UPDATE: 160 Al-shabaab militants killed in separate operations in the Southwest and Hirshabelle states over the past week; Information Minister Daud Aweis says hideouts, vehicles, and weapons were destroyed during the operations. pic.twitter.com/2NV2ij91SN
In Somalia, Information Minister Daud Aweys told reporters that in the last week, about 160 "terrorists" were killed near Baidoa and the border between Middle Shabelle and Galgaduud regions in the latest military operations against Al-Shabaab that involved foreign partner forces.
Somali National Army (SNA) destroys Al-shabaab base, weapons and military equipment in a joint operation with international partners at Sigato area, Ruunnirgood district, Middle Shabelle region. Several militants killed in the operation. pic.twitter.com/6BORS4UtSs
According to the state media, the Somali National Army [SNA] with assistance from the US Africa Command and the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... Transition Mission in Somalia [ATMIS], targeted the bully boyz in Sigato, Middle Shabelle, killing a number of fighters, but the number was not immediately revealed.
During the operation, the army also destroyed sophisticated equipment being used by the bad boys, "inflicting them with severe losses" at the same time. The army did not suffer any setbacks during the operation in central Somalia, state media noted.
"In a joint operation with international allies, the National Army targeted al-Shabaab ...... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... bad boys’ vehicles and equipment in the Sigato area of Runirgood district, Middle Shabelle region," state media reported. "The operation inflicted heavy losses on the Death Eaters present."
The state is yet to issue the accurate number of casualties but in recent weeks, the national army has been carrying out joint operations with the US Africa Command and ATMIS soldiers across the country. The al-Shabaab bully boyz are yet to confirm the confrontation.
In due course, the national army with the help of international partners, will be camping in southwest and Jubaland to flush out al-Shabaab, a group which has been wreaking havoc in the country for almost two decades. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has insisted that the war will continue until the bully boyz are defeated.
Elsewhere, al-Shabaab bully boyz attacked a police post in Cali-Turcaaye neighborhood in Yaqshid district on Tuesday night, as claimed by the bad boy group. Six soldiers were killed in the attack and one soldier was captured as the group also destroyed the base of the targeted soldiers.
#1
"In due course, the national army with the help of international partners, will be camping in southwest and Jubaland to flush out al-Shabaab, a group which has been wreaking havoc in the country for almost two decades."
If Somalia and Kenya can combine to rid Jubaland of Shabaab, the war is well more than half-way won.
More than 60 al-shabaab Lions of Islam have been killed by police in Lamu according to Kenya’s Internal Security Minister Kithure Kindiki.
Kindiki who spoke to Kenya’s Senate Wednesday added that two Kenyans were also killed during the attack in which the Lions of Islam targeted four buses carrying over 200 passengers before Kenyan security forces intervened.
He added that over 60 Lions of Islam attacked a bus on Tuesday and were engaged by security personnel from the Nyangoro Forward Operating Base (FOB) who were conducting clearance patrols on the Lamu-Witu Garsen Highway.
The minister said the Lions of Islam fled into the Boni Forest where they were pursued by a multi-agency team comprising of Kenya police and the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF).
According to reports, two people died from gunshot wounds, ten more people were maimed in varying degrees, and an unspecified number of people went missing.
Kindiki also revealed that the Kenyan government has increased its efforts to combat terrorists, particularly in the North Eastern region, where specialised security units have been deployed.
NON-LOCALS TARGETED
The Minister also revealed that al-shabaab Lions of Islam were targeting non-local teachers at the North-Eastern part of Kenya and recommended that the Country’s teachers’ commission shortens services of non-local teachers in North-Eastern counties because of insecurity.
"We recommend to TSC to shorten the service of non-local teachers in the northern region due to their mental health," Kindiki said.
He however observed that the locals, at some level, contribute to issues of insecurity among the non-local teachers through incitement.
"We are facing a number of threats in the Northern region. We have intelligence that the terror groups have increased for reasons beyond us," he said.
Adding, "There is a bit of incitement from the local communities against non-local teachers so some of the threats are coming from the local communities themselves and we must therefore look towards engaging the local communities to accept the reality that they don’t have enough teachers."
Kindiki further recommended that the teachers be pooled in one area temporarily to protect them from al-Shabaab ...... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... attacks and also suggested a future plan to introduce community-led initiatives in the plan to fight al-Shabaab just as Somalia did.
The attack, Kindiki said, was waged along the busy Lamu-Garsen road which neighbors the dangerous Boni Forest in the coastal region. Several other people were injured and have since been admitted to nearby hospital facilities, reports indicate.
“That operation has been going on since yesterday and I can report we have neutralized all those threats. All people who attacked our people yesterday have been neutralized,” said Kindiki.
UPDATE: Over 60 Al-shabaab militants killed by Kenyan security forces Tuesday at the Lamu-Tana River intersection, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki says adding that two Kenyan civilians were also killed when the militants targeted travelers in the area. pic.twitter.com/uRlMm6TXUl
[Garowe] On their tenth day at sea, the four Nigerian stowaways crossing the Atlantic in a tiny space above the rudder of a fat merchantman ran out of food and drink.
They survived another four days, according to their account, by drinking the sea water crashing just meters below them, before being rescued by Brazilian federal police in the southeastern port of Vitoria.
Their remarkable, death-defying journey across some 5,600 kilometers (3,500 miles) of ocean underlines the risks some migrants colonists are prepared to take for a shot at a better life.
"It was a terrible experience for me," said 38-year-old Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye, one of the four Nigerians, in an interview at a Sao Paulo church shelter. "On board, it is not easy. I was shaking, so scared. But I'm here."
Their relief at being rescued soon gave way to surprise.
The four men said they had hoped to reach Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... and were shocked to learn they had in fact landed on the other side of the Atlantic, in Brazil. Two of the men have since been returned to Nigeria upon their request, while Yeye and Roman Ebimene Friday, a 35-year-old from Bayelsa state, has applied for asylum in Brazil.
"I pray the government of Brazil will have pity on me," said Friday, who had already attempted to flee Nigeria by ship once before but was arrested by authorities there.
Both men said economic hardship, political instability, and crime had left them with little option but to abandon their native Nigeria. Africa's most populous country has longstanding issues of violence and poverty, and kidnappings are endemic.
Yeye, a Pentecostal minister from Lagos state, said his peanut and palm oil farm was destroyed by floods this year, leaving him and his family homeless. He hopes they can now join him in Brazil.
Friday said his journey to Brazil began on June 27, when a fisherman friend rowed him up to the stern of the Liberian-flagged Ken Wave, docked in Lagos, and left him by the rudder. To his surprise, he found three men already there, waiting for the ship to depart. Friday said he was terrified. He had never met his new shipmates and feared they could toss him into the sea at any moment.
Once the ship was moving, Friday said the four men made every effort not to be discovered by the ship's crew, who they also worried might offer them a watery grave.
"Maybe if they catch you they will throw you in the water," he said. "So we taught ourselves never to make a noise."
Spending two weeks within spitting distance of the Atlantic Ocean was perilous.
To prevent themselves from falling into the water, Friday said the men rigged up a net around the rudder and tied themselves to it with a rope. When he looked down, he said he could see "big fish like whales and sharks." Due to the cramped conditions and the noise of the engine, sleep was rare and risky. "I was very happy when we got rescued," he said.
Father Paolo Gay Pareee, a priest at the Sao Paulo shelter, said he had come across other cases of stowaways, but never one so dangerous. Their journey paid testament to the lengths people will go to in search of a new start, he said. "People do unimaginable and deeply dangerous things."
Who is gonna get it right?
[BBC] Thousands of soldiers in El Salvador have surrounded a rural region larger than New York City to flush out gang members who are allegedly hiding there.
The military deployment in Cabañas was ordered by President Nayib Bukele as part of his ongoing war on gangs.
More than 70,000 suspected gang members have been arrested since a state of emergency was declared in March 2022.
Thousands of people with no discernible link to gang activity have also been swept up in the dragnet of arrests.
Lorries loaded with soldiers were seen on the streets of the regional towns of Tejutepeque and Ilobaso on Tuesday, AFP news agency reports.
"Since this morning, 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police officers have established a security fence," Mr Bukele posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The president said that his government's security strategies had succeeded in dismantling the gangs in the country's large urban centres and forced them into hiding in rural areas.
This latest operation was aimed at "completely surrounding them" and "extracting them from their hideaways", he added.
The president stressed that the siege would not be lifted until "all the criminals" were apprehended. At the same time, he assured Salvadoreans that "honest people, visitors and tourists have nothing to fear" but did not clarify how the security forces would distinguish between the two groups.
Cabañas is an agricultural region which covers an area of just over 1,000 sq km (390 sq miles) and is home to more than 160,000 people.
It is not clear whether residents will be able to leave the area while the military siege is under way and how they would be able to "go about their normal activities" as the president said they would.
It is not the first time the security forces have sealed off a whole area. In December, troops surrounded the city of Soyapango as part of a gang crackdown.
Rights groups have been highly critical of the mass arrests carried out under the state of emergency, saying they have led to thousands of people being arbitrarily detained.
There are also concerns about a recent move by the country's lawmakers to allow mass trials.
#4
Those tats are uniform, rank, and campaign ribbons.
Like the Yakuza, or a Roach Motel, once you join you never leave. Worked with a Latino Green Card holder that had a 'black teardrop' tattoo under one eye and, no, I didn't ask.
#5
He's showing just how easy it is to put an end to gangs.
Don't start slapping them on the back yet. The coalition surrounded Fallujah before the second battle to keep the insurgents in. By the time it was over, the Americans estimated 2/3rds of the insurgents escaped, including all the senior leadership despite the siege. Those that stayed volunteered or were voluntold and they died.
[Rudaw] A Ottoman Turkish woman was maimed in an armed attack on the Swedish honorary consulate in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... ’s western Izmir province on Tuesday, officials said.
According to a statement from the city’s governor, the consulate was attacked at 12:45 pm local time, by a "mentally disabled" gunman.
Of course he was.
The injured woman, who works as a secretary at the consulate, is at death's door.
The gunman was arrested by the city’s police forces, statement from the governor added.
The attack comes at a time of increased tension between Sweden and Moslem countries, including Turkey, over several protests involving the burning of the Koran in Stockholm. However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... the reason behind the attack remains unclear.
Ottoman Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc condemned the attack in a tweet, saying that a judicial investigation has been launched into the incident.
"Necessary judicial investigations have been initiated to clarify this painful incident," Tunc said.
The Swedish foreign ministry’s press service in Stockholm told AFP that it was "in close contact" with the general consulate in Istanbul, which in turn was in contact with the honorary consulate in Izmir.
"Sweden's general consul will travel to Izmir tomorrow to be informed of the situation and express her condolences," AFP cited the ministry as saying, adding that measures were being taken to address the issue.
An honorary consulate represents a country’s national interests but is not run by professional diplomats. Sweden’s embassy and general consulate are located in the capital Ankara and Istanbul respectively.
[Shafaq News] On Wednesday, a local source reported that Ottoman Turkish forces targeted multiple areas on the Erbil governorate's periphery.
The source told Shafaq News agency that the Ottoman Turkish artillery bombarded the regions of Ciya Surk and Tarjan within the borders of the Bradost, Erbil governorate.
The attack resulted in extensive damage to the agricultural landscape.
It is worth noting that the Ottoman Turkish army regularly targeted areas in northern Iraq where members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party are located.
The attacks have often caused civilian casualties.
The PKK is a Kurdish holy warrior group fighting for an independent Kurdish state in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... for decades.
Turkey, the United States, and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... consider the PKK a terrorist organization.
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08/03/2023 02:22 ||
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[Shafaq News] Ottoman Turkish fighter jets carried out Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on locations affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the northern part of Duhok province.
A security source, speaking to Shafaq News Agency, stated, "the aircraft targeted the village of Reziki in the Barkara region, situated on the slopes of Mount Kara overlooking Amedi district."
Furthermore, the source mentioned that "the area has been subjected to four consecutive bombardments, but specific details regarding the casualties resulting from the airstrikes have not been disclosed."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/03/2023 02:22 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Protesters rally outside local court building in show of support for judiciary before demonstrating on Kaplan Street, the site of the main weekly rallies against the shakeup
Thousands of protesters waving Israeli flags rallied against the judicial overhaul in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, with the protest movement offering no indication that it plans to fold after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government passed the first piece of legislation from its judicial overhaul last week.
"You have ruined the country and we will fix it. Democracy! Democracy!" chanted demonstrators in the coastal city, which has become the epicenter of anti-government demonstrations since the overhaul was unveiled in January.
The proposals have split the nation and triggered the biggest protest movement in Israel’s history.
Last Monday, Netanyahu and his hardline coalition allies approved the reasonableness law, a key part of the package that critics fear will weaken Israel’s liberal democratic character. The legislation bars judges from striking down government decisions they deem unreasonable.
Petitions against the law have been filed to the High Court, with an unprecedented 15-judge panel to hear them next month.
Wednesday’s demonstration followed even larger ones that took place across the country on Saturday night, kicking off the 30th week of protests and amassing over 200,000 Israelis.
Protesters Wednesday first gathered on Rothschild Boulevard before marching to the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court, in a show of support for the judiciary. From there, they continued to Kaplan Street, the site of the main weekly rallies.
Leading the march were former justice ministers Tzipi Livni and Avi Nissenkorn along with former Supreme Court justice Yoram Danziger and several other former judges.
"I’m against the government. What it’s doing is moving all the power to one authority," protester Roei Ben Haim, 40, told AFP. "Once they ruin the system, it becomes important to me to take to the streets to tell them it won’t pass."
He said the reasonableness law in itself was not that important, but because "it’s the first act the government wants to cancel" people "must show the government we’re determined in the face of any action it takes."
The next proposal from the overhaul that Netanyahu intends to pass is one allowing the government a greater say in the appointment of judges.
Critics accuse Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, of trying to use the reforms to quash possible judgments against him. He rejects the accusation as well as the legitimacy of the charges against him.
Netanyahu’s coalition government, which includes far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, argues that the proposed changes to the judiciary are needed to ensure a better balance of power between elected officials and judges.
"There’s no such thing as democracy without the Supreme Court," chanted the protesters on Wednesday evening.
Demonstrations have drawn support from across the political spectrum and among secular and religious groups, blue-collar and tech sector workers, peace activists and military reservists.
The proposed changes have also drawn criticism from Israel’s ally the United States.
US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. We get to suffer the consequences... himself has repeatedly aired concerns, urging Israeli leaders not to rush the increasingly "divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... " reforms.
#2
There is also something else going on to keep the pop inflamed. Example; persons painting women out of public advertising. Heard about it from a friend on the MOD. Then saw it referenced online. Kinda didn’t believe it. Now. Idk.
[IsraelTimes] Street fighting, prompted by PA’s arrest of two button men, signals escalating conflict between Ramallah and local Islamists in northern West Bank city
Armed festivities erupted between the Paleostinian Authority’s security forces and members of local armed terror groups on the streets of Jenin Tuesday night.
The fighting broke out in reaction to the PA’s arrest of two button men in the West Bank town of Jaba’, some 25 kilometers (16 miles) south of Jenin, according to the Hamas, a regional Iranian catspaw,-affiliated news website Shehab.
Following the arrests, armed assailants reportedly attacked the headquarters of the Jenin governorate, the local seat of the PA administration, prompting festivities with the PA security forces. The confrontation then moved to the Jenin refugee camp, where the PA forces opened fire and threw tear gas at the button men, storming into the local hospital, according to videos circulating on social media.
The festivities signal an escalating conflict between President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase.... ’s Paleostinian Authority and local Islamist factions in the Jenin area, most prominently the Jenin Battalion, the local branch of the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... -based Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... terror group.
A month ago, the Israeli military carried out a large-scale two-day operation in the Jenin refugee camp to dismantle the terrorist networks operating there and to seize weapons.
As the street fighting broke out Tuesday night, mosques in the refugee camp called on the PA via loudspeakers to release a number of Paleostinian Islamic Jihad members it detained following the IDF operation in the refugee camp in early July, in what local factions claim were "political arrests" and the PA sees as a crackdown on rival Islamist factions that have undermined its control over the northern West Bank for years.
In particular, local factions ask for the release of Khaled al-Ararawi, a prominent PIJ member arrested on July 15, who is also the uncle of 17-year-old Majdi al-Ararawi, one of the 13 button men killed by the IDF in the Jenin operation in early July.
Another video circulating on social media shows a group of gunnies marching through the Jenin refugee camp, chanting "Abu Mazen get out, no to the Paleostinian Authority, no to the army!" Abu Mazen is Mahmoud Abbas’s nom de guerre.
The PA is increasingly seen by some Paleostinians as collaborating with Israel at the expense of fighting for their rights. At a mass funeral held for some of the button men killed in the IDF operation in early July, big shots of the PA’s Fatah party were met with heckling and shouting from the angry crowd.
Abbas’s deputy Mahmoud al-Aloul, the head of Fatah’s Central Committee Azzam al-Ahmad, and other senior Fatah leaders were driven out of that event, with participants shouting "Get out!" as they raged against Fatah’s alleged neglect of the "resistance" against Israel.
[IsraelTimes] Despite army’s statement not mentioning the man’s nationality, Arab media cites a military source saying he’s an Israeli citizen; Amman expected to return him
An official Jordanian military source told Arab news outlets Wednesday that a Jordanian border guard had caught a man trying to infiltrate into Jordanian territory illegally from Israel the day before.
The man was arrested and transferred to the authorities for questioning, the source said.
While the Jordanian army’s official statement did not specify the infiltrator’s nationality or where the incident happened, various Arab media outlets said he was Israeli and that it happened on the border between the countries.
Jordan was expected to return the man to Israel, according to the reports.
The incident occurred just two days after the Israeli army announced the foiling of an "unusual" smuggling attempt of weapons across the border from Jordan.
Israeli authorities said they believed the attempted smuggling, which happened on July 24, was aimed at supplying weapons to Paleostinian terror groups in the West Bank.
An Israeli family miraculously escaped serious harm Wednesday when terrorists blocked their car in the West Bank's Jordan Valley and opened fire on them.
Soldiers are currently searching the area for the terrorists, who was not apprehended at the scene of the drive-by shooting, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has confirmed.
Magen David Adom confirmed that a 31-year-old woman was being treated at the scene for both shock and for light wounds to the face caused by shards of glass.
WOUNDED WOMAN'S HUSBAND DESCRIBES WHAT HAPPENED
The woman's husband Raphael told Reshet Bet that the family was on its way back from a vacation up north.
"Suddenly, I noticed a car with Palestinian license plates turning around on the road and moving suspiciously," he said. "I stopped 20 meters away, and then the car went back to its lane and started coming toward me. Two meters from us, it crossed the line, blocked me, and the passenger got out with an M16 and started shooting."
The location of the attack is close to where three members of the Dee family were murdered in a terrorist attack in April.
The Times of Israel adds that this took place at the West Bank’s Hamra intersection, wherever that is.
[BenarNews] Indonesian police arrested the leader of an Islamic boarding school on blasphemy ...the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. Some religions consider it to be a crime. In Pakistain you can commit blasphemy by looking cross-eyed at a Koran... and hate-speech charges Wednesday after Moslem groups accused him of un-Islamic practices such as allowing mixed-gender prayer. Police said their investigation had found evidence of alleged blasphemy by Panji Gumilang, the head of the Al Zaytun school in West Java, who faces a maximum 10 years in prison if found guilty.
[Shafaq News] Fierce clashes erupted once again at Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese official agency reported, "Renewed clashes occurred this evening between Fatah movement and militant Islamic groups, with gunfire and rocket shells being heard." Another "day with a Y" in the Hellhole
Earlier today, the camp witnessed a cautious calm as a ceasefire came into effect, ending four days of clashes that resulted in casualties and injuries.
The Joint Palestinian Action Committee announced after a meeting with representatives from all Palestinian factions at the Palestinian Embassy in Beirut that an agreement was reached to halt the hostilities at Ain al-Hilweh.
However, clashes reignited yesterday evening, Tuesday, after a meeting between Palestinian and Lebanese officials at Dar al-Fatwa in the city of Saida.
Since last Saturday, the clashes have led to the death of 10 people and left over 60 others injured.
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.
...... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
...... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
...
[IsraelTimes] Protesters rally outside local court building in show of support for judiciary before demonstrating on Kaplan Street, the site of the main weekly rallies against the shakeup
...46th president of the U.S. We get to suffer the consequences...
[IsraelTimes] Street fighting, prompted by PA’s arrest of two 
[Shafaq News] Fierce clashes erupted once again at 
