for you in the law of retribution, o men of understanding," he said, quoting the Koran.
The prosecutors laid out their closing argument in the historic trial of Egypt's disgraced head of state as both political activists and the military rulers braced for a possible outbreak of unrest on the Jan. 25 anniversary of the revolution. The potential resolution of the case could well help determine whether that date is a day of celebration or anger.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] A jobless man set himself afire Thursday in front of the main government office of the poor Tunisian province of Gafsa as three ministers visited the unemployment-hit area, local sources said.
The man was taken to hospital with severe burns and in a critical state, unionist Amar Amroussia said.
"The situation is very worrying and risks degenerating," he said, adding that there had already been festivities between locals and security officials.
The man, a 48-year-old father of three, was part of a group of unemployed men staging a sit-in in front of the main government office to demand jobs.
"He wanted to meet the team of ministers visiting Gafsa but did not get an answer," a local source said.
A witness added: "He then poured petrol on himself and set himself alight, without saying anything."
The three visiting ministers hold the social affairs, industry and employment portfolios.
Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian fruit seller unwittingly started a wave of protests known as the Arab Spring, when he set himself alight in the town of Sidi Bouzid in December 2010, in protest against harassment by officials, and died from his burns in early January. His actions sparked a revolt that toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
it's all the rage
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/06/2012 9:39 Comments ||
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CAIRO: The prosecutor in the trial of Hosni Mubarak on Thursday demanded the death penalty for the ousted Egyptian leader on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during last years uprising against his rule. Mustafa Khater, one of a five-member prosecution team, also asked the judge for the death sentence for Mubaraks security chief and six top police commanders being tried in the same case.
Retribution is the solution. Any fair judge must issue a death sentence for these defendants, said Khater on the third and final day of the prosecutions opening statement.
Thank you, Mr. Robespierre...
Mubaraks two sons, one-time heir apparent Gamal and Alaa, face corruption charges in the same trial along with their father and a close family friend who is a fugitive.
Earlier in Thursdays hearing, chief prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman said Mubarak was politically and legally responsible for the killing of the protesters and charged that the former president did nothing to stop the killings that he was aware of from meetings with aides, regional TV channels and reports by his security agencies. He said Mubaraks security chief and co-defendant, former interior minister Habib El-Adly, authorized the use of live ammunition on orders from Mubarak.
He (Mubarak) can never, as the top official, claim that he did not know what was going on, Suleiman told the court. He is responsible for what happened and must bear the legal and political responsibility for what happened. It is irrational and illogical to assume that he did not know that protesters were being targeted.
Addressing Mubarak directly, Suleiman said, If you had not issued these orders yourself, then where was your outburst of rage over the lives of your people? Testimonies by two interior ministers who succeeded El-Adly, he said, pointed out that the defendant could not have given the order to use live ammunition against the protesters without Mubaraks personal approval, said Suleiman.
Suleiman said Mubarak told investigators he decided to step down after the military refused to intervene to immediately and urgently help the security forces contain the protests. Mubarak called out the army on Jan. 28 three days into the uprising and on the day when security forces disappeared from the streets in circumstances that have yet to be fully explained.
He (Mubarak) fully knew what was happening but he did nothing, said Suleiman.
Another prosecutor, Wael Hussein, said that one of the six police commanders on trial former chief of the hated state security agency Hassan Abdel-Rahman has personally given orders to allow inmates to escape from a string of jails across the nation during the uprising. The escapees, who numbered in the thousands, have been blamed for a dramatic surge in crime since Jan. 28 last year when almost all vestiges of state authority collapsed. Most of the inmates have since been captured and returned to jail, but Egypt continues to suffer higher-than-usual crime rates.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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Gunmen have opened fire on worshippers as their eyes were closed in prayer at a Nigerian church, killing six in the latest sectarian attack in Africa's most populous nation.
The attack on the outskirts of the northeastern city of Gombe comes after an ultimatum issued on Sunday by a purported spokesman for Islamist group Boko Haram Boko Haram (Western learning is forbidden) is the nickname of a group that actually calls itself "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad"
for Christians to leave the country's mainly Muslim north within three days. The big media in the US will probably title this, "Religious Violence again strikes Africa".
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
01/06/2012 08:53 ||
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#1
The patience of these Christians is probably running very thin. I suspect that very shortly, a whole lot of Boko Haram are going to end up dead.
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/06/2012 14:48 Comments ||
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#3
As in India, the Brits preferred to employ minority muslims in the local army, lest the majority get uppity. When they left Nigeria, the muz ((30%) used their arms to encroach on the South. They forced conversions on 250,000 Christians, Spiritualists and Animists. Christians responded by assassinating a muzlim leader (Saudana), which led the North to set itself against the South. In that context, Biafra province seceded with US approval. However, the Brits and Ruskies chose to support a unitary state. The secession war ended after a forced starvation campaign was implemented. As usual, muzlims came out of the conflict free of blame.
(Rooters) - Eighteen cut-throats and four Yemeni soldiers were killed in festivities involving the army backed by the air force on Thursday, a local official and medics said, near a southern scenic provincial capital seized by Islamist dissidents in May.
The fighting took place in the suburbs of Zinjibar, in Abyan province where the cut-throats have seized several towns, while 11 months of protests against President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... have pushed Yemen to the brink of civil war.
"Heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting... has continued all day and the air force and artillery have been used," a local official told Rooters. He said the total corpse count had risen to 22.
A medic earlier said the bodies of the dead soldiers and those of some the cut-throats had been moved to a military hospital in the southern port city of Aden.
The government says the cut-throats are linked to al Qaeda's Yemen-based regional wing, which the United States has called the most dangerous branch of the bad boy network.
Saleh's opponents have accused him of ceding territory to Islamists to bolster his assertion that his rule keeps al Qaeda in check.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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There were clashes in Chechnya's Achkhoi-Martan district on Thursday afternoon, a law enforcement source said on Friday. Servicemen from the Russian Interior Ministry's Internal Troops found around ten terrorists militants during a search operation in a wooded mountainous area near the village of Yanda on Thursday.
The source said, "None of the personnel was injured during the clash. An aerial reconnaissance was conducted in the area and artillery was used." He added that the special operation was ongoing.
More details to follow the post from earlier this morning.
A Scots nurse for the Red Thingy Cross was kidnapped at gunpoint by Taliban terrorists yesterday. Khalil Dale, 59, who was working in Pakistan, was held up and bundled into a car as he drove home. The snatch came 200 yards from a building used by the charity in Quetta.
Red Thingy Cross officials said last night they are "extremely worried" about the safety of Muslim convert Khalil, 59, from Dumfries, who was in a marked Red Thingy Cross Land Cruiser.
The nurse, formerly known as Ken, worked at Dumfries Infirmary before quiting the job to devote his life to aid projects. A Red Thingy Cross spokesman last night called for his "rapid and unconditional release."
Senior Quetta police officer Nazeer Kurd said, "He was entering a lane when he was stopped by around seven or eight men in a Land Cruiser. The rest of the men stayed inside the vehicle while one man armed with a pistol stopped the hostage's car.
"Cars normaly slow down while taking this turn. So they took the British national, Khalil Dale, out of the car. They took his car keys and they moved towards the airport road."
Another officer said Khalil had been traveling with a Pakistani doctor and a driver who were not seized.
Former hospital colleague Sheila Howat said yesterday, "He's a lovely person I knew well when I worked at the infirmary. We were part of the group Friends of the Earth and I used to collect books which primary schools did not want for Ken. He sent them to all parts of the world, particularly Malawi."
Khalil was involved in protests against the firing of depleted uranium at the MoD range at Dundrennan, near Kirkcudbright in 2003. He was also a member of the Dumfries branch of the Coalition For Justice Not War.
John Dennis, a friend from the group, said, "I knew Ken from the time around the protests against the war in Iraq and we worked together on local political campaigns."
A British Red Thingy Cross spokesman said, "We are aware of an incident involving a Red Thingy Cross worker in Pakistan and are working with the International Committee of the Red Thingy Cross, and Red Thingy Cross Red Moon-Shaped Thingy Crescent Movement internationally to seek further clarification of the situation."
#1
I wonder if this will change the guys mind about converting too the religion of peace? That is if he makes it out alive.
Posted by: chris ||
01/06/2012 11:00 Comments ||
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#2
Lessee. Friends of the Earth, Coalition For Justice Not War, protests against the firing of depleted uranium, quit his job to devote his life to "aid projects."
Ok, so a leftist group-joiner looking for meaning who presumably found Islam, changed his name from Ken to Khalil to evidence his seriousness and rub it in everyone's face, then moved on to the ICRC and got himself a free trip to sunny Pakistan. It only took one dude to collect him, when 7 or 8 were on hand, and the two people he was with were left alone.
The Red Thingies are seeking further clarification. I bet they are. Sounds more like a case of runaway jihadi-wannabe to me.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/06/2012 19:01 Comments ||
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#6
The Red Ankh can mean an uncertain death to any bleeding-hearts who abandon common sense in favor of universal goodness. Good Loch wi tha Laddie-Boi!
Posted by: Slomp Oppressor of the Faeries1490 ||
01/06/2012 21:53 Comments ||
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[Dawn] Pak Taliban on Thursday released 17 people after over three months of captivity who mistakenly crossed the border from the country's lawless northwest into Afghanistan, officials said.
More than 30 young people aged between 20 and 30 were kidnapped from Pakistain's Bajaur tribal region during celebrations marking the Mohammedan Eid holiday in September 2011.
"Today Taliban has released 17 of them, some 8-10 are yet in their custody," Bajaur administration official Islam Zeb told AFP.
Zeb at the time said the boys had been kidnapped by a bad boy group allied with Taliban capo Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, who led local gun-hung tough guys but is believed to have decamped to Afghanistan in 2010.
"They have ben freed unconditionally," he added. Another bigwig, Mohammad Tariq Khan, confirmed the release.
Afghanistan shares a disputed and unmarked 2,400-kilometre (1,500-mile) border with Pakistain, and Taliban and other Al-Qaeda-linked forces of Evil have carved out strongholds on either side.
Afghanistan and Pakistain blame each other for several recent cross-border attacks that have killed dozens and displaced hundreds of families.
For years the neighbours have traded accusations over the Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked forces of Evil embedded in both countries, who criss-cross the porous, unmarked border and fight security forces from both governments.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Bloody Karachi Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistain's (TTP) commander Abdul Qayuum and his three companions were jugged along with a suicide jacket, a rocket, a BM missile, two Kalashnikovs and bullets of different types, DawnNews reported on Thursday. He'll get off when his trial comes up two or three years from now. Insufficient evidence.
The Additional IG Crime Investigation Department (CID) said during a presser that the accused were involved in the killing of 20 people including a police officer.
They were jugged while conducting a raid on the upper side of the Bloody Karachi, said the additional IG.
He said that personnel related to the law enforcement agencies were also included in their target list.
The Additional IG also said the accused had accepted their involvement in the bombings of December 9 and 10.
He said that they had also informed the police about the presence of two more jacket wallahs in Bloody Karachi.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Gunmen kidnapped a foreign doctor working with the International Committee of the Red Thingy (ICRC) in Quetta on Thursday, police officials said.
That's what foreigners are for, in that part of the world.
No one immediately grabbed credit, but criminal gangs have often targeted foreign aid workers in the hope of securing large ransoms for their release.
The doctor was travelling to the Red Thingy office when he was stopped by gunnies who forced him into their vehicle and drove away, police sources said.
An ICRC official confirmed that one of their employees, a foreign national, was kidnapped in Quetta.
"We are checking all routes out of the districts, but we have not been able to trace that vehicle. We are trying to ensure that the vehicle does not leave Quetta," Nazeer Kurd, a senior city police official, told news hounds.
Four health workers, including two doctors, were kidnapped by gunnies last week from the Pishin area of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , near Quetta. They were freed after a shootout between police and their kidnappers.
The Pak Taliban said on Thursday they had killed 15 soldiers kidnapped last month in Dire Revenge for military operations against them.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Renewed festivities between a banned bad turban organization and a tribal lashkar left seven persons dead and one injured in Bazaar-Zakhakhel area of Khyber Agency on Wednesday.
Sources said that a fierce shootout erupted between members of bad turban outfit Lashkar-i-Islam (LI) and volunteers of Zakhakhel tribe to gain control of some important bases occupied by the former.
At least six activists of LI and a volunteer of Zakhakhel lashkar were killed in the fight, which lasted for several hours. One Zakhakhel volunteer was injured and several LI bunkers were captured by the tribal lashkar.
Sources in Bara said that LI launched a fresh offensive late on Wednesday to regain its lost positions.
The Zakhakhel tribe raised a lashkar against LI in April last year after some commanders of the outfit, belonging to the tribe, developed differences with their group head Mangal Bagh ...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency... over alleged misappropriation of funds and liquidation of a local holy man. The holy man was assassinated allegedly by LI activists in March last year.
Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, Jack stuck the cigar in his mouth, stepped onto the gantry, and asked Got a light, Mac?
Von Schtinken stopped short, lowering the dagger and trying to control his features. If you light that thing, Herr Armschtröng, he pointed out, his voice tense, we all die!... the Abdullah Ezzam Brigade has threatened to target all public and private places and social and religious gatherings in Khyber Agency in retaliation of the military operation conducted in Karamna area in Landi Kotal on Jan 1.
A front man for the bad turban organization telephoned local journalists from Qazi's guesthouse an undisclosed location on Wednesday and said that they would target public and religions gatherings, including funeral and jirgas, and mosques, bazaars and public meetings, because the locals had not protested against the arrest of three women and as many children and killing of 12 cut-throats in the Karamna operation.
He said that anyone and anything could be targeted to avenge the Karamna operation and apathy of tribal people to the bloodshed.
The worried rustics have demanded of the political administration to increase security of mosques and bazaars in view of the threats.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Iraq-based jihadist group Ansar al-Islam has named a new chief, the SITE Intelligence Group on Thursday quoted a statement posted on Islamist Internet forums as saying.
The statement said Abu Hashim Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Ibrahim has been chosen to lead the group, but it did not mention its previous leader, Abu Abdullah Al Shafil.
Iraqi troops jugged Shafil in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... in early May 2010, U.S. forces said at the time.
Shafil "is believed to have served the terrorist organization since its inception" and "held association with the late Osama bin Laden," ... he's rotten though not quite forgotten... a statement by U.S. forces said.
The turban group named Ibrahim as its new chief on Wednesday, SITE said.
"Ansar al-Islam's Command pledged allegiance to Ibrahim and identified the group's new banner and the banners of its military and Sharia (Islamic law) departments," the U.S.-based monitoring group said.
Ansar al-Islam was created in 2001 by veterans of the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and had its headquarters in Iraqi Kurdistan, near the border with Iran.
Shortly before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, U.S. special forces and fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan fought Ansar al-Islam whose fighters decamped their headquarters.
In September 2003, many Ansar al-Islam members formed the soon-to-be renowned bully boy group Ansar al-Sunna.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Go? Suleman wears a Cue ball.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/06/2012 18:49 Comments ||
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#2
SO not GO. (Sorry, can't see well)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/06/2012 18:53 Comments ||
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#3
"Iraq Jihadist Group Names New Chief Target"
Fixed yer headline for ya'.
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/06/2012 20:35 Comments ||
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[An Nahar] Israeli security authorities have incarcerated two Arab Israelis for allegedly abetting Paleostinian cut-thoat movement Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, police told Agence La Belle France Presse on Thursday.
Spokeswoman Luba Samri said, following the lifting of a court-imposed gag order, that police and the Shin Bet internal security service last month incarcerated brothers Mohammed and Amir Asaad, from the village of Kfar Kana, near Nazareth.
"They are suspected of joining the Hamas infrastructure (in the West Bank) and of contacts with Hamas personnel who were planning to execute attacks (in the West Bank) and in Israel," she said.
"They were charged this morning at the Nazareth district court," she added.
Israel's Arab citizens, who make up about 20 percent of the population, are Paleostinians who remained in the Jewish state following the 1948 war that attended its creation, along with their descendants.
Kfar Kana is the Cana of Galilee, where the New Testament says Jesus transformed six jars of water into wine at a wedding.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
On a visit to Israel, a Christian friend asked an Israeli Arab, "When do you think there will be peace?" Answer: "When we kill all the Jews, there will be peace." There are moderates in that community, but most are hardline. Rabbi Kahane wanted them deported in masse.
Presumed terrorists insurgents attacked a Narathiwat province defense volunteer post district early this morning, killing two volunteers and wounding three others. The assailants grabbed five assault rifles -- one AK47 and four M16s - and some ammunition.
The post, located at the Rueso district office, had one hundred spent bullet casings strewn around the bodies of the two defense volunteers.
Police found a small homemade explosive device at the scene during the inspection. It failed to function and was defused by a bomb disposal team.
An initial investigation showed that about 30 men were involved in the attack. They cut down trees blocking the road, burned tires and some of the departing attackers fired on a police post, about 800 meters away to prevent backup forces from responding.
Rueso police station superintendent, Pol Col Satanfa Wamasing, speculated that the attacks were in retaliation for police raids to seize terrorist insurgent weapons at two rubber plantations on Dec 19 and Dec 24.
A suicide bomb attack tore through central Damascus last night, killing at least 25 people and injuring 46. Syrian television said the attack took place in the suburb of Midan.
A Syrian official said the target seemed to be a bus carrying police. The casualties were mostly civilians, but also some security personnel.
Syrian television showed footage of rescuers gathering body parts in the streets in an area where damaged cars and buses could be seen splattered with blood. It showed a damaged bus that had blood on the seats, and carried police helmets. A man shouted, "This is a criminal terrorist act."
State television said, "The attack took place in a heavily populated working-class neighbourhood near a school. It killed and wounded dozens of people."
The Local Co-ordination Committees, an opposition activist group that has organized anti-regime protests since March, said in a statement from Cyprus last night that another explosion was heard in the Damascus suburb of Tal.
[CBS News] Qatar's prime minister said Wednesday the 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... observer mission in Syria has made "some mistakes" and he was turning to the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... for help.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani discussed the monthlong mission with U.N. Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... in New York amid mounting criticism that the observers are simply giving the Syrian regime cover for its ongoing crackdown on a nearly 10-month-old uprising.
"We are coming here for technical help and to see the experience the U.N. has, because this is the first time the vaporous Arab League is involved in sending monitors, and there are some mistakes," he said, according to Kuwait's state news agency.
Asked what kind of mistakes, he replied: "This is the first experience for us. I said we have to evaluate what sorts of mistakes we have (made). There is no doubt for me. I can see there are mistakes, but we went there not to stop the killing, but to monitor."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
they were sent in to
- pretend that the ArabLeague cared
- pretend that the ArabLeague matters
the 'pretending' was successful, unfortunately, many Syrians realized that it was pretending
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
01/06/2012 9:31 Comments ||
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#2
This is the first experience for us. I said we have to evaluate what sorts of mistakes we have (made)
Here's a suggestion for Sheik Al Thani: Though it's often valuable to have a subject-matter expert along, it's not really a good idea to put a general with personal experience in directing massacres to be in charge of monitoring them.
[An Nahar] The head of the Free Syrian Army demanded Thursday that the 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... pull its observer mission out of the country over its failure to halt almost 10 months of bloodshed.
Colonel Riyadh al-Asaad issued the call in an interview with AFP after the vaporous Arab League turned to the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... for help and admitted "mistakes" in the monitoring mission launched less than two weeks ago.
"We hope they will announce that their mission was a failure and that they will be withdrawn," Asaad, who is based in Turkey, said in the telephone interview.
"We call on the Arab League to step aside and let the United Nations take over responsibility as it is more apt to find solutions," he added.
Arab League ministers are to discuss the mission at a Sunday meeting in Egypt, and Colonel Asaad said his group did not want the observers to be sent back to Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... after that meeting.
"We don't want them back in Syria," he said.
The observers have been in Syria since December 26 trying to assess the implementation by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... 's regime of a peace agreement aimed at ending a fierce crackdown on democracy protests that erupted in March.
The mission has come in for scathing criticism from Syrian democracy activists, who denounced it as "unprofessional."
Meanwhile, ...back at the desert island, Bert was realizing to his horror that he'd had only one bottle for one message, and he'd forgotten to include a return address... Jeffrey Feltman, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs, was holding talks in Cairo with the Arab League about the Syrian crisis, amid mounting frustration over the unrelenting violence.
His meeting comes as Assad's regime, which accuses the United States of "gross interference" in Arab affairs, said it freed 552 people jugged for involvement in unrest and who have "no blood on their hands."
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, who heads an Arab League task force on Syria, on Wednesday discussed the deadly protest crackdown with U.N. leader the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... in New York, Kuwait's KUNA news agency reported.
"We are coming here for technical help and to see the experience the U.N. has, because this is the first time the Arab League is involved in sending monitors, and there are some mistakes," said Sheikh Hamad, quoted by KUNA.
A U.N. front man said only that Ban and the sheikh "discussed practical measures by which the United Nations could support the observer mission of the Arab League in Syria."
The sheikh would not say what mistakes had been made. Syrian opposition groups say the monitors have been kept under too tight a rein in the country and that hundreds of people have been killed despite the presence of the observers.
"This is the first experience for us. I said we have to evaluate what sorts of mistakes" have been made, said the Qatari prime minister.
"There is no doubt for me. I can see there are mistakes, but we went there not to stop the killing but to monitor."
The Qatari premier said it was Assad's job to stop the killings, which mounted on Thursday with security forces reportedly killing at least five more civilians.
"We need the experience from the U.N. and we need to see how we can evaluate if they go back, how they will work," said Sheikh Hamad, adding Arab ministers would reassess the crisis at Sunday's meeting in Cairo.
The Local Coordination Committees, which organize protests, have labeled the Arab mission as "unprofessional" and said that Assad's regime was finding it easy to deceive its monitors.
"Soldiers wear police uniforms, drive repainted military vehicles and change the names of places, but this does not mean the army withdrew from cities and streets, or that the regime is applying the provisions of the Arab protocol," they said.
The LCC estimate at least 390 people have been killed since the observers began their mission.
The White House has said it is "past time" for the UN Security Council to act, as "sniper fire, torture and murder" were continuing in Syria and the Arab conditions for the regime have been dishonored.
"We want to see the international community stand together united in support of the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people," said White House front man Jay Carney.
But the Assad regime denounced the United States for "gross interference" in Arab League affairs and "an unjustified attempt to internationalize" the issue.
And, in a bid to show it was implementing the Arab peace roadmap, it announced on Thursday the release of 552 prisoners, taking to almost 4,000 the number freed since the start of November.
Damascus says the violence has been instigated by "armed terrorist gangs" with help from abroad, but its opponents insist their uprising began with peaceful protests inspired by revolts elsewhere in the Arab world.
However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... the brutality of the crackdown has seen a growing number of defections from the military, leading to the formation of Colonel Asaad's Free Syrian Army.
A video uploaded Wednesday to YouTube shows a group of FSA fighters apparently meeting in the flashpoint city of Homs with Arab observers dressed in white caps and fluorescent orange vests.
"We're now sitting in Homs with some of the Free officers... to show members of the Arab observer mission that there are no armed gangs; they are officers who deserted the regime of Bashir al-Assad," a participant says in the video, the authenticity of which could not immediately be verified.
The United Nations last month estimated more than 5,000 have been killed in the crackdown since March.
In a statement, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime forces rubbed out a civilian in the Khalidiyeh neighborhood of Homs city on Thursday and another four were bumped off in the eastern protest hub of Deir al-Zour.
The Local Coordination Committees reported that 20 people have been killed in Syria on Thursday.
Twelve were killed in Deir al-Zour, four in Homs, and one in each of 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... , Damascus, Reef Damascus, and Idlib.
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.
[Dawn] Attackers 
[NY Times] Egyptian prosecutors on Thursday called for former President 
Gunmen have opened fire on worshippers as their eyes were closed in prayer at a Nigerian church, killing six in the latest sectarian attack in Africa's most populous nation.
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
[Dawn] Pak Taliban on Thursday released 17 people after over three months of captivity who mistakenly crossed the border from the country's lawless northwest into Afghanistan, officials said.
Gunmen kidnapped a foreign doctor working with the International Committee of the 
Iraq-based jihadist group Ansar al-Islam has named a new chief, the SITE Intelligence Group on Thursday quoted a statement posted on Islamist Internet forums as saying.
Presumed 
Qatar's prime minister said Wednesday the 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
