[ToloNews] Amidst the ongoing peace efforts, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) on Monday said the Afghan Defense and Security Forces backed by their foreign counterparts will increase their attacks on Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... ’s strongholds.
A front man of the Defense Ministry, Ghafoor Ahmad Jawed, said military operations by Afghan forces are ongoing in at least 15 provinces.
"We are conducting (military) operations in different provinces and the Taliban has sustained heavy casualties," Jawed said. "At least 10 commanders of Taliban have been killed in the last three weeks. We are also conducting operations against ISIS Death Eaters."
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again... the US Forces-Afghanistan front man Colonel David Butler said the US-backed military pressure by the Afghan forces on the Taliban will continue until a peace agreement is reached.
"We will continue to fight every single day until there is a peaceful settlement and that is important to know that the Taliban will continue to feel this enormous military pressure," Butler told TOLOnews on Feb. 10.
Military analysts said the military pressure on the Taliban should continue until a possible ceasefire with the group.
"The Afghan Army should use all their resources to restore security," said Mohammad Radmanish, a retired Army General and a military affairs analyst. "The Islamic Theocratic Republic of Afghanistan has the legal right to do so until a ceasefire."
In a latest development, Afghan forces on Sunday cleared some villages of Taliban in a key district in the northern Takhar province, according to Ministry of Defense.
"Our winter operations have started in areas around Takhar in Mawarai Kokcha district and we have good achievements there," said Hayatullah Aqtash, Commander of Pamir 20 Army Brigade.
The US forces front man in Afghanistan said that performance of Afghan commandos has been encouraging on the battlefields.
[KhaamaPress] The acting Secretary of Defense of the United States Patrick Shanahan has said that no direction has been received to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
He made the remarks to a group of journalists who were travelling with him to Afghanistan, according to Rooters.
Shanahan arrived in Afghanistan early on Monday in an unannounced visit and is scheduled to meet with the U.S. forces and Afghan officials.
Amid ongoing efforts to resolve the ongoing conflict through negotiations, Shanahan said it was important the Afghan government is involved in talks.
He also pointed towards the important security interests of the United States in the region and added that he has so far not received any direction to reduce the nearly 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
This comes as the U.S. President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... had earlier said that the U.S. forces would be withdrawn from Afghanistan if a peace agreement was reached with the Taliban ...Arabic for students... group.
[Al Jazeera] Food aid in a warehouse on the front lines of Yemen's war is at risk of rotting, leaving millions of Yemenis without access to life-saving sustenance, the UN said on Monday.
The Red Sea Mills silos, located in the western port city of Hodeidah, are believed to contain enough grain to feed several million people. But the granary has remained off-limits to aid organizations for months.
"The World Food Programme grain stored in the mills - enough to feed 3.7 million people for a month - has been inaccessible for over five months and is at risk of rotting," said a joint statement by the UN aid chief and special envoy for Yemen.
"We emphasise that ensuring access to the mills is a shared responsibility among the parties to the conflict in Yemen."
Hodeidah, and its food silos, have been in the hands of Yemen's Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... rebels since 2014, when the gang staged a takeover of large swaths of Yemen's territory.
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[DW] The youth welfare office for the German state of Rhineland Palatinate has revoked the operating license of a Moslem kindergarten. The day nursery was accused of promoting Salafist ideology.
Officials in the city of Mainz on Monday withdrew the license of the only Moslem kindergarten in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate amid allegations that the facility was promoting Salafism.
The president of the state's youth office, Detlef Placzek, said the promotion of Salafist materials meant that the nursery no longer adhered to the German constitution.
Officials had a duty to intervene, Placzek said, when an operator was unwilling or unable to "to create the conditions that ensure the well-being of children."
Arab Nil-Rhein chairman Samy El Hagrasy rejected the accusations of extremism and said he would be appealing. "We accept and respect the constitution," said El Hagrasy, adding that the decision was "incomprehensible and a mystery."
CHILDREN NOT IN 'ACUTE DANGER'
Alarm bells were first sounded in 2012,
...definitely not acute...
when a controversial preacher
Oh? Which one?
began attending events for the Arab Nil-Rhein (Arab Nile-Rhine) mosque association, which is responsible for the Al Nur day nursery.
Further information only came to light in autumn last year, with the revelation that inappropriate literature had been shared at the kindergarten and that the center had worked with an infamous figure within the ultra-conservative Salafist movement.
The same as the above-unnamed gentleman, or is this a different one?
Children at the kindergarten are all due to switch to other day care centers by March 31, with preparations already being made by the city. A grace period was possible because there was no evidence of "acute danger to life and limb of the children," officials said.
At present there are 18 children at the kindergarten between the ages of three and six.
[Rudaw] Ottoman Turkish police prevented a demonstration in Istanbul on Monday by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in support of hunger striking politician Leyla Guven.
A group of about 40 HDP members tried to stage a march down Istiklal Avenue to Taksim Square but were blocked by riot police.
MP Leyla Guven has been on hunger strike for 96 days protesting the isolation of tossed in the calaboose Please don't kill me! PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and prison conditions in general. She began per protest behind bars after she was placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! for her opposition to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...Qatar's colony in Asia Minor.... ’s military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin.
In very ill health, she was released from prison on January 25, but has continued her hunger strike.
Ottoman Turkish anti-riot coppers surround and block members and deputies of HDP near Istanbul's Taksim square on February 11, 2019. Photo: Ozan Kose/AFP
Protesters were wearing vests with Guven’s image. Hemmed in by police, they staged a short sit-in before dispersing, according to AFP.
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[Rudaw] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s public prosecutor has begun investigations into Kurdish political parties using the word ’Kurdistan’ in their titles, targeting two so far.
"This decision is not a solution for Turkey. It will rather embolden our belief and struggle to protect ourselves. This will be a legal fight between the government and us," Bayram Bozyel, an official from Kurdistan Socialist Party (PSK), told Rudaw.
He claimed the move was politically motivated.
In addition to PSK, the investigation has also targeted the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK).
The Kurdistan Democratic Party-Turkey (KDP-T) was warned when it was established in 2014 to remove "Kurdistan" from its name, but it ignored the advice, leader Mihemed Emin Kardas, leader of PDK-T, told Rudaw. Authorities renewed the warning when the Kurdistan Region in Iraq held its independence referendum in 2017, Kardas added, saying that no action has been taken against them for the name yet.
The Kurdish Freedom and Socialist Party (OSP) recently changed its name to the Kurdistan Communist Party (KKP). They have not encountered any problems with their name. The party says the government does not want any political activity under the name of Kurds and Kurdistan.
"The Republic of Turkey was established on the principle that there were no Kurds or Kurdistan and they kept that policy to date," said Yasar Kazici, a KKP official, told Rudaw.
Turkey’s constitution stipulates that "The statutes and programs, as well as the activities of political parties shall not be contrary to the independence of the State, its indivisible integrity with its territory and nation ..."
Ottoman Turkish authorities believe that having "Kurdistan" in a party's name violates this article since these parties consider the provinces of southeastern Turkey as the northern part of Greater Kurdistan.
According to the CIA World Factbook, Kurds make up 19 percent of Turkey's population, or about 15.5 million.
The largest pro-Kurdish party in Turkey does not have Kurdistan in its title ‐ the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). Although largely comprised of Kurdish members, it fights for greater minority, ethnic, and cultural rights for all citizens.
The only party which has waged an outright war against the Ottoman Turkish state is the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is banned Turkey for its four decade, sometimes-armed, struggle against the state.
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[Rudaw] BARTELLA, Iraq ‐ In the main square in the northern Iraqi town of Bartella stands a large cross, one of the few overt signs that the northern Iraqi town was historically Christian.
Nearby, a massive billboard shows Shiite Moslemdeaders alongside a picture of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei. Posters of Iranian-backed Shiite bandidossnuffies killed in fighting with 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 hang on streets all around the city, along with banners to revered historical Shiite saints.
Continued on Page 49
[IsraelTimes] Transfers said to be so high, attorney general calls meeting to ensure they aren’t in violation of sanctions against Hamas, a regional Iranian catspaw,.
Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... gave over $1.1 billion in aid to the Gazoo Strip over the past six years, according to figures reportedly presented to Israeli ministers.
Continued on Page 49
[IsraelTimes] Paleostinian foreign minister says Ramallah also seeking funding alternatives in face of Washington’s moves aimed at pressuring Paleostinians into grinding of the peace processor.
Paleostinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Monday that the PA would take legal action to counter US moves to apply financial pressure on Ramallah.
Malki’s comments came a day after a senior Fatah official, Hussein al-Sheikh, said in an Arabic-language interview published Sunday that the US has asked international banks to squeeze the Paleostinian Authority financially in a bid to pressure the Paleostinian leaders to accept the Trump administration’s not-yet-announced peace plan.
"The leadership is following these new American attempts to impose a financial siege on our people, and is looking for legal steps to bring lawsuits against the United States over all these illegal steps on the one hand, while searching for suitable financial alternatives to respond to these punitive measures on the other," Malki told the Voice of Paleostine radio station.
Al-Sheikh told AFP on Sunday that major financial institutions had begun to cooperate with Washington’s bid to "impose a tight financial siege on the Authority."
According to al-Sheikh, "the sanctions began with preventing the transfer of an Iraqi grant worth $10 million, which was handed over to the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... recently. The League has not been able to transfer it because all banks have refused to accept it for transfer to the Authority’s finance ministry or the national fund."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Sunday to begin deducting PA payments to convicted Death Eaters and their families from tax transfers Israel hands the PA each month.
Calls to cut transfers to the PA have ramped up in recent days following the murder of an Israeli woman by a Paleostinian suspect in Jerusalem on Thursday. The Shin Bet has labeled the killing a nationalistically motivated terror attack.
"By the end of the week, the staff work required for implementing the [July 2018] law on deducting terrorists’ salaries will be completed," the prime minister said, referring to a law that formally went into effect on January 1 that grants the Israeli government the power to withhold tax funds paid by Paleostinians and handed by Israel to the PA, up to the amount spent by the PA in payments to incarcerated security prisoners and the families of Death Eaters killed while attacking Israelis.
Al-Sheikh said "the American decision is in line with an Israeli decision" to cut the tax transfers, which he said represent more than 50 percent of the Paleostinian treasury’s income and constitute about 70% of the current expenses of the PA and the salaries of its employees.
In his Monday comments, Malki called the Israeli deductions "piracy."
"This is Israeli piracy of part of the Paleostinian tax funds on the grounds that it pays salaries to prisoners and families of deaders," he said, adding, "the Paleostinian leadership intends to bring the issue of this piracy to the General Assembly of the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... and international legal institutions to hold Israel accountable and punish it for stealing these funds without right."
[Rudaw] NEAR BAGHOUZ, Syria - Two French women who fled 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's last pocket in Syria told AFP on Monday more foreigners were trapped inside, barred from leaving by Iraqi jihadists.
The Moslem converts said they paid smugglers to take them out of the battered ISIS-held holdout of Baghouz to territory held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. They said "massacres" had taken place in Baghouz, where others are still trapped with "nothing to eat."
Continued on Page 49
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#1
It's a pity there's no fake smugglers who let ISIS support staff "leave" this vale of tears.
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.
[Al Jazeera] Food aid in a warehouse on the front lines of Yemen's war is at risk of rotting, leaving millions of Yemenis without access to life-saving sustenance, the UN said on Monday.
[DW] The youth welfare office for the German state of Rhineland Palatinate has revoked the operating license of a 
[Rudaw] 
[Rudaw] BARTELLA, Iraq ‐ In the main square in the northern Iraqi town of Bartella stands a large cross, one of the few overt signs that the northern Iraqi town was historically Christian.
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
[IsraelTimes] Paleostinian foreign minister says Ramallah also seeking funding alternatives in face of Washington’s moves aimed at pressuring Paleostinians into 
