[Shabelle] security operations have been conducted in some parts of the city of Kismayu, which is located in the lower region of Jubba.
During the operations, lot of people have been tossed in the clink Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! following a blast that occurred in the region yesterday noon.
The kaboom caused both injury and death casualties. The security operation was conducted by members of the Raskamboni Brigade, which jointly controls the city with Somali national army and those from Kenya.
During the raids, lot of people were arrested and some of them were believed to be behind the incident. Officials of the brigade accused the locked away Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! persons of being the criminal mastermind of the kaboom.
The front man of the brigade Abdi Nassir Seerar confirmed to Shabele media that many suspects have been arrested during the security raid and Mr Seerar claimed that the suspects in jug were behind the attack
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[Shabelle] A fierce battle between Somali government troops backed by their Æthiopian counterparts and Alshabab militias started in different parts of Gedo.
The government troops and the Æthiopian army moved from Garbaharey, a town in gedo region and attacked positions of Alshabab in the area.
The first fight erupted at a place called Birta der, a small town 18 kilometers south of Garbaharey. Officials from the Somali government, who contacted shabelle media, told that this town was in the hands of Alshabab before the battle started.
Abdi barre Abdi, an official from the Government informed Shabele that they have taken over Strategic places from the militia and they would continue to fight and remove Alshabab from the whole region.
The official informed the media that there have been casualties including three government troops, who were injured and he also claimed that heavy losses on the side of Al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... militias.
Gedo is a stretagic province, which borders both Kenya and Æthiopia and there are areas of the region where Al-Shabaab stills controls including Bardhere town.
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[An Nahar] Three Sudanese opposition members were placed in durance vile ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... after police forcibly dispersed a rally demanding the release of other opponents of the regime held for several weeks, their leader said on Sunday.
"We dispersed but after I left the place... three young men were enjugged Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! ," Farouk Abu Issa, head of the opposition alliance, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
He said they had rallied on Saturday in support of six members of opposition parties detained for their connection with a conference in Kampala, Uganda, which led to a charter for toppling the 23-year regime of President Omar al-Bashir Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it. .
"There were hundreds of women and men and children. The families of some of the detainees were there," Issa told AFP.
He said they gathered in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman at the family home of Sudan's first prime minister, Sayyid Isma'il al-Azhari.
"After we finished we went out of the house... When we were standing there raising banners the police came and used tear gas, very excessively," said Issa, who represents more than 20 opposition parties.
His alliance, along with community activists, agreed in January to the New Dawn charter with gunnies from Sudan's Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile areas.
The pact calls for regime change using both armed and peaceful means.
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan
[An Nahar] Clashes between the Malian army and Islamists killed seven people Sunday, including a soldier and two civilians, military sources said, after beturbanned goons infiltrated northern Mali's largest city, Gao.
The fighting took place as the Malian army carried out what it called a "clean-up" operation after Islamist beturbanned goons opened fire on an army camp in Gao overnight.
"A Malian soldier, four Islamists and two non-combatants were killed Sunday during exchanges of gunfire between the Malian army and Islamists," an African security source told Agence La Belle France Presse in Gao.
The city was now "calm" again, the source said, adding that the army, "backed by French and African troops, had the situation under control".
A Malian military source confirmed the toll from the festivities.
The fighting came after the radical Islamist group the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) said its fighters had infiltrated Gao late Saturday night and "attacked" a Malian army camp.
"The mujahedeen are going to continue fighting until the final victory," said Oumar Wahab, a MUJAO leader who was one of the city's rulers during the months that al-Qaeda-linked groups controlled northern Mali, implementing a harsh version of Islamic law.
A Malian military source earlier said the army was "carrying out a clean-up to dislodge any Islamists that may have infiltrated" the city, downplaying the significance of the incident overnight.
"Some individuals fired three AK-47 shots at a Malian military camp in Gao overnight," the source said.
"Our men responded forcefully. We see it as a very minimal incident. You can't even call it an attack."
The Islamist beturbanned goons were chased from Gao in January by a French-led military operation to reclaim Mali's vast desert north after a 10-month occupation.
The city was hit by several suicide kabooms and guerrilla attacks in the following weeks, and Islamist fighters have continued to clash with French and African forces in the surrounding area.
Mali descended into chaos in the wake of a March 2012 coup, as al-Qaeda-linked Salafist tough guys capitalized on the power vacuum to seize a Texas-sized triangle of desert territory in the north.
Fighting in recent weeks has been concentrated in the Ifoghas mountains in the extreme northeast of the country, where French and Chadian soldiers are trying to flush out lingering groups of rebels.
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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[Libya Herald] Morocco has handed over a wanted Qadaffy regime intelligence official, Ayman Abdelhamid Sulaiman Al-Sayeh. He arrived in Libya yesterday, Saturday, according to Interior Ministry front man Magdi Al-Arafi. He is wanted by Libya for alleged kidnapping, torture and human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... abuses.
Reports that Morocco was planning to extradite Sayah, 36, circulated last week. The son of Abdul Hamid Suleiman, head of the Office of the Internal Security Agency in 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... , who was accused on torture and brutality against rebels in Tripoli during the uprising, he is the first Qadaffy official wanted by Libya to have been extradited by Morocco.
Last year, Libya requested Morocco hand over a number of Qadaffy regime officials accused of human rights crimes and the Moroccan Ministry of Justice promised it would collaborate with Libyan officials on the matter, but until now nothing had happened.
Relations between the two countries have, however, been getting much closer recently. Two weeks ago, during a visit to Morocco by Libyan Industry Minister Suleiman Al-Fitouri, he and his Moroccan counterpart, Abdelkader Amar, agreed to collaborate on industrial investments with the establishment of joint companies, especially in the textile business.
Today in Doha, on the sidelines of the meeting of Arab Foreign Ministers ahead of Tuesday's Arab Summit there, the Foreign Minister, Mohamed Abdulaziz, described Libya's relations with Morocco as "historic".
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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[Libya Herald] Twenty militiamen have suffered from inhaling poisonous gas, according to the Arabic news website Almanara. The men were guarding a chemical weapons facility set up by the former regime in the south of Libya.
The guards were said to have been exposed to mustard gas while with a mission from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
GNC officials are said to be involved in moves to send the guards to a hospital in Europe that specialises in such cases.
The main stockpile of Qadaffy-era chemical weapons, 13 tonnes in all, consisting of several hundred munitions loaded with sulfur mustard as well as unweaponised sulphur mustard agent and chemical munitions plus artillery shells, is at Rowagha in central Libya, some 700 km south of 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... .
When Libya joined the OPCW in 2004, three chemical weapons plants as well as 24.7 tonnes of suphur mustard and 3,563 unloaded weapons were disclosed to the organization. However, the man who has no enemies isn't anybody and has never done anything... the Rowagha stockpile was kept secret and not disclosed until after the revolution.
Libya was supposed to have started the destruction of these remaining weapons by 29 April 2012. In the event it did not, instead simply handing over detailed plans to do so by the deadline and requesting a delay.
The operation is to be completed by December 2016, but to begin now.
Speaking in Vienna earlier this week the Director-General of the OPCW, Ahmet Uzumcu, said that destruction of the stockpiles would start in April under the supervision of OPCW inspectors now that the chemical weapons destruction facility was repaired.
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
The main stockpile of Qadaffy-era chemical weapons, 13 tonnes in all, consisting of several hundred munitions loaded with sulfur mustard as well as unweaponised sulphur mustard agent and chemical munitions plus artillery shells,
[An Nahar] Al-Qaeda has named a replacement for Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, a key commander of its North African branch who was killed in fighting with French-led forces in northern Mali, Algerian TV reported on Sunday.
The appointment of Djamel Okacha, a 34-year-old Algerian also known as Yahia Aboul Hammam, still has to be approved by a meeting of the leadership of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the head of Algeria's Ennahar TV, Mohamed Mokkedem, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Okacha is a close aide of AQIM chief Abdelmalik Droukdel ... aka Abdel Wadoud, was a regional leader of the GSPC for several years before becoming the group's supremo in 2004 following the death of then-leader Nabil Sahraoui. Under Abdel Wadoud's leadership the GSPC has sought to develop itself from a largely domestic entity into a larger player on the international terror stage. In September 2006 it was announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al-Qaeda and in January 2007 the group officially changed its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.... and considered the "real leader" of the group, Mokkedem added.
Okacha takes charge of the group's operations in both southern Algeria and northern Mali, where it had seized a vast swathe of territory last year but is now facing a massive counter-offensive by French-led troops.
His predecessor Abou Zeid, 46, was credited with having significantly expanded the jihadist group's field of operation to Tunisia and Niger, and for kidnapping activities across the region.
La Belle France confirmed on Saturday that Abou Zeid had been killed "during fighting led by the French army in the Ifoghas mountains in northern Mali in late February".
"The elimination of one of the main leaders of AQIM marks an important stage in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel," the office of French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, and a fine job he's doing of it... said.
Okacha has had a meteoric rise in the group despite not having gone to Afghanistan as other key gun-hung tough guys such as Mokhtar Belmokhtar did.
Belmokhtar, the one-eyed Islamist leader who criminal masterminded an assault on an Algerian gas plant that left 37 foreign hostages dead in January, was reportedly killed by Chadian troops in Mali earlier this month.
Okacha spent around 18 months in prison in Algeria in the 1990s when the country was mired in Islamist violence.
As a member of feared Death Eater organizations the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat ... now known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb... (GPSC), which later became AQMI, he was active in northern Algeria, Mokeddem said.
Born in the northern town of Reghaia he was later condemned to death by a court in southern Algeria for acts of terrorism.
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
OKACHA - AQ might as well declare defeat + give up the jihad in Mali!
[Yemen Post] Al-Qaeda stroke again this Sunday when it kidnapped Brig. Khaled Masood, a military intelligence officer based in Mudiya, a city of the southern province of Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... .
Local officials confirmed on Sunday Brig. Massod was targeted by the terror group while he was still at his residence. "The al-Qaeda suspects who were armed with assault rifles raided the officer's house and took him to unknown location," a government source said.
Security officers have now set out to track down the terror Islamic fascistito free their colleague.
Confrontations in Abyan in between the government and al-Qaeda Islamic fascistihave intensified over the past weeks with reports of attacks on al-Qafr and Maraksha on Friday and Saturday against pro-government militias.
Restive Abyan continues to pose the state a serious challenge with Islamic Islamic fascistisuccessfully managing to fall back on their positions, weaken but never completely beaten.
Even the use of tribal militias loyal to the central government did not drive away forces of Evil from the region.
With President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi determined to militarily run down al-Qaeda Islamic fascistiwith the U.S. military support, security analysts advance an alternative approach could prove better suited.
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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DUBAI - Irans foreign ministry said the country was not linked to a group of alleged spies arrested in Saudi Arabia, Iranian media reported on Sunday.
Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday that it had detained an Iranian, a Lebanese, and 16 Saudis for spying. Political analysts and Press in Saudi Arabia have accused Iran of being behind the alleged espionage.
GCC foreign ministers, meeting in Riyadh last month, issued a statement condemning Iranian meddling in their countries an accusation Tehran rejects.
"Lies! All lies!"
Irans foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, denied that an Iranian national was involved in the alleged spy ring and called the allegations a repetitive scenario, according to Irans English-language Press TV on Sunday.
Raising such baseless issues at the media level is merely for domestic consumption, he said, according to Press TV.
The Saudi government has previously blamed unrest in the Qatif district of oil-producing Eastern Province on an unnamed foreign power, which officials privately acknowledge means Iran. Sixteen people have been killed in Qatif in clashes with police in the past two years.
Riyadh also accuses Tehran of having masterminded an alleged plot to assassinate its ambassador in Washington that was announced by US police in late 2011. Iran denies this.
"Wudn't us."
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Police yesterday pressed charges against 148 leaders and activists of BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance for assaulting police and creating panic among people near the BNP's Nayapaltan office on March 11.
The defendants of the case include Opposition Chief Whip Zainul Abdin Farroque, BNP leaders Amanullah Aman, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, AZM Zahid Hossain, advocate Abed Raja, Md Shajahan and Jatiya Ganatantrik Party chief Shafiul Alam Pradhan.
The case was filed with Paltan Police Station under the Speedy Trial Act.
Masud Ahmed Talukder, a pro-BNP lawyer, told The Daily Star the charge sheet was submitted implicating leaders of BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance to keep them out of the election.
According to the provisions of the Speedy Trial Act, the IO has to complete investigation of the case within seven working days and submit the charge sheet against the accused.
If all the accused are enjugged Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! red-handed or on bail in any case, the trial court must have to complete the trial proceedings of the case within 45 working days, the act says.
Sub-Inspector Mahmudul Hasan, who led the investigation, submitted the charge sheet to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Dhaka yesterday afternoon.
The IO, however, dropped names of six other accused from the charge sheet, saying their involvement in the incidents was not proved.
Police are yet to complete the probe into a blast case filed in connection with the same incident before the BNP office on March 11.
The law enforcers tossed in the slammer Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! 157 leaders and activists of the BNP-led alliance during a raid on the BNP headquarters on that day after cocktails went off at a rally in front of the office.
Of the detained leaders, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, its vice chairman Altaf Hossain Chowdhury and Dhaka city unit convener Sadeque Hossain Khoka were released the next day.
Paltan police filed two cases against the 154 detained opposition leaders and activists the same day.
On March 20, 151 opposition leaders and activists except Zainul, Aman and Rizvi were placed on remand for their alleged involvement in assaulting police and blasting cocktails near the BNP's Nayapaltan office.
Such a large number of people had never been remanded at a time before in the country's history. Previously, the highest number of accused remanded in any case was 60, according to the court records.
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
Five gunmen and two special forces officers were killed and another six wounded in the Russian republic of Dagestan, the Investigative Committee said on Saturday. Police had previously said the gunmen had been holed up in a house in the village of Semender since Wednesday.
The counterterrorism operation in Semender began early on Wednesday, after security forces entered the village to search for a suspected terrorist member of an illegal armed group.
On March 9, two gunmen were gunned down when a group of unidentified attackers opened fire on police in the village of Mutsaul, in Dagestans Khasavyurt district.
[Dawn] Eight people, including a young couple, were rubbed out in different city areas on Saturday, police said.
They said that a young man and a woman were bumped off in a Liaquatabad locality on Saturday.
Armed men on a cycle of violence fired at the couple near Baloch Masjid in the Teen Hatti area and sped away, the police said, adding that the man and the woman sustained serious bullet wounds and died before they could be moved to hospital.
The bodies were later shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities.
"The victim man was identified by one of his relatives as 22-year-old Shahid Zaman," said an official at the Supermarket cop shoppe. "The woman has not yet been identified."
He said that a relative of the victim told the police that he had left home on Thursday and since then he had been missing. He was a resident of Musharraf Colony near Hawkesbay.
The police suspected a personal motive for the double murder.
Two killed in old city area
Two men, said to be associated with one of the criminal gangs operating in Lyari, were rubbed out in an attack in the Ghas Mandi area on Saturday, police said.
They said that gunnies opened fire on Asim alias Mushki and Muhammad Arsalan in Dharamsee Wara near Ghas Mandi. They sustained two bullet wounds each and was struck down in his prime, they added.
"The victims were residents of the Usmanabad area in Lyari," said Garden SHO Inspector Saleem Naz. "The dear departed were associated with the Haris Niazi group, a criminal gang operating in Lyari. Some five cases were registered against them in different cop shoppes of Lyari."
The police handed over the bodies to the families after medico-legal formalities at the Civil Hospital 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...
The police said that two pistols were seized from them.
Investigators said that the incident seemed the result of a row between two criminal gangs.
'Peddler' killed in Korangi
A suspected drug peddler was killed in a Korangi area on Saturday.
Police said that gunnies riding a motorbike fired shots at 25-year-old Fazal-ur-Rahman while he was sitting at his roadside paan cabin near Matkay Wali Pulia in Korangi No 1 ½.
"The victim had been placed in durance vile Book 'im, Mahmoud! twice for selling drugs through his paan shop," said an official at the Zaman Town cop shoppe. "Initial findings suggest that he had a fight with one of the drug suppliers in the area only two days ago and we suspect the same reason behind his murder."
He was a resident of Korangi Sector 48-D, the police said.
Man rubbed out in Orangi Town
Another suspected criminal was bumped off in Orangi Town on Saturday, police said.
An official at the Pakistain Bazaar cop shoppe said the 32-year-old Mehtab Mobin was rubbed out by gunnies riding a motorbike near Ghousia Chowk in Orangi Town's Sector 16.
"He was a resident of the same area...he was nominated in different cases registered at the Pakistain Bazaar and Mominabad cop shoppes," he added.The police said that it appeared that the killing was linked with his criminal activities," he added.
Killing in Rizvia Society
A civil works contractor was killed in the Rizvia Society area on Saturday.
Police said that assailants riding a motorbike fired shots at 37-year-old Muttaqi Hussain near the Jafria Imambargah and rode away.
"The victim was a contractor by profession and resident of the same area," said an official at the Rizvia cop shoppe. "We have enough evidence to believe that the motive for the murder was some personal issues."
The body was shifted to the Abbasi Shahed Hospital for medico-legal formalities.
Youth found rubbed out
A young man was found rubbed out near Gujjar Nullah in Nazimabad on Saturday.
Police said that the body of the youth was found in a garbage dump. The victim was identified as Tahir Khan, who was a resident of Hasan Colony in Gulbahar.
They said that he was father of four and was associated with the hosiery business. The police said that he left home on Friday night after receiving someone's call on his mobile phone, but did not return.
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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[Xinhua] Death toll of last night's suicide kaboom at an army check post in Pakistain's northwest tribal area of North Wazoo has risen to 17 on Sunday morning, local media reported.
Quoting unidentified official sources, Dunya TV said that a jacket wallah rammed his explosive laden vehicle into a check post jointly owned by Pakistain Army and Frontier Constabulary, a local paramilitary force, on Saturday night.
The blast killed five soldiers and injured over 30 others.
The injured soldiers were shifted to a nearby hospital where 12 of them succumbed to injuries on Sunday, said the report.
Some of the media reports said that the check post was located near army barracks which were leveled to ground following the blast.
No group grabbed credit for the attack.
The incident happened in Miran Shan area of North Waziristan, a bully boy bad boy tribal area located at Pakistain-Afghan border.
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JERUSALEM - Hundreds of Israeli police dismantled a Palestinian protest camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem overnight, activists and police said on Sunday.
Activists set up the camp, which they dubbed Bab Al Shams or Gate of the Sun in Arabic, near the West Bank Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, in a bid to draw attention to Israeli plans to boost building in the area known as E1. Tents were pitched on Wednesday to highlight the issue ahead of a landmark three-day visit to the Palestinian and Israel territories by US President Barack Obama his first since taking office more than four years ago.
Palestinian legislator Mustafa Barghouti, one of the organisers, told AFP by phone on Sunday that he and four others were arrested and taken for questioning at Maale Adumim police station. He said about 50 other protesters were put on buses and released in a Palestinian Authority-controlled part of the West Bank.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that one woman was arrested for allegedly assaulting a policeman.
Over 200 officers took part in the operation, he said. The area was cleared in about half an hour. The camp was first set up in January but taken down by court order on the grounds of public disorder.
Similar encampments have sprouted elsewhere but have later been dozed razed by troops or police.
The Palestinians say increased settlement construction in E1 would effectively cut the West Bank in two and prevent the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state. The international community has also reacted with consternation to Israeli plans to build in E1, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government to reconsider.
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Karma is a bitch. The Buddhists are supposed to be good little dhimmis and submit to their Muslim overlords. It says so in the Koran.
Anti-Muslim mobs rampaged through three more towns in Myanmar's predominantly Buddhist heartland over the weekend, destroying mosques and burning dozens of homes despite government efforts to stem the nation's latest outbreak of sectarian violence.
President Thein Sein had declared an emergency in central Myanmar on Friday and deployed army troops to the worst-hit city, Meikhtila, where 32 people were killed and 10,000 mostly Muslim residents were displaced. But even as soldiers restored order there after several days of anarchy in which armed Buddhists torched the city's Muslim quarters, the unrest has spread south toward the capital, Naypyitaw.
A Muslim resident of Tatkone, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Meikhtila, said by telephone that a group of about 20 men ransacked a one-story brick mosque there late Sunday night, pelting it with stones and smashing windows before soldiers fired shots to drive them away. Speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, he said he believed the perpetrators were not from Tatkone.
A day earlier, another mob burned down a mosque and 50 homes in the nearby town of Yamethin, state television reported. Another mosque and several buildings were destroyed the same day in Lewei, farther south. It was not immediately clear who was behind the violence, and no clashes or casualties were reported in the three towns.
The upsurge in sectarian unrest is casting a shadow over Thein Sein's administration as it struggles to make democratic changes in the Southeast Asian country after half a century of army rule officially ended two years ago this month.
The central government in Myanmar has been working up nominal Buddhists to kill and/or disenfranchise and/or (to put it bluntly) enslave (via drafting into long-term corvee labor) other Buddhists whose only offense was being of Shan descent for the last sixty years or so.
And they had very little attention from ABC, or Al Jazeera, or the last UAE press outlet whose coverage of this hit Rantburg.
#8
Interesting how Christians and Buddhists have been slaughtered in Indonesia and Thailand for *YEAR* and not a peep out of ABC News. But now that the Budhists are defending themselves its suddenly *BIG* *NEWS*.
And notice how they only interview the Muslim *victims* and not any Buddhists as to a motive or anything. If muslims riot, burn, rape, and kill over some slight its perfectly alright with the Media.... but if anyone else does it's a different story.
A maritime policeman apparently thought freed Australian hostage Warren Rodwell was a tourist when he staggered out of the water in the southern Philippines on Saturday.
The 54-year-old former soldier was released early Saturday morning after a 15-month hostage ordeal. He was abducted from his home on Mindanao in December 2011 by Abu Sayyaf. An emaciated Mr Rodwell has been receiving medical care and will soon by reunited with his siblings, who have arrived in the country.
Maritime police told local media how a mud-spattered Mr Rodwell took them by surprise when he waded ashore in the dark port city of Pagadian on Saturday. When asked "Are you a tourist?" Rodwell answered, "No, I'm not a tourist, I'm a kidnap victim. Please help me."
Police video has emerged of Rodwell describing to police how he was how he was put in a boat and told by his terrorist militant captors to paddle for his life. The same video shows him pulling up his t-shirt to reveal his gaunt body, which he likened to a "racing dog".
Mr Rodwell's family secured his release by paying a 4 million pesos ($93,000 ransom). Local vice governor Al Rasheed Sakkalahol, who helped broker Mr Rodwell's release at the request of his Filipino wife Flor, said, "They agreed among themselves the family was going to pay in return 4 million pesos to the kidnapper, because that is the only way they can get back Mr Rodwell."
Australian foreign minister Bob Carr said the government had refused to pay the demanded $US2 million ransom. In the Philippines, there have been a number of cases in which ransom has not been paid and the hostages were then beheaded by Abu Sayyaf terrorists militants.
Journalist Maria Ressa faced this dilemma first hand when three of her colleagues were taken. Despite serious misgivings, a ransom was also paid for their release.
She said that while governments do not sanction it, they do facilitate it to save lives. She said, "Both Australian and the Philippine government have said that no ransom has paid. Both of them have a policy that they don't pay ransom, a public policy, but as we know in the Philippines and I know firsthand, ransom is paid inevitably in these situations."
The kidnappers had reportedly planned to execute Mr Rodwell over the weekend. In a video released by Abu Sayyaf in December, Rodwell lashed out, saying he did not trust his kidnappers or the Australian government and that he had no faith he would ever be released.
But as Australian ambassador to the Philippines, Bill Tweddell, pointed out, "I think itâs important to remember the timing and the context of that. His sole source of advice has probably been from his captors and so who of us known how he would feel, how he would sustain hope, in conditions like that."
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03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Abu Sayyaf
Five soldiers were wounded in a roadside bombing in Narathiwat province on Saturday afternoon.
The bomb was set off when a nine-man security unit (five on a military Humvee and four on two motorcycles) was patroling in Waeng district. The explosion, which destroyed the Humvee and left a crater one meter deep and one meter wide in the road, was caused by explosives hidden in a cooking gas cylinder.
After the blast, officers who were not wounded had to fire on terrorists militants hiding in the bushes to prevent them from shooting.
The bombing followed a pair of drive-by shootings in Pattani province earlier in the day, in which a local official was killed and another villager seriously injured.
In the first attack Sofee Yapa, 46, deputy chairman of the tambon administration organisation, was gunned down. Witnesses said that Sofee was travelling on his motorcycle a the local road when a gunman riding pillion on another motorcycle fired at him with a handgun. The attackers then fled. He was taken to the hospital and later pronounced dead.
Police blamed separatist terrorists militants.
The second shooting took place on a rural road in Mayo district. Suemadee Bueraheng, 31, was travelling on his motorcycle when he was shot with a handgun by a gunman on another motorcycle, who fled after the attack. Suemadee was seriously wounded and was taken to the hospital.
The head of the Free Syrian Army is in stable condition after a blast targeted his car, the rebel group's spokesman said.
Col. Riad al-Asaad, who is not related to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was injured Sunday during a visit to the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, Free Syrian Army spokesman Louay Almokdad said.
The spokesman said al-Asaad is recovering from a foot injury in Turkey, but declined to confirm reports that his foot was amputated.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast.
The attack took place four days after a video posted on YouTube showed al-Asaad defending the controversial al-Nusra Front and slamming the main opposition umbrella group.
The United States has designated al-Nusra Front as a terrorist organization linked to al Qaeda, but some rebels say they don't have a problem fighting alongside them against Bashar al-Assad's forces.
#2
Article on the Dier Ezzor province. Some tidbits:
Media, particularly many Arabic outlets that are steered by Syria's political opposition, have consistently neglected Deir Ezzor despite several breakthroughs in the province... The Muslim Brotherhood wields influence with many Arabic media outlets, and the news focuses on areas where the group is establishing a presence, particularly in the middle and north of the country. The Brotherhood's influence in Deir Ezzor, as in many other areas, is highly unlikely... Deir Ezzor's residents are increasingly feeling abandoned by the opposition. After the regime's fall, the area will almost certainly be stable because of the social cohesion and the role of the tribes, but the province has specific political demands. For decades, it has been an impoverished area despite its rich resources... The Baathist policies of neglect and contempt have, at least in the eyes of many residents, been so far mirrored by the opposition.
Given that the province (a Sunni stronghold) is also on the Iraqi border, it means that anyone could be responsible.
[Washington Post] The Israeli army said it targeted a Syrian army position with an antitank missile Sunday after one of its patrols came under fire from the Syrian side of the frontier on the Golan Heights, the latest flare-up in a zone made increasingly volatile by Syria's civil war.
An Israeli military official said the Syrian firing appeared to be deliberate, unlike previous incidents in which errant shells from fighting between rebels and government forces in Syria landed in Israel-held territory.
After shots were fired at an Israeli patrol vehicle early Sunday, Israeli forces launched a Tamuz guided antitank missile that destroyed a Syrian machine-gun position identified as the source of fire, military officials said. There was no immediate response from Syria. This just in: "Ow. Signed Syria"
Posted by: Fred ||
03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
never bring a machine gun to an anti-tak missile fight
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/25/2013 11:27 Comments ||
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[An Nahar] Three men were kidnapped on Sunday in the Bekaa town of Arsal, the National News Agency reported.
This incident comes after Baalbeck's thirty-years old Hussein Kamel Jaafar was kidnapped earlier on Sunday.
"The three man are Mohammed Rayed, Ashraf Rayed and Malek al-Hojeiri," the NNA detailed.
"Gunmen in Arsal have kidnapped a Hermel resident," al-Mayadeen television said Sunday afternoon, adding that he was handed over to the Free Syrian Army.
"Gunmen in a black SUV have kidnapped Jaafar and headed to the Syria town of Fleita," MTV detailed.
"Arsal residents have accused the FSA of kidnapping Jaafar," said MTV.
"The Jaafar clan urged their family member's immediate release," the NNA said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pool hall, Peoria Slim had found another sucker... MTV reported that they have threatened to execute tit-for-tat abduction operations following Hussein's abduction.
OTV said: "The number of kidnapped people in Arsal has increased to five."
The NNA noted that the army has heavily deployed its forces in the region while radio Voice of Leb (93.3) pointed out to a remarkable presence of Jaafar gunnies in the area.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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[4 views]
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[An Nahar] Rebels fighting Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... 's regime have seized a 25-kilometer (15 miles) strip of land stretching from the Jordan border to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a watchdog said on Sunday.
"Fighters loyal to Al-Nusra Front, Al-Yarmuk Brigade, Al-Mutaz Billah Brigade and others took control of Al-Rai military checkpoint," east of Sahem al-Golan town in the southern province of Daraa, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"The fighters seized the site after regime forces retreated. The 25-kilometer area located between the towns of Muzrib (near the Jordanian border) and Abdin (in the Golan) is now out of regime control."
The Britannia-based Observatory said the rebels seized in the past few days several army checkpoints in the area and captured weapons and vehicles.
The rebels on Saturday seized a key air base Daraa after two weeks of fierce battles with loyalist troops, it added.
The rebel advances came days after gun-hung tough guys seized a border crossing on the frontier with Jordan, said the Observatory.
A security source in Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations... told Agence La Belle France Presse this week that Jordan was allowing jihadist fighters and arms bought by 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 their national face... from Croatia to be smuggled into Syria.
The source said that around 2,500 trained and heavily equipped rebels have entered Daraa in recent weeks, following reports that American instructors were training rebels in neighboring Jordan.
Jordanian Information Minister and government front man Samih Maaytah said earlier this month that his country "rejects interfering in Syrian affairs."
"The Jordanian army is exerting a lot of efforts to control the border and prevent infiltrations," he said.
Louay Moqdad, a front man and coordinator for opposition forces, acknowledged that several Arab and Western nations had started training rebels forces, but declined to provide further details.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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[7 views]
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#1
Iff Hashemite Jordan's armed forces can't take it back it will have to be ala the Israeli IDF???
#2
Methinks the Jordanian army will more concerned with keeping the border sealed than securing that piece of land. Doesn't mean they won't complain (publicly) if the IDF moves in...
Syrian activists say rebels continue to press ahead with their offensive in the southern province of Daraa on the Jordanian border. A rebel victory there would be significant because it would deprive President Bashar Assad of control over Syrias southern border with Jordan. In the past few months, rebels seized control of much of the western border with Turkey and made significant gains along the eastern border with Iraq.
Rami Abdurrahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says heavy clashes were continuing Sunday at two towns near Daraa.
A Jordanian border official says he is hearing heavy artillery and seeing smoke rising from areas in the provinces Yarmouk Valley.
On Saturday, rebels seized several army checkpoints, clearing a 25-kilometer (15-mile) stretch along the Syrian-Jordanian border.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Arab media reported the assassination of Syrian President Bashar Assad. On - reportedly not yet been validated and have not yet received echo Western media, Assad fired one of his bodyguards.
This is an Iranian officer named Mehdi Jacoby, who was attached to Assad on - by allies of the Syrian president in Tehran.
Various reports published that Assad al-Shami was rushed to the hospital and in serious condition. Also reported the big fuss that has developed around the hospital and that all roads leading to the hospital were blocked - by the Syrian army. Also reported large military forces are in the hospital.
Syrian television broadcasts were discontinued. Syria apparently inhibits the official report on the assassination until it became clear whether the president would live or die.
Arab media sources confirmed press reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was on Saturday evening for serious injury after suffering a shots fired by a member of his personal guard.
The sources said that President Assad was transferred to Shami Hospital in Damascus, suffering from wounds and described it as very serious, and he is fighting for his life there, while the Syrian army has closed all roads leading to the hospital. Even the meantime there has been no official statement by the system, while sources close to him denied what was in the news altogether, noting that the president was in good health and high spirits, and will deliver a keynote speech in the coming days.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/25/2013 14:41 ||
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#1
If this is true does it give the Iranians an opening to take over?
#2
the Iranians are already calling a lot of the shots with the Russians calling a few also
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/24/2013 16:20 Comments ||
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#3
If true, the REAL civil war and genocidal butchery will soon begin. Of course Assad was the ....."problem" so it will be interesting how the administration twists this one.
#5
Nah, just add stuff onto the popcorn. One of my favorites is to throw in M&M's.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/24/2013 17:13 Comments ||
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#6
An Iranian?
NOW this is getting very interesting.
Pass the popcorn and the M&M's.
The Russians are gathering influence to put a BIG fence around this mess. They've been in it up to their neck with Islamists for years and between Afghanistan and Chechnya, they don't want it to metastize.
Perhaps Putin has put on his big boy pants and decided to act globally with the jihad BS.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/24/2013 17:42 Comments ||
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#7
M&Ms??? Might have to get the wife to make another batch of Chocalate truffles (rum, rasberry, peppermint, the lot)
As forr IRAN, what doth MEMRI.ORG sayeth > IRANIAN OFFICIAL [Mehdi Taeb]: LOSS OF SYRIA WILL LEAD TO LOSS OF TEHRAN ITSELF, SYRIA IS AN IRANIAN PROVINCE OF IRAN, IRAN HAS FORMED 60,000-STRONG SYRIAN BASILJ, ISRAEL IS OUR ONLY THREAT.
The highly controversial Taeb's statements is repor causing a serious brouhaha amongst Iranian Clerics + Pundits, espec as per his "Syria" claims.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
03/24/2013 21:51 Comments ||
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#12
So you want Iranian influence in Syria, or just run of the mill al Qaeda?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/24/2013 23:58 Comments ||
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#13
I'm praying Assad live long and prosper...such a lovely war! If we didn't have him, we'd have to invent him! We need more of him to control Allah's hell spawn and by golly, Satan is ready with the supply! Fact is, O'Bummer is doing pretty good too with supplying the other side...We keep hearing of Medieval rivers of blood during cities getting sacked...remember unk Rifaat Assad and his 80,000 'slime brothers slain in Hama in the eighties?
Well, Bashir will do better than his uncle ten times over...times are good...now where O'bummer
is gonna start another one for us?
#15
I suppose with that line of thinking we should be looking for next Tamerlain, protector of the faith of Islam to come to town and butcher an entire city as he did with Baghdad...something like a million killed...four pyramids 50 feet high of head?
I think we are really seeing the true nature of Islam. They will continue to look backward and continue to kill each other until it reaches some absurdity, like Tamerlain.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/25/2013 22:45 Comments ||
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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.
[An Nahar] Clashes between the Malian army and Islamists killed seven people Sunday, including a soldier and two civilians, military sources said, after 
[Yemen Post] Al-Qaeda stroke again this Sunday when it kidnapped Brig. Khaled Masood, a military intelligence officer based in Mudiya, a city of the southern province of 
Five gunmen and two special forces officers were killed and another six wounded in the Russian republic of Dagestan, the Investigative Committee said on Saturday. Police had previously said the gunmen had been holed up in a house in the village of Semender since Wednesday.
[Dawn] Eight people, including a young couple, were 
Wazoo
JERUSALEM - Hundreds of Israeli police dismantled a Palestinian protest camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem overnight, activists and police said on Sunday.
A maritime policeman apparently thought freed Australian hostage Warren Rodwell was a tourist when he staggered out of the water in the southern Philippines on Saturday.
[Washington Post] The Israeli army said it targeted a Syrian army position with an antitank missile Sunday after one of its patrols came under fire from the Syrian side of the frontier on the Golan Heights, the latest flare-up in a zone made increasingly volatile by Syria's civil war.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Arab Report: Assad assassinated
