Former Police Chief of Takhar claimed on Thursday that Darqad district of the province fell to the Taliban because what he alleged the forces remained inactive against the group.
Abdul Hannan Qataghani claimed that the forces failed to show even a slight resistance against the Taliban – who seized district's control on Wednesday.
"Security forces didn't fight [the insurgents] at all," Qataghani said. "If they had fought, Darqad would have not fallen [to Taliban]."
Surrounded by Kokcha and Amur Rivers, Darqad district have no land route to other parts of the province. Therefore, the residents need to travel to the district by boats.
Criticizing the local forces, Qataghani raised the question about Taliban's advancement to the district – which has no link road to other districts.
But the security officials say that the forces tactically retreated from the district, which is about 100km from Talaqan city, the provincial capital.
The military experts, meanwhile, accused the government of not being able to manage the war and fighting in the country.
According to them, the Ministry of Defense lacks professional people in the leadership to manage war.
"We have enough force and weapons in these districts but there is no management," military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhail said.
Over the past few months, the insurgents have drastically extended their activities to the north and northeastern parts of the country.
The militants have reportedly set up their hideouts in these regions in a bid to have more control over strategic parts of Afghanistan.
No doubt they will fly beautifully until inshallah maintenance combines with the fine sands of Egypt.
[AlAhram] Egypt received on Wednesday the last batch of F-16 fighter jets which were part of a $3.2 billion military deal that Egypt signed with the US in 2009.
The US embassy in Cairo highlighted in a statement that Ambassador Stephen Beecroft and senior defense official Charles Hooper joined Air Marshal Younes El-Masri and other senior Egyptian military officials in a ceremony at the Cairo West Air Force Base to receive four F-16 "Fighting Falcon" fighter jets delivered by the United States to the Egyptian Air Force.
Major General Hooper described the advanced F-16 fighter jet as a "vital multi-role aircraft that will provide the Egyptian people greater security and a powerful asset in the fight against terrorism."
The deal stipulates that Egypt should receive a total of 20 F-16 Block 52 aircraft, eight of which the US had delivered in 2013. However, if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... US military aid was suspended following the ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013.
The US decided to continue aid to Egypt in March 2015, declaring that it would be sending the remaining 12 fighters before the end of the year.
In July 2015, eight F-16 fighter jets flew over Cairo to celebrate their arrival from the US.
Since the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Cairo has been the second-largest recipient of US military and economic aid after Tel Aviv.
[Rudaw] Hoshiyar Zebari, Iraq's minister of finance, told Rooters on Wednesday that an estimated 20 percent of the 2016 national budget will be spent on defense, including paying and arming the Shiite militias known as Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces).
The Rooters report quoted Zebari as saying that Baghdad will hire 10,000 more volunteer fighters and focus its military spending on smaller weapons and anti-mining devices in order to combat the forces of 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.... , or ISIS.
"There has been a shift in emphasis by the government to improve the quality of the weapons that are needed for this type of war," Hoshiyar Zebari in an interview for the Rooters Middle East Investment Summit.
The Hashd al-Shaabi took up arms last year at the call of top Shiite holy man Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani when ISIS was overrunning much of Iraq. Now, tens of thousands of the Iran-backed fighters are deployed across the country at times working in tandem with the Iraqi Army.
Zebari's estimate on defense spending would be less than the $1 billion Baghdad allocated this year, Rooters said, with an undisclosed portion of that sum earmarked for the Hashd al-Shaabi.
"I think we gave them ... about 10,000 new recruits which they have requested, but they have their budget within the security forces," he said of next year's national budget. "We will pay their salaries, we pay for their equipment, we pay for their basic war needs."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/30/2015 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Young Hebron male residents to be distanced from Jewish settlement; army said set to separate Jews, Paleostinians at Etzion Junction
The army began implementing a series of dramatic new measures on Thursday to separate the Jewish and Paleostinians populations in the West Bank in an attempt to curb the stabbing attacks that have plagued the area in recent weeks, an IDF official said.
Hebron and the Etzion Bloc have seen nearly daily attacks against civilians and security forces in the past week. In response, the IDF said that it would not allow Paleostinian males between the ages of 15 and 25 to pass through Hebron's Jewish settlement, except those that live in the surrounding area, who will be forced to undergo a thorough security check.
Meanwhile, ...back at the mall, Clarissa suddenly spied Mr. Bartlett at the checkout counter. He was buying Grecian Formula!... an Etzion Bloc council leader said soldiers would separate Paleostinian and Jewish residents at the Etzion Junction that has been the site of multiple terror attacks.
"In Hebron, since October 1, a total of 13 stabbing attacks or foiled attempts were carried out by Paleostinians against civilians and security forces," an IDF spokeswoman told The Times of Israel.
In nearly every one of these cases, the Paleostinian attackers were rubbed out by forces on the scene.
"In light of this reality, beginning on the morning of October 29, in accordance with a security assessment, several precautionary measures were taken in order to prevent potential attacks in the future and maintain the safety and well-being of Israelis," she said.
In addition to the age restriction for passing through the Hebron Jewish settlement, the IDF will close off all the Paleostinian parking lots in the area until further notice.
The Etzion Bloc, a cluster of Jewish settlements south of Jerusalem, has also seen a spate of stabbing attacks. On Wednesday, a Jewish woman was stabbed in the back outside of a supermarket.
The head of the regional council, Davidi Perl, met with the local IDF brigade commander to develop new strategies to prevent future attacks, the council announced in an email to residents on Thursday evening.
"We decided upon a meaningful change in the defense approach for the area surrounding the Gush Etzion Junction," Perl wrote in the email.
"In the area around the bloc's junction, soldiers will keep Paleostinians from being in contact with the Jewish population to the extent that they can," he said.
"Additional troops will reinforce the area and will carry out thorough searches. All of these decisions were made with the full support of the [West Bank] division commander and the [Central] Command general, who are in constant contact with me," Perl said.
The IDF did not respond to requests for verifications of Perl's assertions or further information about the army's plans for the Etzion Bloc.
"In the past two weeks we have experienced, almost every day, a series of serious terror attacks in the Etzion Bloc. To our dismay, according to our intelligence assessment, we do not see an end in sight and do not identify a decrease in the terrorists' motivation to attack," Perl said.
#3
See also TOPIX > [Bharat Rakshak] ISIS TRYING TO CO-OPT PALESTINIAN JIHAD AGZ ISRAEL AS PART OF ITS OWN CAUSE.
The ISIS/ISIL + PA are One, at least in the ISIS/ISIL view???
and
* SAME > ISIS THREATENS ISRAEL IN [several] NEW VIDEOS.
To get to Israel + PA, the ISIS/ISIl will have to go through Hashemite JORDAN, which in turn may mucho ducho explain why Jordan joined the new Russia-led Coalition in Syria-soon-also-to-be-Iraq.
JORDAN = DEFEATING THE ISIS/ISIL "OVER THERE", NOT IN THEIR OWN BACKYARD.
* HAARETZ > NETANYAHU: I DON'T WANT A [Unworkable = Anarchic] BI-NATIONAL STATE, BUT WE [Israel] NEED TO CONTROL ALL OF THE TERRITORIES [Gaza-WB] FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE.
[AlAhram] Nearly 600 people have been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria nearly a month into Moscow's campaign, two-thirds of them opposition fighters, a monitor said on Thursday.
A total of 595 people have been killed in Russian strikes since September 30, two-thirds of them fighters with opposition forces including the jihadist 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, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The other third, some 185 people, were civilians, including 48 children, the Britannia-based monitor said.
Russia has carried out strikes throughout Syria, with only four of the country's 14 provinces untouched by the aerial campaign since it began, according to the group.
The Observatory said it had documented the deaths of 131 IS fighters and 279 other opposition fighters, including moderate and Salafist tough guys and members of the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.
Russia says its aerial campaign targets IS and other "terrorists" but rebel forces and their backers accuse Moscow of focusing on moderate and Islamist fighters over jihadists.
Several medical groups have also accused Russia of strikes that have hit field clinics and hospitals in Syria.
Russia's air campaign has given new momentum to Syria's ground forces, who have launched offensives in several provinces with air cover from Moscow.
But the offensives have had mixed results.
In the central province of Hama province, the regime has taken several villages but failed to advance much towards a key town on a highway in the region.
And in Aleppo, it has captured at least six villages from rebel forces, along with several hilltops.
But an IS advance meanwhile has severed the only route in and out of the government-held west of Aleppo city.
Russia's intervention in Syria follows that of a US-led coalition that has been carrying out strikes against IS in the country since September 2014.
The US-led coalition does not coordinate with Damascus however.
According to the Observatory, the US-led strikes have killed 3,649 people since they began, around six percent of them civilians.
The monitor said earlier this week that US-led raids had killed 3,276 IS fighters, 147 members of Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra front or Islamist groups and 226 civilians.
[Rudaw] Russia maintains daily contact with Syrian opposition forces and the Kurds, Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, was quoted as saying on Thursday.
According to Rooters, Bogdanov said Russia held meetings with representatives of the opposition Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... (FSA) and was also in contact with the Kurds.
Russia has met representatives from the Syrian opposition in Moscow, Gay Paree and Istanbul, Bogdanov was quoted as saying.
The Russian official's statement came as an answer to a question as to whether envoys of the FSA visited Russia last week.
During his speech at the 70th session of UN General Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... said only Kurds and forces loyal to Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... are "truly fighting 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.... ."
The Kurdish Peoples' Defense Units (YPG), the organized Syrian Kurdish forces, control Rojava, the term used by Kurds to describe Syrian Kurdistan. The YPG is seen as the military branch of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) led by Syrian Kurdish leader Salih Moslem.
#3
This conference is in my back yard. Has anyone heard of this group? I'd like to attend if any of the speakers are noteworthy, but, it is the second day of gun season.....
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.
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
