[Tolo News] Two big bases of Afghan National Army (ANA) in Baghlan-e-Markazi district have been under Taliban siege for nearly one month, but still no force has come to help the surrounded soldiers, a member of the Baghlan Provincial Council said on Sunday.
Council members say the Taliban have besieged the bases for three weeks. ANA operations could not break the siege and the soldiers inside the bases are suffering difficult days and nights.
"Mangalha and Alavuddin military bases have been surrounded by Taliban for one month. Taliban have warned the people living in the villages near to the bases to evacuate the area. According to our contact with the ANA soldiers, they are in a very difficult situation," said Mohammad Zarif Zarif, member of the council.
Villagers say the Taliban have closed all the roads and their houses have been destroyed in fights between Taliban and security forces.
"There has been three weeks of ongoing war in our village. All the houses have been destroyed, animals have died inside stables and people cannot work on the fields. Security forces cannot advance even one step," said Arbab Shamsullah, tribal elder.
"Taliban have closed all the roads. They even do not let us to bring food inside the village, because they say that we take the food to the soldiers. People are facing numerous challenges," said Haji Abdul Hamid, resident of Baghlan-e-Markazi district.
Residents of Baghlan province urged government to put an end to the current fighting.
"We urge the government to finish the war in our region. They should defeat Taliban if they can, otherwise, the security forces should remove their bases from our region. People have lost what they had," said Taza Mir, resident of Mangal village of Baghlan-e-Markazi district.
TOLOnews tried to get Baghlan local government comment in this regard, but failed to do so.
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03/13/2017 00:00 ||
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[NEWS24] A journalist says a technician with his television station has been maimed in a boom-mobile blast in Somalia's capital.
Abdiaziz Ibrahim, a Somali journalist with London-based Universal TV, says technician Abdihamid Karzai was maimed when a bomb planted in his car went kaboom! in a market in Mogadishu's Hamarweyne district.
He says Karzai, who had been heading to work on Sunday morning, is being treated at a local hospital.
Police Captain Mohammed Hussein confirms the incident and says the authorities are investigating.
There is no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but the Islamic Lion of Islam group al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... frequently carries out deadly attacks here.
Somalia is often called one of the world's most dangerous places for media workers.
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03/13/2017 00:00 ||
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Kenya’s anti-terrorism police officers are on Saturday holding six terror suspects in the coastal town of Malindi. A contingent of special units raided a house on Friday night and managed to arrest the six suspected of funding the Al-Shabaab terror group.
“Six people arrested and seven mobile phones recovered that are held for several suspicious cash transfers to individuals linked to Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
Malindi police commander Muchangi Matawa said the six are being interrogated by anti-terrorism police officers detectives over alleged links to the group.
According to police the suspects are part of terror network behind the recruitment of youth to join the Al-Shabaab militant group. The suspects include women believed to be targeting young girls who are lured to cross over to Somalia to become Al-Shabaab brides. Kenya authorities are in higher alert over possible attacks by the Somalia-based militant group.
Last year, the police warned that at least six Al-Shabaab fighters had been dispatched from Somalia to carryout the attacks on unspecified locations in Kenya. According to police, the Al-Shabaab militia is planning to use suicide bombers to execute the attacks targeting key government facilities and popular public places which the police said should be put under vigilance to foil any possible attack in Malindi.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/13/2017 00:00 ||
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[MIDDLEEASTMONITOR] Militants possibly linked to ISISholy warriors attacked a checkpoint in a town in southwest Tunisia early this morning, killing a policeman and wounding three others, security officials said.
Two gunnies were also killed in an exchange of fire during the attack in Kebili, which lies on the edge of Tunisia’s southern desert region, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... The attackers opened fire on a police patrol that had set up a checkpoint at a roundabout in the town, one security official said.
Security forces were combing the area to search for gunnies who may have escaped following the attack, a second official said.
Tunisia has been trying to tackle an bad boy threat after suffering major attacks by ISIS-inspired gunnies in 2015 and early 2016, including deadly assaults on tourists at a museum in the capital Tunis and on a beach in Sousse.
Militants occasionally target patrols and checkpoints, but attacks in towns and cities are rare. Sunday’s was the first in an urban area since a kaboom against a bus carrying presidential guards in Tunis in November 2015.
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03/13/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Ansar al-Sharia
[MIDDLEEASTMONITOR] A wanted person has been fatally maimed during an operation by Saudi security forces in eastern 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... , the interior ministry said today, in the second incident of its kind since Friday.
Residents said that a 16-year-old youth died in the raid on Saturday morning targeting wanted people in Awamiya, a restive town in the Qatif district, where many of the country’s Shia minority live.
The interior ministry said security forces came under fire while pursuing desperados who had been hiding in houses vacated by inhabitants to pave the way for a development project intended to revamp the area.
"Security men came under heavy gunfire at the Musawara neighbourhood from an unknown source, which required an appropriate response," the statement, carried by state news agency SPA said.
"As a result, Walid Talal Ali al-Arayedh, who is wanted by security authorities, was maimed and taken to a hospital where he later died."
Rooters reported residents reached by telephone as claiming that al-Arayedh was a bystander in the area when he was fatally shot and taken to a hospital by his family, where he died.
However, women are made to be loved, not understood... Saudi authorities insist that al-Arayedh was an armed runaway who opened fire on security forces and was shot in the ensuing battle.
Activists posted video and audio recordings of heavy automatic fire and images of vehicles riddled with bullets from the raid, which they said lasted for about three hours. The authenticity of the recordings could not immediately be verified.
On Friday, SPA reported that security forces killed Mustafa Ali Abdullah al-Madad, who was wanted by security forces for "a number of terror crimes against the citizens and security personnel" in Qatif district.
Awamiya was the hometown of prominent Iran-backed Shia holy man Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, whose execution in January last year prompted angry protests against the ruling Al Saud dynasty and led to Saudi Arabia cutting off relations with Iran after regime-backed Iranians set the Saudi Embassy in Tehran ablaze.
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03/13/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[DW] German police said Sunday that they had detained a male suspect in his 20s after an attack threat against a night club in Offenburg appeared online.
Police launched a major operation in the southwestern German town on Saturday night, upping security in the town center, the main train station and on the border with La Belle France. Security was particularly tight around Offenburg's night clubs and one was cleared out by authorities.
"A dance club in the industrial area was evacuated in the early morning hours for security reasons," police said in a statement. They did not name the club that had been threatened.
Police questioned two male suspects aged between 20 and 25 years old, the statement said. Police searched one of the suspect's apartment but did not find any weapons that could have been related to the attack threat.
One of the men was later released after police ascertained that he was not connected with the online threat. Police have not yet released further details about the content of the threat or a possible motive.
The police operation in Offenburg directly follows another security operation in the German city of Essen. On Saturday, police closed a shopping mall after security services warned of a possible terror attack.
[REUTERS] Germany's interior minister said police had stopped a possible attack at a shopping center in the western city of Essen on Saturday and there were indications of a link 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.... hard boys.
Germany is on high alert following deadly hard boy attacks in La Belle France and Belgium and after a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market in December, killing 12 people. Islamic State grabbed credit for that attack.
Police closed one of Germany's biggest shopping malls on Saturday after security agencies warned of a possible attack and questioned two men in connection with the threat.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said there could have been an attack at the shopping center.
"That was stopped," he told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday, adding there was a connection to someone pulling the strings in Islamic State.
"There were indications or orders from someone who had traveled to the region (Syria) from Germany. That shows how close the connection is. So it is good that the federal and regional security authorities were vigilant," said de Maiziere.
Security sources told Rooters that the threat appeared to follow a call for violence by a German hard boy loyal to Islamic State who is currently based in a region of Syria controlled by the hard boy group.
He reiterated that the danger of a terrorist attack in Germany remained high. Officials are worried that Islamist Lions of Islam will return from Syria or Iraq to stage attacks on German soil.
[AlAhram] German police were searching Sunday for possible contacts of an IS myrmidon believed to be behind a terror plot against the Limbecker Platz mall in the central city of Essen.
Although there was no announcement of arms or explosives being found, Essen police said two men were tossed into the calaboose for questioning in the nearby town of Oberhausen. One man was later released, while the second was still being questioned, police said, adding that authorities were looking into "objects that were found in his possession".
Germany's domestic intelligence service had tipped police off about the threat, AFP learned Sunday.
A German fighter of the Islamic State group, who is in Syria, had sought to recruit several people for an attack in Essen, according to a source speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... . Investigators are examining if the attacker is working with anyone in Germany, added the source.
According to Bild daily, the IS fighter also provided instructions on bomb building in his online chat messages.
Domestic security officials estimate there are some 10,000 radical Islamists in Germany, with roughly 1,600 among them suspected of being capable of violence.
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03/13/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
[MIDDLEEASTMONITOR] Italia has expelled a Tunisian who may have had links with the man who killed 12 people in Berlin when he ploughed a truck through a busy Christmas market, the Italian interior ministry said today.
The Tunisian, a resident of Latina near Rome, was identified in investigations launched in the wake of the 19 December Berlin attack, the ministry said in a statement.
The 37-year-old man was the owner of a telephone whose number was found among the contacts of Anis Amri, the Berlin attacker, it said.
Amri killed 12 people when he ploughed a truck through a Christmas market in Berlin. He was killed in a shootout with police near Milan on 23 December.
Amri came to Italia by boat in 2011 and spent almost four years in jail there before being ordered out of the country in 2015. He then went to Germany who attempted to have him deported back to Tunisia, but Tunis delayed issuing his paperwork leading to Amri eventually being released.
The expelled Tunisian’s phone number was also linked to a Facebook profile pointing to his support of so-called jihadist ideology and connections with people supporting ISIS myrmidons, the ministry said.
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03/13/2017 00:00 ||
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[MIDDLEEASTMONITOR] German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said today that a Tunisian man wanted in his homeland for his possible involvement in a deadly attack on a Tunis museum in 2015 can be deported.
The man was tossed in the slammer Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! last month on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in Germany.
In 2015, bully boyturbans stormed the Bardo museum and killed 21 foreign tourists.
"I can confirm that the talks between us and the Tunisian side have been successful. The terrorist is sitting in jug and I expect that he will soon be deported," de Maiziere told broadcaster ARD for the Bericht aus Berlin programme.
The Tunisian, identified by German media as Haikel S., was arrested last month and is believed to have recruited for ISIS in Germany, German prosecutors have said.
He had lived in Germany for a decade until 2013 before re-entering the country to seek asylum in August 2015, five months after the storming of the Bardo museum, the prosecutors said.
Tunisian Sherlocks suspect the Tunisian asylum seeker was involved in the assault and had issued a warrant for his arrest in June 2016.
Earlier Italia said it had expelled a Tunisian who might have had links with the man who killed 12 people in Berlin by driving a truck into a Christmas market.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists
[DW] Iraqi forces have cut off the last supply route into djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , effectively trapping the Death Eaters of the so-called "Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... " (IS) group. Hundreds of thousands of civilians remained trapped in the city.
Brett McGurk, the US envoy to the anti-IS coalition said on Sunday that fighters with the Islamist group were "trapped. Just last night, the 9th Iraqi army division ... cut off the last road out of Mosul,"
"Any of the fighters who are left in Mosul, they're going to die there," McGurk said. "We are very committed to not just defeating them in Mosul, but making sure these guys cannot escape."
After "fully liberating" the city's east from IS in January, US-backed Iraqi forces moved onto western Mosul, with a renewed push in March.
65,000 people have fled Mosul in the past two weeks alone, according to the International Organisation for Migration
"Mosul's liberation is increasingly in sight albeit with increasingly difficult fighting ahead," McGurk said, adding that Iraqi forces were retaking "some of the most difficult ground that we knew would have to be reclaimed. They're doing this in a dense urban environment facing a suicidal enemy that's using civilians as shields."
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03/13/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
[NEWS24] Iraqi security forces have seized control of more than a third of west djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , a commander said on Sunday, after a week of steady gains in their battle to retake the city from the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
Fierce fighting has shaken Mosul in recent days as thousands of US-backed Iraqi soldiers and police battle to reclaim the country's second city.
A renewed push against the jihadists launched last Sunday has seen ISIS forced from several neighbourhoods and key sites, including the main local government headquarters and the famed Mosul museum.
Speaking to AFP on Sunday, Staff Major General Maan al-Saadi of the elite Counter-Terrorism Service said "more than a third" of west Mosul was now under the control of security forces.
"The battle is not easy... we are fighting an irregular enemy who hides among the citizens and uses tactics of booby-trapping, kabooms and jacket wallahs, and the operation is taking place with precision to preserve the lives of the citizens," said Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, a spokesperson for Iraq's Joint Operations Command, (JOC).
Still, he said, ISIS resistance "has begun to weaken in a big way".
ISIS seized Mosul in mid-2014 when the jihadist group swept across areas north and west of Baghdad, taking control of swathes of territory and declaring a cross-border "caliphate" in Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
Backed by a US-led air strikes and other support, Iraqi forces have since retaken much of the territory they lost.
The operation to recapture Mosul - then the last Iraqi city under ISIS control - was launched in October.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain trapped in Mosul.
Northwest of Mosul advancing Iraqi forces also took the infamous Badush prison, announcing on Saturday they had uncovered a mass grave containing the remains of hundreds of people executed by the jihadists.
The Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary forces found "a large mass grave containing the remains of around 500 civilian prisoners in (Badush) prison who were executed by (ISIS) gangs", the military said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2017 00:00 ||
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[JPOST] Security agencies have uncovered several Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, networks run by university students in the West Bank, the Shin Bet announced on Sunday.
Muhammad Aazi, 20, a Hamas operative from village of Jamma’in, 16 km. southwest of Nablus, was tossed in the slammer Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! along with Noor Aldin Ghaith, 22, from Hebron, for planning shooting attacks against Israeli targets, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said.
During the investigation it was discovered that the two men had planned to shoot at civilian and military vehicles traveling on main roads in the area. Aazi and Ghaith had reconnoitered the road and had planned to scatter nails on it, to cause vehicles to stop so they could attack them.
The weapons bought to carry out the attack were seized during the investigation.
The cell had also built bombs to throw at Israelis, and tested devices. The two were also planning to plant an explosive canister at the entrance to a village and explode it against a military vehicle, the Shin Bet said.
More recently, members of a Hamas cell that carried out extensive terrorism activity in Judea and Samaria were arrested, the agency said.
During the investigation it was discovered that members of the cell, residents of Biddu, 6 km. northeast of Jerusalem, planted bombs, threw Molotov cocktails at soldiers operating in the area, and were involved in the attacks on the town of Har Adar, 15 km. west of the capital, in 2015. An additional investigation found that the cell members had planned to perpetrate more shooting attacks.
In addition, a number of students from Bir Zeit University, north of Ramallah, were detained last month in a joint operation of Shin Bet, IDF and Israel Police, for their role in rallies, recruiting and financial activities for Hamas-affiliated Kutla Islamiyah student union, in a bid to consolidate the terrorist group’s hold on the school’s campus.
Bir Zeit University is known as a Hamas stronghold, and the terrorist organization won its student elections two years in a row.
Since the latest wave of Paleostinian violence, numerous attacks by Hamas supporters and members have been thwarted in the Judea and Samaria.
In January, security forces arrested 13 Hamas operatives operating in the West Bank’s Binyamin region who were attempting to establish terrorist infrastructure and undermine the Paleostinian Authority.
"The Shin Bet together with the IDF will continue to work with determination to thwart and foil terrorist activities," the agency said.
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[Breitbart] Beirut (AFP) ‐ Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front on Sunday said in a statement it was behind twin bombings targeting Shiite pilgrims in the centre of Damascus that killed 74 people.
"On Saturday... a twin attack was carried out by two heroes of Islam... in the centre of the capital Damascus, killing and wounding dozens," the statement said.
[BBC] A Syrian jihadist group affiliated with al-Qaeda has grabbed credit for a twin bombing on Friday in the capital Damascus that killed at least 40.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham said the attack was "a message to Iran" over the country's support for Syrian president Bashar al Assad. That's be al-Nusra, wearing its new false nose and mustache.
The majority of dead were Iraqi pilgrims, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Observatory put the corpse count at 74, but the figure was not confirmed.
The blast maimed 120, according to Iraq's government. According to the Observatory, the attack consisted of a roadside kaboom detonated as a bus passed, and a suicide kaboom.
[Guardian] The Predator is dead; long live the Reaper. The retirement of the antiquated Predator drone MQ-1, which is to be withdrawn from service in July and replaced by the more capable MQ-9 Reaper, is giving military analysts an opportunity to review the mixed history of a weapon that has long been associated with low-cost war, a sense of disembodiment from conflict, and for inflicting a high number of civilian casualties.
"There’s a perception in large parts of the American political system that drone campaigns are more or less free, but that’s not true," says Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Like anything that’s perceived as free, it tends to get overused."
The General Atomics remote-piloted plane entered service in 1995 as the reconnaissance drone RQ-1. But in 1999 it was fitted with Hellfire missiles and re-designated MQ-1, an ad-hoc adaptation that would give it a reputation as a silent assassin.
The first Predator strike is believed to have taken place in Afghanistan in 2002, but it was not until 2004 that the US launched its first drone strike in Pakistan, an attack that killed Taliban leader Nek Muhammad.
#1
'Changed the war'... yes. Helped win the war on terror? I'm leaning toward 'helped,' but obviously the final assessment and impacts (Lessons Learned) cannot be rendered just yet.
No surplus? "Chip in for a Predator...
Or one for each colorful editor.
More fun (if still thankless);
More barbs, Charbs, and frankness
For terror or erring competitor."
#6
...On my last trip to RED FLAG in 1998, I had a chance to spend a couple hours with the Predator guys - they on the long end of the supply chain (IF they could get supplies at all) ignored, and mocked. But one of their flight officers - a brand new 2LT - looked me dead in the eye and said that someday the Air Force would need them, and need them badly...and they'd be there.
God bless you and your birds, Lieutenant.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/13/2017 18:31 Comments ||
Top||
#7
A new mission for the F-35?
BTW, I looked at a couple of pictures of this nifty new Chinese stealth gizmo thingee fighter of theirs and I couldn't help but see some resemblance to the dear departed and wonderful YF-23...is it just me? Or did the Chinese steal that too???
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.
the personification of Somali state failure...
[NEWS24] Iraqi security forces have seized control of more than a third of west 
[BBC] A Syrian jihadist group affiliated with al-Qaeda has 
[Guardian] The Predator is dead; long live the Reaper. The retirement of the antiquated Predator drone MQ-1, which is to be withdrawn from service in July and replaced by the more capable MQ-9 Reaper, is giving military analysts an opportunity to review the mixed history of a weapon that has long been associated with low-cost war, a sense of disembodiment from conflict, and for inflicting a high number of civilian casualties.
