Hi there, !
Today Wed 02/13/2013 Tue 02/12/2013 Mon 02/11/2013 Sun 02/10/2013 Sat 02/09/2013 Fri 02/08/2013 Thu 02/07/2013 Archives
Rantburg
532757 articles and 1859161 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 71 articles and 146 comments as of 8:33.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    Non-WoT    Opinion        Politix    Main Page
Syrian troops, rebels clash over Damascus highway
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
20:13 0 [2] 
19:35 1 21:15 JosephMendiola [2]
17:10 0 [1]
16:17 5 23:32 CrazyFool [2]
15:27 3 18:17 USN,Ret. [2]
15:17 2 16:10 Pappy [] 
14:41 0 [2] 
13:58 0 [1]
11:13 13 23:11 JosephMendiola [] 
10:34 0 [1]
10:34 19 21:20 airandee [2]
09:30 9 21:07 JosephMendiola [1]
04:23 6 13:32 Shipman []
03:24 3 23:08 JosephMendiola [] 
01:06 0 [1] 
01:04 2 13:40 Shipman []
00:00 1 11:41 Besoeker []
00:00 2 15:46 trailing wife []
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 0 [1]
00:00 0 [1]
00:00 0 [1] 
00:00 3 15:13 g(r)omgoru [1]
00:00 0 [2]
00:00 0 [1] 
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 2 08:22 Besoeker [] 
00:00 4 20:58 Junior Sample [2]
00:00 1 11:39 Besoeker []
00:00 0 [1]
00:00 12 21:07 Dino Shomomp7692 [3]
00:00 0 []
00:00 1 06:24 g(r)omgoru [2]
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 [7] 
00:00 0 [2] 
00:00 2 16:48 lord garth [] 
00:00 2 13:54 Thing From Snowy Mountain [1] 
00:00 6 15:31 Bill Clinton [2]
00:00 4 15:30 Bill Clinton [1]
00:00 7 23:22 JosephMendiola [1]
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 2 11:44 CrazyFool [] 
00:00 0 []
00:00 1 09:03 Glenmore [1]
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 0 [4]
00:00 0 [2]
00:00 0 [1] 
00:00 0 [1]
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 [5]
00:00 0 [4] 
00:00 0 [2]
00:00 2 12:43 Water Modem [1]
00:00 1 20:54 Warthog [2] 
00:00 9 16:29 Abu Uluque [] 
00:00 2 09:29 Procopius2k []
00:00 2 18:57 Muggsy Speaking for Boskone5119 [4]
00:00 5 17:37 CrazyFool [1] 
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 2 23:25 BrujoTejano [2] 
00:00 0 [4] 
00:00 1 23:17 JosephMendiola [1] 
00:00 2 00:13 JosephMendiola [2] 
00:00 7 22:59 trailing wife [1]
Africa North
Americans in Algeria: Surviving a terrorist attack
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 20:13 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Any Solution to Syria?
Well, maybe we could nudge that asteroid that way?

SHOULD the U.S. intervene to stop the bloodshed in Syria? I find myself torn between four different perspectives — from New Delhi, Baghdad, Tel Aviv and the U.N.

Some Israeli generals are starting to realize that if Syria is a fight to the death it could pose as great a strategic threat to Israel as Iran’s nuclear program. If Syria disintegrates into another Afghanistan — on Israel’s border — it would be an untamed land, with jihadists, chemical weapons and surface-to-air missiles all freely floating about.

Can that collapse be avoided? From Washington, some hoped that by quickly toppling the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, the West and the Sunnis could “flip” Syria from the Iranian-Soviet orbit to the Sunni-Saudi-American orbit. I’m dubious. I doubt that Syria can be flipped in one piece; it will break apart in the air into Sunni and Alawite regions. And, if we did manage to flip Syria, Iran would try to “flip” predominantly Shiite Iraq and Bahrain into its camp.

Some Arab diplomats at the U.N. argue, though, that there is a middle way, but it would require the U.S. to lead: First, mobilize the Security Council to pass a resolution calling for the creation of a transitional government in Syria with “full powers” and with equal representation of Alawites and Sunni rebels. If the Russians could be persuaded to back such a resolution (not easy), it could break the stalemate inside Syria, because many regime loyalists would see the writing on the wall and abandon Assad. The stick would be to tell the Russians that if they don’t back such a resolution, the U.S. would start sending weapons to the secular/moderate rebels.

It’s the Middle East, Jake.

If you will the ends, you’d better will the means. You can’t change the politics “unless you say you’ll stay for a hundred years,” insists Akbar. But no one wants to play empire anymore. In which case, he argues, it’s always best not to stay long in any of these countries — five months, not five years. Five years, says Akbar, is just long enough for people to hate you, but not fear or respect you, let alone change their long-held ways.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 19:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Pro-US-Allies or anti-US-Allies, no one is genuinely or actually serious in wanting Baby Assad to leave despite the MSM-Net + Diplomatic rhetoric to the contrary.

No real panic unless he gets killed or abdicates.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/10/2013 21:15 Comments || Top||


Economy
China Eclipses U.S. as Biggest Trading Nation Measured in Goods
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 17:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Police plan to use spy drones in the hunt for a Rambo-style ex-soldier
Yesterday, as a task force of 125 officers, some riding Snowcats in the rugged terrain, continued their search, it was revealed that Dorner has become the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US soil.

A senior police source said: “The thermal imaging cameras the drones use may be our only hope of finding him. On the ground, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Asked directly if drones have already been deployed, Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz, who is jointly leading the task force, said: “We are using all the tools at our disposal.”

The use of drones was later confirmed by Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Ralph DeSio, who revealed agents have been prepared for Dorner to make a dash for the Mexican border since his rampage began.

He said: “This agency has been at the forefront of domestic use of drones by law enforcement. That’s all I can say at the moment.”
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 16:17 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "We are using all the tools at our disposal."

In short, "None of your business".
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/10/2013 16:40 Comments || Top||

#2  "The thermal imaging cameras the drones use may be our only hope of finding him. On the ground, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."

Forward Looking Infrared Radar (FLIR) and thermal imaging do not like "haystacks" particularly[round bales], they retain heat.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 16:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Doner is most likely not in the mountains. I suspect in a CA town with little to no police presence but with high crime.
Posted by: airandee || 02/10/2013 21:27 Comments || Top||

#4  I think they're about to get a big lesson in the relative uselessness of drones in a real crisis situation.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/10/2013 22:07 Comments || Top||

#5  Well I guess if you have to look like your doing something....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/10/2013 23:32 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
‘Obama’ center stiffs granny
Holy sheik, that’s a lot of cash.

An 84-year-old Bronx grandmother claims that she loaned a prominent imam her life savings to fund a day-care center — but that he never built it and he stiffed her on the $52,000.

Sheik Moussa Drammeh admitted to The Post that instead he sank Ruth Young’s money into a wacky invention and two Web sites.

“The money did not go to waste,” Drammeh said.

“I failed on paying her back,” he said, adding he’d repay her “any day now.”

Young was doubtful.

“He must think that he could get over on me,” said the wheelchair-bound Co-op City resident.

The holy man, a member of Community Board 9 in Parkchester, gave her a check for $57,500 on April 15, but it bounced.

According to a contract dated June 7, 2010, and signed by both parties, the money was to be used to build the Barack Hussein Obama Children Center. It describes the money as an investment and a loan.

“I thought it was a good investment,” Young said.

The contract also stated the balance should have been repaid by July 31, 2011, in monthly installments beginning December 2010.

Although the center’s name hangs on a Pugsley Avenue property, the Islamic Leadership School, a grade school, operates there.

Drammeh blamed a zoning-law snag for holding up the center. Records show the city Buildings Department denied the day-care application in July 2010.

After the rejection, Drammeh said, he used the money to bankroll a bathroom-sink alarm that alerts bosses to staffers who don’t wash their hands properly. It has yet to take off.
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 15:27 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  One part of me says that anyone that stupid deserves to get stiffed. But another says it's wrong to steal from the senile or retarded.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 16:36 Comments || Top||

#2  "'He must think that he could get over on me'"

Ummmmm - he did, granny.

I'm looking for my femto violin - honest, I am.

But I'm having trouble ginning up any sympathy for any idiot - no matter how old - who gives their life savings to anyone to "invest" for them.
Posted by: Barbara || 02/10/2013 17:39 Comments || Top||

#3  So what part of his scam sealed it for her, his imam status, 'its for the children,' or the use of the Lightbringer's name?
any bets who she voted for?
Too bad Granny. HAHAHAHAHAHA
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 02/10/2013 18:17 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Giving up: Der Spiegel is pulling out its only correspondent from Pakistan
The respected German publication Der Spiegel is pulling out its Islamabad-based correspondent Hasnain Kazim this year and no one is coming to replace him. As he departs so does the German interest in Pakistan.

Kazim, 38, the only German journalist working here, shared his views on Pakistan at the Karachi Press Club on Thursday. After spending four years, he confesses to be still searching for answers to many questions.

“What does Pakistan stands for? Does it want to be an Islamic State? If so, then which Islam would it be?” he wondered. “I admit that I have failed to find the answers.” In his conversations with politicians and general public, some issues surfaced that left him wondering what people are seeking.

“A lot of people I speak to support democracy,” he said. “But at the same time, you talk to an average person and he says ‘Oh, I think that things were better under (General) Musharraf’s rule’.”
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 15:17 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Threw in the towel on trying to understand the crazy crap over there.

Probably couldn't find a rational link to the liberal mantra of they would like us if we just understood.

Understand what?

Understand Islam is a religion of death that advocates violence based upon the delusional ravings of a psychotic.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 02/10/2013 15:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Der Spiegel will do as every other mass-media outlet has done; use freelancers.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/10/2013 16:10 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Communications with Ayman al Zawahiri highlighted in 'Nasr City cell' case
Egyptian prosecutors have uncovered a treasure trove of information in the so-called "Nasr City Cell" case, including correspondence between the terrorist who headed that cell and al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri. The Nasr City cell allegedly plotted various attacks inside Egypt and has connections to the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

One of the two terrorists who led the Nasr City cell is Muhammad Jamal al Kashef (a.k.a. Abu Ahmad), who served Zawahiri in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the 1990s.

A computer recovered during a raid
O boy -- fun for certain clever lads and lasses, with mayhem to follow!
on an apartment in the Nasr City neighborhood of Cairo on Oct. 24, 2012 includes correspondence between Jamal and Zawahiri. Two such letters were discussed in the Egyptian press last week. The revelation is important for many reasons. For instance, Jamal's trainees reportedly participated in the Benghazi attack, which left four Americans, including a US Ambassador, dead.

The letters do not deal with the assault in Benghazi. They were written beforehand and summarize Jamal's various nefarious activities, including inside Libya.
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 14:41 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


Terror Networks
The Folly of the West's Alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 13:58 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: WoT
Petraeus brought down by vengeful CIA agents and his own bodyguards
So we have a CIA that did its best to bring down George Bush, and now (allegedly) has brought down Petraeus. Perhaps that's why Champ had Panetta and now Brennan there, to keep the CIA under control. Real question is, did the CIA people who organized this do it on their own or did they have some encouragement? After all, it's a convenient and near-untracable way for Champ to ruin a political opponent.

It does illustrate an important lesson for powerful men: keep your pants zipped.
David Petraeus was betrayed by his own bodyguards and vengeful high-ranking enemies in the CIA, who made sure his affair with his biographer was exposed to the public, a new book claims.

MailOnline can reveal a new angle on the story that rocked Washington last fall. It comes from two retired special operations commandos - a Navy SEAL and a Green Beret - who say they discovered a plot against the former CIA director while doing research about the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Senior CIA officers targeted Petraeus because they didn't like the way he was running the agency - focusing more on paramilitary operations than intelligence analysis. They used their political clout and their connections to force an FBI investigation of his affair with Paul Broadwell and make it public, according to 'Benghazi: The Definitive Report.'

'It was high-level career officers on the CIA who got the ball rolling on the investigation. It was basically a palace coupe to get Petraeus out of there,' Jack Murphy, one of the authors, told MailOnline.

Murphy and co-author Brandon Webb also revealed that the September 11 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, was retaliation by Islamist militants who had been targeted by covert U.S. military operations.

The book claims that neither Stevens nor even Petraeus knew about the raids by American special operations troops, which had 'kicked a hornet's nest' among the heavily-armed fighters after the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser, had been authorizing 'unilateral operations in North Africa outside of the traditional command structure,' according to the e-book. Brennan is Obama's pick to replace Petraeus as head of the CIA.

Perhaps the most startling accusation in the book is that Petraeus' affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell was leaked by the members of his personal protection detail.

The authors say that senior intelligence officers working on the 7th floor of Central Intelligence headquarters in Langley, Virginia, used their political clout to ensure that the FBI investigated the former Army general's personal life. They then told Petraeus that they would publicly humiliate him if he didn't admit the affair and resign.

'It was well known to Petraeus's Personal Security Detachment (bodyguards) that he and Broadwell were having an affair. He wasn't the only high-ranking Agency head or general engaged in extramarital relations, but when the 7th floor wanted Petraeus out, they cashed in their chips,' Webb and Murphy write.

The book continues: 'The reality of the situation is that high-ranking CIA officers had already discovered the affair by consulting with Petraeus's PSD and then found a way to initiate an FBI investigation in order to create a string of evidence and an investigative trail that led to the information they already had--in other words, an official investigation that could be used to force Petraeus to resign.'

Webb and Murphy said the CIA bureaucracy wanted Petraeus out of the CIA. Senior officials were furious over the way he had been running the agency since he was appointed in September 2011. He was turning the agency's focus from intelligence gathering and analysis to paramilitary operations, including drone strikes.

Additionally, he ran the CIA like a four-star general, instead of treating it like a political institution, the authors say. His management style made countless powerful enemies within the CIA.

On November 9, three days after Obama's reelection, Petraeus shocked the nation by resigning as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and admitting that he had been sleeping with Broadwell - whom he had met while she was researching her biography of him, 'All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.'

Before he was publicly castigated, Petraeus was the most high-profile and highly-respected commander in the military. His counter-insurgency strategy was credited with turning the tide in the Iraq War and securing the country so U.S. troops could withdraw. He also commanded a surge of American forces in Afghanistan.

Petraeus, 60, earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University and was hailed as a 'warrior scholar.' Before his resignation, he was mentioned as a possible vice presidential nominee for Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

Petraeus' public image is in shambles after the affair went public.

'It's almost like they wanted him not just to resign but that they wanted him kicked out of the political game for at least a number of years,' Murphy told MailOnline.
Who's the "they" here: the CIA operatives or Obama?
Media reports indicate that the FBI began investigating Petraeus' affair with Broadwell after Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, a friend of Petraeus and his wife Holly, reported that she had received threatening emails from the mistress warning her to stay away from Petraeus.
A story that has always seemed too pat...
The authors say that Kelley's report may have started in the FBI investigation - but CIA officers pressured the Justice Department to keep the inquiry open.

Webb said his sources in the FBI told him federal agents wanted to close down their investigation when they learned that nothing illegal had happened, but they were told to keep digging. The FBI investigators, Webb says, never wanted to out Petraeus' affair.

Murphy said he learned of the 'palace coup' from current and former members of the CIA.

The authors claim that Petraeus was already on his way out when the scandal broke. They learned weeks before that he was interviewing for teaching jobs at Princeton University.

Petraeus was furious, they say, because he was kept in the dark about the raids being conducted without his knowledge by the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) across Libya and North Africa.

Webb and Murphy claim that the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate and a CIA outpost in Benghazi proved to Petraeus that he was an outsider in the Obama administration and that he would remain marginalized as long as he was at the CIA.

The central premise of 'Benghazi: The Definitive Report' is that the attacks were precipitated by secret raids JSOC had performed in Libya. An attack on the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia days before September 11 may have been the final straw. Heavily-armed militants with Ansar al-Sharia attacked the consulate on September 11 as retaliation, the book claims. Ambassador Chris Stevens and Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith died of smoke inhalation when insurgents set fire to the consulate.

After the raid, the militants launched a second attack against a CIA annex across town. It was there that CIA security contractors Ty Woods and Glen Doherty - both former U.S. Navy SEALs - were killed when their position took a direct hit from an enemy mortar.

Webb and Murphy said they wrote the book to reveal 'the truth' behind the attack. They say news accounts of the incident have often been inaccurate because journalists have not had inside access to the people who were on the ground at the time.

The authors have been frustrated, they say, by politicians who have attempted to twist the facts of the case to suit their own ends. Conservatives sought to use the attack as an election issue and place the blame on Obama. Democrats and the Obama administration have worked to deflect responsibility and downplay the warning signs that were present before the consulate was raided.

Webb and Murphy claim that the 'inside' story of the attack - as told by their connections in the CIA and special operations units of the military - show that Brennan never warned the CIA or Stevens about ongoing U.S. military operations in the country. Had the State Department and the intelligence community known about what was happening, they would have stepped up security in Benghazi and could have prevented the tragedy.

Webb counts Doherty, 42, as one of his best friends and he is furious that the real story of what happened has not yet surfaced.

He said Doherty and a team of CIA security officers chartered a flight from Tripoli to Benghazi when the consulate came under attack - despite initial resistance from the CIA - to rush to the aid of the Americans who were in danger.

Both authors are well-positioned to access classified insider information about the attack. They run SOFREP.com, a news site written and edited by current and former members of the special operations community.

Webb served as an Navy SEAL for ten years and deployed overseas five times. He left the Navy in 2006. Murphy served eight years in the U.S. Army, including as an Army Ranger and a Special Forces Green Beret. He deployed overseas three times before retiring in 2010. He is currently studying political science at Columbia University.

Calls to the White House were not returned on Saturday. The CIA could not be reached on Saturday.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/10/2013 11:13 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Petraeus brought down by vengeful CIA agents and his own bodyguards

But the causative factor is -

It does illustrate an important lesson for powerful men: keep your pants zipped.

unless you're Billy Boy. Then it's OK, because you are the Man in the seat and not a potential threat to the throne.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/10/2013 12:04 Comments || Top||

#2  The onion is beginning to be peeled.

Petraeus was a conventional officer, not particularly enamored with SOF, or separate side-bar operations. I can see how the SECAR [and former CIA director], could easily summon the ASDSOLIC and JSOC to quietly assist the WH with selected compartmented operations.

Petraeus' being cut out of the JSOC loop by Brennan, then destroyed via scandal certainly fits the matrix. Generals are easy to fire. Senior Executive Service Klingons in McLean, not so much. An added benefit would the total destruction of future political ambition. How tidy and convenient.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 12:22 Comments || Top||

#3  Above: SECAR should read SECDEF...apologies.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 12:23 Comments || Top||

#4  FTA: "The book claims that neither Stevens nor even Petraeus knew about the raids by American special operations troops, which had 'kicked a hornet's nest' among the heavily-armed fighters after the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser, had been authorizing 'unilateral operations in North Africa outside of the traditional command structure,' according to the e-book. Brennan is Obama's pick to replace Petraeus as head of the CIA."

I think the above is the most important part of the article. Makes one wonder whether Brennan was in charge at the White House during the Benghazi incident while the President went to bed to rest up for his trip to Vegas the next day.
Posted by: tipover || 02/10/2013 12:44 Comments || Top||

#5  I also think it's kinda hypocritical that suddenly they pretend to care about voluntary sexual relations between adults.

They can lead the push to integrate the services and loudly declare that There Will Be No Fraternization Problems, There Will Be No Sexual Harrasment Problems, There Will Be No Sexual Favor-Trading Problems... but they need their fainting couch because they're shocked, SHOCKED that Petraeus was sleeping with someone.

And from the party/faction that brought new meaning to the term 'Intern,' and brought that meaning to the Oral Office.

This five minutes' worth of Victorianism would be more endurable if they didn't spend the other 23 hours and 55 minutes a day recreating scenes from The Rake's Progress.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/10/2013 13:03 Comments || Top||

#6  Makes one wonder whether Brennan was in charge at the White House during the Benghazi incident while the President went to bed to rest up for his trip to Vegas the next day.
Posted by: tipover


Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck....

Global Integrated Security was Brennan's old firm. Still in business by the way. Here's an interesting Atlas Shrugs piece entitled "Quid pro quo" from 3 years ago.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 13:27 Comments || Top||

#7  Very plausible scenario. More so than any other I have seen, and leaves few threads dangling. But does not explain why anyone would have left Stevens that exposed on 9-11 nor why they would so flagrantly lie about it later. Either WH was both stupid and caught entirely off guard (possible) or was involved. Given the Brennan connection, I suspect the latter (with a healthy dollop of the former on top of it.)
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 14:00 Comments || Top||

#8  It is likely Stevens was the plumber sent to Benghazi to fix things, possibly with the Turks or some of his host nation pals. When it all started going kinetic, priority quickly went to the 26 or however many people were at the annex [same folks never to be seen or heard from again following their check-up at Landstuhl].

The more we learn, the more plausible the total insulation of Champ appears. Completely absent from the planning cycle could have been the clueless Hildebeast and Admiral Clapper.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 15:16 Comments || Top||

#9  sofrep.com

This Tuesday, White House Counter-Terrorism adviser John Brennan will sit down for the closed door classified portion of his confirmation hearing. Brennan brings a lot of baggage to the table and has taken some fire from both the Left and the Right for his support of para-military activities and so-called Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. This last week we’ve seen puff piece after puff piece as our 4th Estate absolutely gushes over John Brennan to pump him up for the confirmation hearings that will determine whether or not he will be the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, filling the void left by General Petraeus’ resignation

Perhaps it is then a happy coincidence that the ebook I wrote with Brandon Webb about Benghazi is coming out on the same day as Brennan’s classified hearing. The ebook will begin to peel back a few of the layers of secrecy that have thus far protected John Brennan and some very shady activities undertaken by the National Security Council.

The book includes many never before revealed details about the Libyan Civil War and the post-war reconsolidation efforts undertaken by Private Military Companies, the CIA, and Ambassador Chris Stevens. This sets the stage for the situation that led to the attack on the US Consulate (technically a Temporary Mission Facility) in Benghazi. We then tell it like it actually happened that night and detail the heroic actions of Ty Woods and his fellow OGA operators. We will also shatter some myths and misconceptions about denied air support and the resignation of General Petraeus.

Perhaps most damning is the question of why. Why did the attack happen? What got AQIM elements operating under the Ansar Al-Sharia banner so angry that they decided to over run the Consulate? Perhaps events in Egypt and a silly Youtube video helped some of the Sheiks mobilize a large group of extremists but there is more to this situation. Much more. Ambassador Stevens and David Petraeus never could have seen what was coming. They were left in the lurch due to covert operations initiated by the White House, a secret war in North Africa being orchestrated by John Brennan.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 15:36 Comments || Top||

#10  Admiral Clapper

Retired Lieutenant General, USAF.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/10/2013 16:07 Comments || Top||

#11  Thanks Pappy, my bad.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 16:15 Comments || Top||

#12  This five minutes' worth of Victorianism would be more endurable if they didn't spend the other 23 hours and 55 minutes a day recreating scenes from The Rake's Progress.
Awesome.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/10/2013 19:01 Comments || Top||

#13  Whut - TWASN'T A ZIPPER DEFECT???

You call that a Made-for-Cable TV = Oprah Network Movie - I DON'T THINK SO!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/10/2013 23:11 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Hang on to your pants--Asteroid to zoom very close past Earth next Friday
Please no mass suicides as occurred with the Hale-Bopp Comet and Heaven's Gate cult! For any that are susceptible tin-foil hats, put away the long knives. Comet Hale-Bopp.
Hold on to your hats: An asteroid is to zoom within spitting distance of Earth next week, in what NASA said on Thursday is the closest flyby ever predicted for an object this large.

The 2012 DA 14, discovered by chance by astronomers after passing nearby in February last year, will be just about 27,700km above Earth's surface when it speeds by, the US space agency said. That is outside the Earth's atmosphere, but closer than the orbit of most weather and communications satellites.

However, despite the close shave, NASA said there was nothing to fear.

"This asteroid's orbit is so well known that we can say with confidence that even considering it's orbital uncertainties, it can pass no closer than 17,100 miles [27,700km] from the Earth's surface. So no Earth impact is possible," Donald Yeomans of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.

"At the same time, it will pass 5,000 miles [8,000km] inside the ring" of satellites, Yeomans said, adding that the asteroid's path puts it right in the "sweet spot" to avoid having any damaging impact.

The asteroid is predicted to come closest to Earth on Friday next week, at about 7:24pm GMT, and will pass over the Indian Ocean off Sumatra.

It will be visible with a little help from a telescope in eastern Europe, Australia and Asia, astronomers said.

The asteroid measures about 45m in diameter. That makes it relatively small by celestial standards.

"The object that ... took out the dinosaurs was about 10km," Yeomans said.

If it were to hit the Earth, the impact would be roughly equivalent to a 2.4 megaton bomb -- enough to flatten a large area, but not globally catastrophic, he said.

NASA estimates that a smallish asteroid like 2012 DA 14 flies close to the Earth every 40 years, on average, but only hits the Earth once every 1,200 years. Statistically speaking, that means we are probably safe for quite a while, since a similar asteroid hit just more than 100 years ago.

"With an estimated size of the order of 50m, [2012 DA 14] is comparable in dimensions to the object that destroyed over 2,000 square kilometers of forest in Tunguska, Siberia, on 30th June 1908," said Mark Bailey, director of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland.

More information.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/10/2013 10:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The sky is not falling.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/10/2013 10:48 Comments || Top||

#2  CNN anchor speculates it's caused by global warming
Posted by: Frank G || 02/10/2013 10:55 Comments || Top||

#3  ...well, related but not in the manner she'd grasp. Given that most global warming is a result of the sun (place the earth a couple million miles further out or in on the average and see the result)and that the sun exerts the major gravitational pull to establish the orbit of these asteroids, there is a similar causative factor. We're, sort of like, just along for the ride.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/10/2013 11:46 Comments || Top||

#4  CNN anchor speculates it's caused by global warming

Mammas don't let your babies grow up to be journalists. Better to drown them in the tub than suffer the humiliation later.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/10/2013 12:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Needs to be properly aimed.... say to rawalpindi.
Posted by: Water Modem || 02/10/2013 12:36 Comments || Top||

#6  Needs to be properly aimed.... say to rawalpindi.

Rawalpindi, Karachi, Quetta, Islamabad, Mecca, Damascus, Cairo, Qom...so many possibilities, all of them good.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/10/2013 13:01 Comments || Top||

#7  CNN anchor speculates it's caused by global warming

I considered a comment along the lines of "MSM says it's caused by AGW". Decided not---too crude.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 13:08 Comments || Top||

#8  Bring It!
Posted by: Shipman || 02/10/2013 13:34 Comments || Top||

#9  "CNN anchor speculates it's caused by global warming"

Dear God... is there ANY limit to liberal ignorance and stupidity????

Sorry. Dumb question...
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/10/2013 14:18 Comments || Top||

#10  AWG

As it can't be All Girls Weekend, it could be

Anti-Global Warming
Anthropogenic Global Warming
Autonomous Guided Weapon

Acronyms aren't my friends
Posted by: Willy || 02/10/2013 14:49 Comments || Top||

#11  Average White Guy
Posted by: Frank G || 02/10/2013 15:01 Comments || Top||

#12  What if it joins its sibling in Mecca?
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 15:47 Comments || Top||

#13  NASA estimates that a smallish asteroid like 2012 DA 14 flies close to the Earth every 40 years, on average, but only hits the Earth once every 1,200 years. Statistically speaking, that means we are probably safe for quite a while, since a similar asteroid hit just more than 100 years ago.

That's known as the Gambler's Fallacy.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/10/2013 16:50 Comments || Top||

#14  What if it joins its sibling in Mecca?
Posted by tipper


The Kaaba will be rescued and whisked back into orbit by the asteroid. Many will perish.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 16:53 Comments || Top||

#15  "What if it joins its sibling in Mecca?"

Make it so, Mr. Data.

Allan is Insha.
Posted by: Barbara || 02/10/2013 17:48 Comments || Top||

#16  Allan is Insha.

KE = 1/2 em vee squared, bitches!
Posted by: SteveS || 02/10/2013 18:03 Comments || Top||

#17  Have no fear, AlBore will save us through his superpower of flatulence. When he lights his fart on fire, the world moves in it's orbit. Or was that his burp? Who knows, it comes out every orifice with him.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Schlumberger Squishy Mud Division || 02/10/2013 20:48 Comments || Top||

#18  Hey NASA ... THAT'S not an asteriod. That's the Predator. Better cancel that trip to the Central American rainforest. Hahahaha!
Posted by: Raider || 02/10/2013 21:05 Comments || Top||

#19  Years ago there was a game where a little triangle in the middle of the screen would shot astroids. NASA needs to dust that off and get it working quick.

If the asteroid hits Washington DC then it will prove the existence of a just God.
Posted by: airandee || 02/10/2013 21:20 Comments || Top||


Government
WaPo admits that 2011 budget cuts were mostly smoke and mirrors
Late on the night of April 8, 2011, Washington's leaders announced that they'd just done something extraordinary. They had agreed to cut the federal budget -- and cut it big.

"The largest annual spending cut in our history," President Obama called it in a televised speech. To prevent a government shutdown, the parties had agreed to slash $37.8 billion: more than the budgets of the Labor and Commerce departments, combined.

At the Capitol, Republicans savored a win for austerity. There would be "deep, but responsible, reductions in virtually all areas of government," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) promised a few days later, before the deal passed.

Nearly two years later, however, these landmark budget cuts have fallen far short of their promises. In some areas, they did bring significant cutbacks in federal spending. Grants for clean water dried up. Cities got less money for affordable housing.
to be fair the 2011 bill also reduced out year budget authority and that constrained domestic spending a bit in FY 2012 and more so in FY 2013- in fact the FY 2013 effect is responsible for the initial -0.1 GDP number for the quarter ending dec 31
But the bill also turned out to be an epic kind of Washington illusion. It was stuffed with gimmicks that made the cuts seem far bigger -- and the politicians far bolder -- than they actually were.
Posted by: lord garth || 02/10/2013 10:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Subsaharan
Three South Korean doctors slain in north Nigeria
Religion of Pieces does it again.
(Do we catagorize northern Nigeria as North Africa or sub-Saharan?)
Officials say attackers in northeastern Nigeria have killed three South Korean doctors, beheading one in the assault.

The attack happened Saturday night in Potiskum, a town in Yobe state. Officials told an Associated Press journalist that the doctors worked at the General Hospital in Potiskum.

The AP journalist saw the dead in the hospital morgue. One had been beheaded in the attack.

The three routinely traveled alone and without security guards in the city, which has been a repeated target of a radical Islamic sect known as Boko Haram. A Nigerian police official confirmed the attack took place, but declined to immediately comment further.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 09:30 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Other reports say they were North Koreans.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 9:34 Comments || Top||

#2  So, What the hell were they doing there?
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/10/2013 12:06 Comments || Top||

#3  So, What the hell were they doing there?

Many possibles:

They, North or South Korean, were working under contract to the Nigerian government.

They, if North Korean, were there on behalf of the North Korean government as part of building political ties with Nigeria.

They, if South Korean, were under contract to a non-governmental (NGO) organization or a private company such as a mining firm.

They, if South Korean, were there either on behalf of the South Korean government as part of building political ties with Nigeria, or doing charitable work on behalf of a NGO.

Potsikum is located in an agricultural (livestock) region and has seen attacks by Boko Haram in the past. Given that other news outlets are saying 'North Koreans', I'd say the first two options are viable, with the first one being the most likely.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/10/2013 12:39 Comments || Top||

#4  These jihadists are the biggest bunch of nutjobs. Ever since they found out that the CIA used a doctor in a vaccination program to bring down Bin Laden ... they have been wiping out every single doctor and health worker in their territories. What morons. They are going to wind up with outbreaks of measles, polio and who-knows-what-else because of this stupidity.
Posted by: Raider || 02/10/2013 15:20 Comments || Top||

#5  They are going to wind up with outbreaks of measles, polio and who-knows-what-else because of this stupidity. Posted by Raider

Bug or feature ?

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 15:24 Comments || Top||

#6  They are going to wind up with outbreaks of measles, polio and who-knows-what-else because of this stupidity.

Gaia moves in mysterious ways.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 15:24 Comments || Top||

#7  Allan wills it
Posted by: Frank G || 02/10/2013 15:34 Comments || Top||

#8  Ever since they found out that the CIA used a doctor in a vaccination program to bring down Bin Laden ... they have been wiping out every single doctor and health worker in their territories

Unfortunately, rebel or insurgents troops taking out the 'medicos' is a long-standing feature of every African war.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/10/2013 15:48 Comments || Top||

#9  Looks like its the Nigerian kiddies' turn to contract Polio, etc. in the name of Jihad + Allan???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/10/2013 21:07 Comments || Top||


Europe
French Socialist Nightmare: 'The State Cannot Do Everything'
The preannouncement came Thursday evening: PSA Peugeot Citroën, France’s largest automaker, would have a write-down of €4.7 billion. On top of a hefty operating loss. It would be colossal. An all-time record. Rumors spread immediately that PSA would need a bailout. The second in four months.

PSA passenger car sales in France dropped nearly 17% in 2012 from an already awful 2011. In January they dropped another 16.7%. Sales for all automakers dropped 15%, and PSA’s market share had eroded further. Kia-Hyundai sales jumped 21.2%, the only major automaker with gains. Even Volkswagen Group got clobbered: down 23.9%. PSA isn’t internationally diversified enough. It doesn’t have much in China and nothing in the US, the largest markets in the world, both growing. It’s mired in Europe where auto sales have ground to a halt. It’s bleeding €200 million a month. It’s trying to lay off 8,000 workers and shutter its plant in Aulnay-sous-Bois. And its Banque PSA Finance was bailed out last October with €7 billion in taxpayer money.

The government was so worried that it was actively studying a bailout, sources told the Liberation after the losses were announced. It was just hypothetical. “But if a capital infusion would become inevitable, the state could participate,” the source said. Instantly, a cacophony of discord erupted—within the Socialist government.
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 04:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Maybe with less cars France can meet its Kyoto Treaty CO2 goals.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 9:21 Comments || Top||

#2  A great franchise opportunity for Bambi to sell his GM Bailout model to the French. After all, that has worked out just peachy.
(BTW: any intel on when Judge Becker will rule on the legality of that?)
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 02/10/2013 11:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Selling like shrimp and grits in Georgia. Probably has something to do with the plant in West Point... or the quality, or both.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 11:30 Comments || Top||

#4  with all the Car-B-Ques going on, who would want to shell out big bucks for a future CharBroil model?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/10/2013 11:36 Comments || Top||

#5  I see a big market for the Peugeot Nomex.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/10/2013 12:23 Comments || Top||

#6  Of course!
Damn, that's good, put the Nomex on the car. They should try this out in Formula Uno.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/10/2013 13:32 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Report: Iraq PM 'Invites' Iran to Seize US Embassy in Baghdad
Iraq allegedly has agreed to allow 50,000 Iranian Basij militia troops into the country to help suppress riots against the government and seize Arab and other foreign embassies, including that of the United States. The two leaders allegedly agreed to allow the Basij forces to attack and occupy the foreign embassies considered hostile to Iran in Baghdad, and to detain their staffs.

Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Iranian military commander Qassaem Soleimani, head of Iran's Al Qods Force, allegedly shook hands on the plan over the weekend at a meeting in Baghdad. Pledging 50,000 Basij military troops to help al-Maliki put down the nationwide riots against his government, Soleimani was quoted as saying "the Iraqi Front is the last front to defend the security of Iran."

The report, which appeared Saturday on the Voice of Iraq website and that of the Nashwan News, apparently offered enough evidence to create concern among analysts in the United States. "Even if there is a slim chance that the report is true, it should be published immediately," commented U.S.-based Middle East strategy expert Mark Langfan.

U.S. embassies have become an increasingly popular target for disgruntled Islamists who wish to whip up popular support, attempt to terrorize Western leaderships or terrorize a local population into submission, such as last year's September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya in which four American diplomats were killed -- including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 03:24 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  24 hour rule?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 6:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Some Iraqi politicos think this will impress their Sunni opponents. It won't. Most of the Iraqi Shiite loath the Persians and the Mullahs are far too fearful of their own citizens to commit that many Basij to an external op.
Posted by: lord garth || 02/10/2013 10:44 Comments || Top||

#3  D **** NG IT, its only a mere or lowly 50,000 Basij - what could possibly go wrong???

FYI TOPIX > [Interafx.RU] HEZBOLLAH CANDIDATE FOR IRAN PRESIDENT VOWS TO [peacefully = widout bloodshed] GO AFTER "BREAKWAY" ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN, + TAIJIKISTAN.

Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Kharazi, whom is also Chief of Hezbollah's Iranian branch.

* TOPIX > [WaPo] IRAN + HEZBOLLAH BUILDING MILITIA NETWORKS IN SYRIA IN EVENT ASSAD FAILS, [US, Middle East] OFFICIALS SAY.

* SAME > [Gateway Pundit] ISRAELI OFFICIALS: OBAMA IS COMING TO ISRAEL TO WARN NETANYAHU AGZ ATTACKING IRAN.

IMO read, CHINA-VS-JAPAN CRISIS, BABY ASSAD = SYRIA CRISIS.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/10/2013 23:08 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Former US Diplomat: Europeans, Canada paid $89 million ransom to Al Qaeda
A former U.S. ambassador to Mali has alleged that France paid a $17 million ransom to free hostages seized from a French mining site -- cash she said ultimately funded the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants its troops are now fighting. French officials, whose soldiers are pushing north into the territory where the missing captives are believed to be held, denied paying any ransoms.

Huddleston, who served as ambassador to Mali and held positions in the State Department and Defense Department in the U.S. before retiring, told France's iTele network that the French money allowed al-Qaeda's North Africa branch to flourish in Mali.

Huddleston, the US ambassador to Mali from 2002-05, said Germany, other European countries (with the exception of Britain) and Canada had also paid ransoms which have served to finance the armed Islamist groups which last year seized control of northern Mali.

She said a total of as much as $89 million could have been paid out between 2004-11, but since it was paid through intermediaries including the Malian army, it was unclear how much would have reached Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its allies.
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 01:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Strategy Page: Borderlands
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 01:04 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  um, thought it was going to be a game review....
Posted by: Jeremiah Phusoling5923 || 02/10/2013 12:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Naw game reviews and dumbloads are on sekret page 7.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/10/2013 13:40 Comments || Top||


Arabia
US commends Yemen for seizing ship with Iranian weapons
The United States is commending Yemen for seizing a ship loaded with Iranian-supplied weapons apparently headed for rebels in the north, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland's statement reads. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Saturday a Yemeni government investigation shows the weapons were loaded onto the vessel in Iran.

"According to Yemeni government officials, their initial investigation has revealed that the vessel was carrying a large shipment of explosives, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, IED precursors, and most disturbingly, man-portable anti-aircraft missiles. These weapons are clearly designed to cause significant damage with the highest possible number of casualties and are a threat to both Yemen and the region."

The State Department says the origin of the ship and its cargo underscores Iran's ongoing evasion of six U.N. Security Council resolutions banning Iran from selling weapons.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under:


Great White North
Islamic extremism luring young Canadians
Posted by: ryuge || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is the name 'Mohammed' now the most popular name for baby boys in Canada as well as Great Britain?
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 8:59 Comments || Top||

#2  No
Posted by: Muggsy Speaking for Boskone5119 || 02/10/2013 18:57 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Two vehicles torched: Strike over clerics' killing observed
[Dawn] Life in the city remained largely disturbed on Friday following a strike call given by nearly half a dozen Sunni organizations, including Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam
...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability...
(JUI-F) and Wafaqul Madaris Al-Arabia, with key commercial districts being closed, road traffic remaining thin and fuel stations in most parts of the metropolis shut amid early morning arson attacks and violence.

In an advance warning given to the government, leaders of different religious parties said if the killers of religious leaders were not jugged
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
within a week they would launch a second phase of their protest by staging sit-ins on main roads and at traffic intersections.

The strike call was supported by the Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
and also by the Shia Ulema Council that said they supported the call to show their resolve against every kind of terrorism in the city.

The city started returning to life in the evening after the parties gave the go-ahead to traders and transport bodies to resume their business. But road traffic remained thin in the evening as well due to the suspension of gas supply to CNG stations under a load-management programme of the Sui Southern Supply Company.

Most parts of the city remained peaceful during the strike though a couple of incidents of violence in the old city area and district west sowed fear among residents. In Kharadar, two vehicles were set on fire within a short span of time. An official at the central fire station said that a pick-up truck bearing registration number CL-4697 and a minibus (DE-066) were set on fire near Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
i Chowk close to Kakri Ground. By the time fire tenders reached the site, fire had already destroyed the vehicles, he added.

Charged youths blocked traffic on Abul Hasan Ispahani Road by placing burning tyres on it. Some violent scenes were witnessed at Guru Mandir, Patel Para, Lasbela, Sohrab Goth, Lea Market, Lyari
...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot....
and on Mauripur Road where stones were hurled at moving vehicles.

An ASWJ front man termed the strike a 'success' and a "message of peaceful protest from 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...
ites, where people from all walks of life, sects and segments of society have become insecure".

The traders' body, which supported the strike, claimed that business in most parts of the city remained closed.

The transporters, who also assured the parties of their 'cooperation' for the strike, said that buses were not run on most routes in the city. Some buses were operated in industrial areas, they added.

"We voluntarily agreed to their appeal after some respected holy mans approached us," said Ateeq Meer of the Bloody Karachi Tajir Ittehad -- a common platform of 350 wholesale and retail markets across the city. "The retail markets resumed their business in the evening as agreed with the parties but wholesale markets remained closed."

Sit-ins planned

Meanwhile,
...back at the wine tasting, Greasy Thumb grabbed his rod!...
addressing a joint conference, leaders of different religious parties warned the government that if the killers of religious leaders were not arrested within a week they would be compelled to launch a second phase of their protest by staging sit-ins on main roads and at traffic intersections.

The warning was given by chief of the Jamaatul Uloom Al-Islamia Binnori Town Sheikh-ul-Hadith Dr Abdul Razzaq Iskander, Jamaatul Uloom Education Director Maulana Imdadullah and JUI-F Bloody Karachi chief Qari Mohammad Usman. ASWJ leader Dr Mohammad Fayyaz was also present at the presser.

Expressing gratitude to all religious and political parties, organizations, transporters, traders and all sections of society for their 'cooperation' to make the Friday strike a success, they urged the chief justice of Pakistain to have mercy on seminaries and students by taking suo motu
...a legal term, from the Latin. Roughly translated it means I saw what you did, you bastard...
notice of the killing of Mufti Mohammad Abdul Majeed Deenpuri, his colleagues, other Ulema and students and attacks on mosques and seminaries.

While the scenes of gun attacks on Raees-ul-Ufta Maulana Deenpuri, Mufti Saleh Mohammad Karori and Ahsan Ali Shah on Jan 31 were recorded by surveillance cameras, none of the attackers had been arrested so far, they said.

They claimed that students and teachers of seminaries had always restricted themselves to the teachings and learning but now cut-throats had started targeting them as well.

Earlier, addressing a rally outside the Jamia Binnori town after Juma prayers, Small Traders' Organisation Bloody Karachi chapter president Mehmood Hamid had announced that if the killers of the Ulema were not arrested and given exemplary punishment, the small traders would observe a three-day strike and stand by Ulema for elimination of terrorism.

Maulana Mohammad Ghayas of the JUI and Qari Muhammad Iqbal also spoke.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Sunday is Bookday: 13 Free E-Books From PJ Media's Barry Rubin
A lifetime's worth of scholarship on Middle East, American, and Western history just waiting for your reading device.

Among the titles available in HTML and PDF courtesy of the GLORIA Center:

Cauldron of Turmoil
The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict
Istanbul Intrigues
Paved with Good Intentions
Modern Dictators: Third World Coupmakers, Strongmen, and Populist Tyrants
Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics
The Long War for Freedom-The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East
The Tragedy of the Middle East
The Truth About Syria
Secrets of State
Hating America: A History,
Assimilation and Its Discontents
Children of Dolhinov: Our Ancestors and Ourselves

Click here to read more about each and download them all.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thanks for posting this. It's a treasure.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/10/2013 14:48 Comments || Top||

#2  You are very welcome, dear Anguper Hupomosing9418. If anyone wishes to do a book review on any of these after, Rantburg would be happy to post it as a Sunday Morning Coffeepot. For that matter, if any of y'all has read something you think would be of benefit to the readership here -- WoT-related please, game reviews are for the O Club -- a brief or in-depth review would be lovely. :-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/10/2013 15:46 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Blast near Quetta police station kills at least one
[Dawn] At least one person was killed and three maimed on Saturday when a powerful kaboom shook Quetta, the scenic provincial capital of Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
, DawnNews reported.

According to police, a bomb went kaboom! near a cop shoppe in the Kuchlak area of Quetta, damaging cars and nearby buildings. The damage could have been worst as security officials pushed back crowds from the site after recovering 25 kilograms of explosives and 20 liters of petrol in jerry cans from a vehicle parked close to the site of incident. The bomb disposal squad was also called in.

The three injured were shifted to the nearby district hospital.

Senior police official Wazir Khan Nasir said that parts of a human body were found from the area which indicated that the kaboom could either be a suicide kaboom, or that the bomb went kaboom! while the attacker was planting it near the cop shoppe.

However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
he said that the exact nature of the blast could only be confirmed after police concludes its initial investigation.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Military jets pound militant hideouts in Orakzai; 13 killed
[Dawn] At least 13 suspected forces of Evil were killed early Saturday when military jets pounded bad turban hideouts in the northwestern tribal region of upper Orakzai agency, security officials said.

Local administration official Noman Ali Shah confirmed that the bad turbans' hideouts in Mamozai had been targeted by military jets Saturday morning and there were reports of casualties.

"We have reports coming in from security sources that four bad turban' hideouts have been destroyed in Mamozai area of upper Orakzai, while at least 13 forces of Evil have been killed in these strikes," he said.

Mamozai is located in the rugged mountainous region on the boundaries of Tirah Valley, a stronghold of the Hakimullah Mehsud-led TTP with support from the surrounding villages of Khadezai, Arkhanjo and the suburbs.

Although security forces claimed to have cleared almost 92 per cent of the area of bad turbans, there are still some pockets of resistance in the upper Orakzai Agency
... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers...
along the border of Khyber and Kurram agencies.

Fresh festivities between forces of Evil in Tirah

Meanwhile,
...back at the mall, Clarissa spent the day shopping for new underwear. Tonight was going to be a special occasion...
eight forces of Evil were reported to have been killed and several others injured in fresh festivities between the pro-government Ansarul Islam (AI) and outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) forces of Evil backed by Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) bad turban outfit in Tirah Valley of Khyber agency.

After a furious gun-battle for the day, the Ansarul Islam fighters have recaptured a key Khyber Sangar post in Tirah Valley which overlooks the key Maidan area, the stronghold of the AI.

This post was captured by the TTP fighters a few days back. The festivities are now continuing in the Qismat Sangar area of the Tirah valley.

The festivities, which had started last month between the outlawed myrmidon groups, subsided for a few days as scores of fighters were killed on both sides and many others were maimed.

Gun fights erupted again Saturday morning in Tirah's Sandapal area, leaving eight forces of Evil dead, intelligence officials said.

Intelligence sources said that the LI and TTP forces of Evil were launching joint attacks on the AI fighters.

The political administration has yet to disclose the exact number of casualties while news hounds have limited access to the restive mountainous area to independently verify the corpse count.

Meanwhile,
...back at the mall, Clarissa spent the day shopping for new underwear. Tonight was going to be a special occasion...
in a separate development a clash between the Zakakhel rustics and the banned Lasakar-e-Islam at Mirozai Sar Post, seven LI forces of Evil are killed including two key commanders as the Zakakhels also overtook the post.

The official sources said that the festivities are still continuing at Delani post, wherein two Zakakhel rustics have also been injured.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar-e-Islami


Caribbean-Latin America
Death toll in Mexican Drug War rises to 2,243 since December 1st

For a map, click here

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

A total of 2,243 individuals have been murdered in Mexico since December 1st, 2012, according to Mexican news accounts.

A news report posted on the website of Milenio news daily said that the total includes soldiers, civilian government officials including police agents, as well as civilians. The toll includes all murders linked to organized crime activity, whether or not involved with organized crime.

The report, a compilation of statistics from the Mexican military forces and civilian security agencies, is the first time since September, 2011 that those statistics have been released. In 2011, the government of former president Felipe Calderon ceased to supply those figures because, it was later stated, some of those deaths may have been prejudged by the connection to organized crime activity.

In 2011, cumulatively the total deaths attributable to organized crime stood at 47,515 from December 1st, 2007 to September, 2011. It wasn't until November, 2012 that it was revealed why the statistic compilation was stopped, by Oscar Vega, head of the Mexican Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Publica.

According to the data supplied by the Milenio article, intentional homicides attributable to organized crime declined by 39 cases to 1,068 deaths. Included in those deaths are 30 civilian officials killed in the line of duty and six individuals killed which were "beyond the facts", as the article termed it. That presumably meant those deaths were civilians caught in crossfires.

The statistics claim the number of deaths attributable to armed confrontations between drug gangs declined by 86 percent from December, 2012 to January, 2013. Part of of newly elected Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's security strategy is to reduce violence.

According to the report, 1,050 individuals were wounded in armed confrontations with 722 being involved in organized crime, 223 of whom were described as innocent and 105 were public servants such as police and military.

The new report has not come without criticism from political opponents. According to a news account posted on the website of El Arsenal news daily, Partido de Democratica Revolucion (PRD) general secretary Alejandro Sanchez Camacho characterized the new statistics as "scary". Sanchez Camacho said Pena's strategy was the same as his predecessor President Calderon, adding he could not give President Pena six years to implement his new security strategy.

The report is a stunning change from previous news reports in Mexican press which had indicated that the Mexican federal government was not planning to report all deaths in the new security strategy, or was going to slow the reporting of those deaths. It now appears that part of the new strategy is to present more finely granulated data as to casualties in Mexico's drug war.

December 1st, 2012 was the first day of the term of President Pena. President Pena ran on a platform to transform how the Mexican government deals with its massive organized crime problem.

President Pena has placed his Secretaria de Gobernacion (SEGOB) or interior ministry -- in the form of Miguel Osorio Chong, who now appears to function as Pena's plenipotentiary on security matters -- front and center on the Mexican federal government response to its organized crime problem. SEGOB compiled the statistics on murders and injuries attributable to organized crime.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
Posted by: badanov || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's a good thing guns are pretty much banned in Mexico.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 9:19 Comments || Top||

#2  A move by the new Mexican administration towards transparency is laudable, and very interesting. Is Pena a true reformer? The PRI hasn't supported any true reforms since the 1920's. Mexico could use some 21st century strategery. The current situation is very sad. As a teenager I took the trains all over Mexico, the natives were more afraid of me than I was of them, now I won't consider crossing the border.
Posted by: BrujoTejano || 02/10/2013 23:25 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Islamists chant anti-French slogans at rally in Tunisia
[FRANCE24] Several thousand supporters of Tunisia's ruling moderate Islamist party rallied in the capital in a pro-government demonstration Saturday, a day after the funeral of an assassinated opposition politician. Protesters hurled insults at France, accusing the former colonial ruler of interfering in the North African country's politics.

The ruling Ennahda party had called for a show of support for the constitutional assembly, whose work on a new constitution suffered a severe setback after the killing of Chokri Belaid on Feb. 6 - when leftist parties withdrew their participation. It said the demonstration would also protest "French interference" after comments earlier in the week by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who denounced Belaid's killing as an attack on "the values of Tunisia's Jasmine revolution."

Protesters denounced Valls' remarks, claiming they showed that France is interfering in Tunisia's internal affairs. Demonstrators gathered in front of the National Theater on Tunis' main street, Habib Bourguiba Avenue, epicentre of the 2011 revolution that toppled ex-dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, close to the French embassy.

"Get out, France"

Waving flags of the Ennahda party they shouted "Get out, France."

"Enough, France! Tunisia will never again be a French colony," proclaimed some of the banners waved by protesters.

FRANCE 24's correspondent in Tunis, Alexander Turnbull, said the protest was not large and mainly made up of men. "They're all waving flags and chanting. They're saying they want to preserve the heritage of the revolution and organise a second one, which is according to them the only way to find a solution to the current political crisis," he said.

The thoroughfare was bustling, with cafes full and shops reopened after a general strike the previous day. Police in riot armor and plainclothes officers patrolled Saturday, but gone were the tear gas and running street battles.

Friday's funeral for Belaid drew hundreds of thousands of mourners chanting anti-government slogans into the capital's heavily policed streets.

Islamic facism?

Valls had said on Europe 1 radio on Thursday that Belaid was "one of the democrats and we must support these democrats so that the values of the Jasmine Revolution are not betrayed. There is an Islamic fascism rising everywhere, but this obscurantism must, of course, be condemned because it denies the democracy for which the Libyan, Tunisian and Egyptian people have fought."

Valls was clearly pointing the finger at Salafists, with their strict interpretation of Islam, who have come to the fore, and smeared Ennahda's moderate image. At least one black Salafi flag was spotted in the sea of white Ennahda flags at the demonstration, which took place several hundred meters from the well-guarded French Embassy.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  "Death to Dior"?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 6:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Death to Chef Satan!

To quote Mighty Joe.... TAIG

Posted by: Shipman || 02/10/2013 6:26 Comments || Top||

#3  moderate Islamist party

Didn't I see that in the dictionary as the definition of "oxymoron"?
Posted by: AlanC || 02/10/2013 7:52 Comments || Top||

#4  Nous vous narguer.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/10/2013 11:58 Comments || Top||

#5  said the protest was not large and mainly made up of men

The Salafists weren't paying enough?
Posted by: Pappy || 02/10/2013 12:21 Comments || Top||

#6  About all this will accomplish is a few big lumpy guys speaking arabic with a french accent coming by for a chat.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 02/10/2013 15:31 Comments || Top||


French troops take northern town of Tessalit
[FRANCE24] [FRANCE24] French forces on Friday arrived in the town of Tessalit, a town deep in northern Mali near the border with Algeria, and one of the last strongholds of Islamist rebels who wielded unchecked power in the region less than a month ago.
I thought they'd already taken Tessalit...
Tessalit's airport has now become the most distant combat outposts in the joint French-Malian effort to re-establish total control of northern Mali.

FRANCE 24 flew to Tessalit from the city of Gao in a French military helicopter, and spoke to French and Malian soldiers about the continuing military operation. French troops said their ability to quickly advance powerful military hardware was possible only because of the Malian soldiers serving as guides.

With a base of operation now established in Tessalit, French soldiers are now busy setting up a vast surveillance operation to track Islamist fighters who are still hiding in this expansive and harsh region.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  still no sign of the Tesseract however.
Posted by: abu do you love || 02/10/2013 3:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Abu, you beat me to it! Points for you. :-)
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 02/10/2013 6:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't be such squares, you nerds!
Posted by: SteveS || 02/10/2013 12:21 Comments || Top||

#4  I suppose the French have a distinctly different interpretation of their ROE than our poor sumbitches in Afghanistan.

Memo to thumbsucking nebish at DoS, if you let us off the leash this frigging war in A'stan would have been over, done, finished, completed, years ago.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 02/10/2013 15:30 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Wife to stand firm behind Yazid Sufaat
[NST.MY] Yazid Sufaat's wife is going to stand by her man no matter how long it takes.
"Stand by yer man,"
She was adamant that he had done nothing wrong since his release from detention under the Internal Security Act in 2008 and has been spending all his time with his family.
"Give him two arms to cling to"
"I do not know what he did before his arrest under the ISA but I do know that he was always with me and our children since," said Chomel Mohamad,
"And somethin' warm to come to "
adding that her family are prepared for the long trial ahead.
"When nights are cold and lonely "
She further added that since his release, Yazid had always remained by her side, helping her at their drinks stall in the court cafeteria. Commenting on his arrest, the 48-year-old said she and Yazid had returned from the market and was packing cakes at their stall when she spotted the officer that had previously detained her husband in 2001.
"Yazid! It's da cops! Quick, under da lemonade box!"
"There were at least 15 plainclothes policemen surrounding the stall,
"Dey got us surrounded, Yazid!"
and our assistant (Mohd Hilmi Hasim) was immediately handcuffed.
"Put the cuffs on him, Mahoney!"
[CLICK!]

"My husband was washing his hands at the sink when the police just grabbed and handcuffed him," Chomel told reporters outside the Ampang court complex, here, today.
"Look like yer doin' somethin' innocent!"
Chomel said Yazid asked the police repeatedly why he was being arrested but no one answered him.
"Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!"
When asked her opinion on why her husband was arrested, Chomel said that her husband had mentioned the name "Fikrie" (Mohd Noor Fikrie Abd Kahar). Fikrie, 26, was a member of the Malaysian Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), who was shot dead by security forces in the Philippines last December.
"Fikrie! Dey got Fikrie!"
Chomel said police then took Yazid to their home in Taman Bukit Ampang, where they searched the premises for four hours. She was also there, accompanied by lawyer Fadiah Nadwa Fikri.
"I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!"
"They took away several Islamic books, the Internet modem and laptop," said the mother of four.
"My emails! Da secret plans! Da codes! Dis don't look good!"
Meanwhile,
...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings...
Chomel's stall at the court complex was operating as usual today.
"Lemonade! Lemonade! Have some nice Islamic lemonade!"
His son, Zufar Arif, 21, was handling the business with several workers. Zufar, the second of four siblings, said he only knew of his father's arrest on Thursday afternoon while he was driving back to the city from a public university in Dungun.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda


Arabia
Militant Leader in Yemen Capital for Talks on Battles, Release of Europeans
[Yemen Post] Leader of Al-Qaeda forces of Evil in the Rada city, Baidha, sheikh Abdul Ra'ouf Al-Dhahab arrived on Saturday in Yemen's capital Sanaa to hold talks with bigwigs on how to put an end to the battles between the army and the cut-thoats, Alahale reported quoting local sources.

Other reports said Al-Dhahab, who arrived with commander of the current military campaign to fight the forces of Evil in the Qaifa area in Rada, will meet President Abdrabu Mansour Hadi, but such reports have not been confirmed.

Few weeks ago, the army dispatched forces and equipment to drive the forces of Evil out of Rada and release three Europeans who were kidnapped in Sanaa in December and handed to Al-Qaeda in Baidha.

The forces fought the forces of Evil for few days and amid that a tribal mediation succeeded in reaching a ceasefire.

In the meantime, the tribal mediation has also succeeded to convince the cut-thoats, mainly those who don't belong to Rada including foreigners, to leave the city, according to the website.

Under the mediation, the tribe of Al Al-Dhahab, will stay as the elders or sheiks in the Qaifa area.

The current leader of the forces of Evil is the brother of the former leader who was killed by his brother after the last year's battles with the army.

In December, unknown kidnappers snatched two Finns and an Austrian and they were said to have sold the three to Al-Qaeda in Baidha.

The army decided to launch the campaign to release the three and retake control of areas seized by the forces of Evil amid an ongoing campaign against Al-Qaeda forces of Evil across the republic, mainly in 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...

Last year, the army launched a US-backed offensive, drove all forces of Evil out of their strongholds in Abyan and Shabwa and retook control of all areas in the two southern provinces.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [5 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia


India-Pakistan
Swiss authorities refuse to reopen graft cases against President Zardari
[Dawn] In response to the letter sent by the government on the directives of Pakistain's top court, Swiss authorities on Saturday refused to reopen the graft case against President Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari
... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ...
, DawnNews reported.

In light of the Supreme Court's verdict in the NRO implementation case, the Pakistain People's Party (PPP) government had sent the letter to the Swiss authorities in Nov last year.

Former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
... Pakistain's former prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics could be awe-inspiring ...
had to face disqualification for committing contempt of court by not writing the letter to Swiss authorities. The two-year standoff between the government and the judiciary was resolved when Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf appeared before the court and informed it that the government was ready to write the letter.

Sources told DawnNews that the government has received a written response from Swiss authorities on Saturday.

Federal Law Minister Farooq H. Naek has confirmed receiving the letter in which the Swiss authorities have said that according to international laws, President Zardari enjoys immunity against all criminal charges. They said that actions can not be taken against him till he holds the post of president.

Meanwhile,
...back at the revival hall, the SWAT team had finally arrived...
Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, by welcoming the decision, has urged the party supporters to not "over-celebrate."
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  I see the memo from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) finally arrived.

- At Credit Suisse our investors are not an interruption of our business, they are our business.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 11:39 Comments || Top||


Britain
Iranians protest at US embassy in London over Camp Liberty killings
[GUARDIAN.CO.UK] Demonstrators protested outside the US embassy in London on Saturday after attackers fired rockets at a refugee camp for an Iranian exile group in Iraq, killing six people and wounding more than 40.

The attack was at a former American military base near Storied Baghdad,
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
known as Camp Liberty, which houses opponents of the regime in Iran.

Members of the Iranian community in Britannia gathered outside the US embassy, calling on the US government to facilitate the transfer of the 3,100 Iranian dissidents in the camp back to another camp in Iraq, Camp Ashraf, where they were before.

Lord Carlile QC, spoke on behalf of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom, a 120-strong cross-party group of MPs and peers which supports the Iranian opposition.

He said: "We should demand that the UK government takes immediate action to bring this matter to the UN security council and takes steps to ensure that the residents of Camp Liberty are given humanitarian aid and returned to Camp Ashraf.

"It is time for weakness to cease in the diplomatic approach to Camp Liber The Iraqi ambassador should be summoned to the Foreign Office immediately."

Camp Ashraf was home to Iranian dissidents in Iraq for 26 years and is said to be 80 times bigger than Camp Liberty.ty.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq


India-Pakistan
Bannu boy is year's first polio case in KP
[Dawn] The first polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
case of the year in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
was reported on Friday as a 13-month-old boy from Bannu district tested positive for the crippling virus.
"And what do we have for the winner, Johnny?"
"A brand new iron lung!"

Samples of Muzakar Khan's stool were sent to the National Institute of Health on Jan 26 after doctors suspected him of being a polio victim. The NIH confirmed the polio case on Friday.

The officials said the child from Gul Hassan village in Amandi Union Council hadn't received a single dose of oral polio vaccine as his parents always sent vaccinators away.

"His parents fear OPV will render his son impotent and that he will never be able to produce children in case of vaccination.

Despite repeated attempts, they didn't understand the significance of the vaccine. As a result, their child is disabled for entire life," said an official in Bannu.

The officials said the area had many people, who were opposed to vaccination of their children against polio, and therefore, a polio outbreak was being feared there.

They said Bannu was home to thousands of children from North and South Wazoo agencies, where Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain had banned polio vaccination in June last year.

According to them, the ban left around 300,000 children unvaccinated and thus, putting them at the risk of being crippled.

The officials said chances were that the virus had traveled from North and South Waziristan, which had reported one polio case each last year, to Bannu courtesy unimmunised children frequently visiting the settled district from these tribal areas.

They feared a polio outbreak in Bannu, which remained polio-free in 2012 when the province reported 26 of the 58 countrywide cases.

"Last year, we managed to cut the number of the people refusing polio vaccination of their children to 54 only with the support of National Development and Research Foundation, an NGO that had engaged local religious leaders. However,
Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried...
Unicef ended its collaboration with NRDF for some unexplained reasons, leading to surge in vaccination refusal cases," an official said.

He said around 5,000 vaccination refusal cases had been reported in the district.

The officials said Unicef, which was to create demand for OPV through social mobilisation, had been unable to do the task due to the growing Taliban hostility towards vaccinators.

"Around 12 vaccinators and health workers have been killed over the last one and a half months in the province terrifying other members of the community. Nobody is willing to be part of vaccination in areas, where thousands of parents have declined vacation of their children," an official said.

The official said last year, Pakistain had reported the second highest number of polio cases after Nigeria, whose 100 children were crippled by the virus, and that it was considered polio reservoir and thus, a threat to polio-free countries.

He added that Pakistain was under tremendous pressure to eliminate polio through repeated vaccination of children under five.

"The World Health Organisation is also concerned about unvaccinated children and possible polio outbreaks," he said.

The officials said polio vaccinators missed around 70,000 children, while 20,000 became victim of immunisation refusal in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa during every polio campaign.

They said unvaccinated children were a threat to vaccinated children.

"Unless we vaccinate all children under five, polio will continue to haunt us," an official said.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Afghanistan
Nato rejects UN report on death of Afghan children
[Dawn] The US-led international coalition on Friday rejected a UN rights group's concern about reports that US military strikes have killed hundreds of children in Afghanistan during the past four years, saying they are "categorically unfounded".

The statement by the International Security Assistance Force came a day after the Geneva-based UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said the casualties were "due notably to reported lack of precautionary measures and indiscriminate use of force".

The coalition also dismissed that claim, saying that it takes special care to avoid civilian casualties.

The coalition said the number of children who died or were maimed from air operations dropped by nearly 40 per cent in 2012 compared with the year before, although it did not give specific figures.

The UN was reviewing a range of US policies affecting children for the first time since 2008. The release of the report coincides with an intensifying debate in Washington over US policy on drone targeting and Arclight airstrikes.

CIA Director-designate John Brennan faced a Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing on Thursday. His defence of drone strikes to kill terror suspects, including Americans, is causing key politicians to consider lifting secrecy from the program.

In its report, the UN committee told the United States to "take concrete and firm precautionary measures and prevent indiscriminate use of force to ensure that no further killings and maiming of civilians, including children, take place."

Human rights and civil liberties groups applauded the findings.

The UN committee referred to "hundreds" of children killed since 2008 and expressed alarm that the figure had "doubled from 2010 to 2011".

It didn't provide specific numbers, but a report to the UN Security Council last April by Secretary-General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
's special representative for Children and Armed Conflict said the number of child casualties blamed on Arclight airstrikes conducted by international and allied Afghan forces doubled compared with the last reporting period, with 110 children killed and 68 injured in 2011.

The international coalition acknowledged US forces are sometimes responsible for civilian deaths "despite all efforts to avoid them," but said the overall number of civilian casualties declined by 49 per cent in 2012 compared with the previous year.

It also cited an August report from the UN mission in Afghanistan stating that the vast majority of Afghan civilian deaths are caused by the insurgency.

"The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's concerns about reports of the death of hundreds of children as a result of attacks and Arclight airstrikes by the US military in Afghanistan are categorically unfounded," the coalition statement said.

"Equally unsubstantiated is their assertion that US forces use indiscriminate force during their operations. Finally, the committee's assertion that US troops do not exercise precautionary measures is entirely false."
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If you're going to be condemned for an action anyway, you might as well deserve it: send in the B-52s full of dumb iron & ArcLight Kandahar.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 9:11 Comments || Top||

#2  The U.N. is barking up the wrong tree. The 'taliban' are, according to the Geneva Convention, 'Illegal combatants' in that they hide behind and among the civilian population and wear no badge or identifying markings.

Thus any civilian casualties is *their* fault for deliberately hiding behind civilians - for the sole purpose of causing civilian casualties.

We should simply declare the GC null and void and cut loose the B-52's as Glenmore suggests.

Do you think any enemy in a war with us would have any incentive to follow the GC (which is rather expensive) when there are no consequences?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/10/2013 11:44 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Joint army-MILF battalions to provide security for presidential visit
A battalion from the Philippine army’s 6th Infantry Division and another battalion from the central command of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will provide security during President Aquino’s scheduled visit on Monday in the MILF stronghold of Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, near its main camp, Darapanan.

Aquino is set to launch a program which “aims to uplift the health, education and livelihood conditions in MILF communities towards realizing long-term peace and development for Bangsamoro that will benefit all Filipinos.” The project, led by the Office of the President, is in partnership with the MILF.

The launch comes nearly four months after the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) which provides for the creation of a new autonomous political entity called “Bangsamoro” that will replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) by 2016.

Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said that both sides are trying to enhance their relationship. He said, “It’s a process of getting to know each other. And so far it’s been wonderful. They (MILF) also want to test if this will work. They also want to test how sincere we are.”

Col. Manolito Orense, commander of the 603rd Infantry Brigade, said the Army and MILF are prepared for the president’s arrival. He said, “Basically our set-up is a joint effort. We have 11 key areas to monitor, critical or strategic that our counterparts also want to secure. We will have one squad from the 37th Infantry Battalion and one squad from the MILF. It’s one on one."

Gordon Zaipullah of the MILF said they will deploy forces around their bases as an added layer of protection not only for the president and his entourage but civilians as well.

“We will provide outer security since we are tasked on the external perimeter of the activity area,” he said.

A send-off program was held at the old capitol of Maguindanao in Sultan Kudarat town on Saturday, where a briefing was given to both sides. The ceremony was followed by a “boodle fight” where soldiers and rebels shared food and beverages laid down on banana leaves on a long table, the food eaten bare handed.

Sultan Kudarat mayor Datu Tucao Mastura said, “Imagine we were just dreaming this before. A few years ago, these two opposing groups were fighting to kill each other. Now they fight for a noble cause for the majority. I am so elated with the flow of events where peace is real now."
Posted by: ryuge || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "We will have one squad from the 37th Infantry Battalion and one squad from the MILF. It’s one on one."

....too many jokes...must control.....myself.....
Posted by: Warthog || 02/10/2013 20:54 Comments || Top||


Britain
Preachers of hate who spread their violent word on British TV channels
They're finally noticing, are they? Threats to Jews and Christians have gone unremarked. Maybe harassing gays is deemed to have crossed a line ....
Muslim fundamentalists have used British television channels to preach in favour of violent crime and killing "apostates".

The communications watchdog, Ofcom, has made a series of rulings against channels which allowed "inflammatory" material to be broadcast in breach of rules which forbid extreme opinions gaining a platform on British television.

The cases, disclosed today, include examples of an imam telling viewers that those who disrespect the prophet Mohammed should be killed, and another broadcaster saying homosexuals should be beaten and tortured.

The stations were found to have committed serious breaches of the broadcasting code by allowing the extreme opinions to be aired unchallenged.

Last night experts warned that the extent and seriousness of the broadcasting breaches raises questions over whether extreme Muslim speakers who were previously confined to small audiences in mosques are able to reach thousands more people by broadcasting intolerant teachings on television.

Although the channels have tiny audiences compared to the mainstream, they are targeted at Muslim communities, including people of Pakistani background, with some of the content being broadcast in Urdu and other languages.

The cases identified by Ofcom include:

* An Islamic scholar who told viewers: "It is your duty ... to kill those who insult Prophet Mohammed."

* A preacher banned from coming to Britain who used the channel - which he co-owns - to say anyone who left Islam should be put to death.

* A phone-in presenter who advocated "eliminating" anyone who disrespected Mohammed.

In some cases the channels had also breached a rule which states that they must keep recordings of all their output, raising the possibility that other inflammatory material has been broadcast but cannot be traced.

With the exception of one radio broadcaster, the channels ruled against by Ofcom are broadcast on the satellite provider Sky. It has no legal responsibility for what is broadcast on the channels it carries. It is up to the stations themselves to make sure they meet Ofcom's standards and they can be fined or taken off the air if they do not.

The disclosure of the rulings by the broadcasting regulator comes despite a report in 2010 which warned that extremist material was being broadcast.

Tala Rajab, the researcher who wrote the report for Quilliam, the anti-extremist think-tank, said the fresh findings by Ofcom raised serious questions over the regulation of broadcast material.

"Some of these recent incidents have been quite shocking," he said.

"If this had happened in a mosque the police would be right in pursuing a criminal investigation. But because they are being broadcast on television channels for some reason there seems to be little appetite for looking into these extreme messages.

"If these kind of comments were made against black people, for example, you can imagine a channel being shut down overnight, particularly if they had incited violence against a minority."

The 2010 report found that the Islam Channel, Britain's largest Islamic broadcaster, had continued to ignore Ofcom rules about impartiality and allowed controversial viewpoints to be aired despite a fine and other sanctions being imposed. It is not among the subjects of the five Ofcom rulings disclosed today.
Maybe that's because Sky is 39% owned by Murdoch's News Corp and Islam Channel isn't.
Posted by: lotp || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Heavily armed Mali rebels spreading across Africa
[THEGLOBEANDMAIL]
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Birthday Gam Shot

Elizabeth Banks[Filmography](age 39)



Intelligent Design


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 02/10/2013 1:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Another view of mz Banks career here
Posted by: Water Modem || 02/10/2013 12:43 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
BNP baffled by youth factor
[Bangla Daily Star] BNP is left bewildered by the dramatic developments in the last one week, as the party appears undecided whether to back its ally Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
wholeheartedly over the war crimes trial or endorse the youths demanding exemplary punishment to war criminals.

Senior BNP leader Toriqul Islam on Monday said his party would not support Jamaat's demand for scrapping the war crimes tribunals.

The same day, Jamaat, which continued its vandalism and attacks on law enforcers across the country, warned of a civil war unless the tribunals are scrapped and its leaders are freed.

Against this backdrop, when International Crimes Tribunal-2 sentenced Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah to life imprisonment for war crimes on Tuesday, hundreds of youths led by a group of bloggers poured into Shahbagh demanding death penalty for Mollah.

BNP perceived the youths as ruling party supporters, who were up to a new political game.

But as the protesters refused to allow any AL leaders to speak at the Shahbagh gathering over the next few days, it became increasingly clear that the gathering was apolitical. The protests have practically shaken Jamaat's confidence about the future of its movement.

By detaching itself from such a mass protest, a major party like BNP is actually distancing itself from the youths and also from the pro-liberation forces, said a number of senior BNP leaders.

Talking to The Daily Star, a section of BNP policymakers said they want to observe the Shahbagh movement for another couple of days to be sure that the movement is apolitical.

"Of course, the Shahbagh movement is a general people's movement. And we salute them," said acting BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

BNP leader Sadeque Hossain Khoka told a rally yesterday that they respect the youths' emotions about the Liberation War, but at the same time the youths should raise voice against the government's corruption.

BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed told The Daily Star, "There was no doubt that the agitation was initiated by a group of youths spontaneously. But later we saw that the ruling party, its ministers and its student wing Bangladesh Chhatra League
... the student wing of the Bangla Awami League ...
played a major role in the movement."

Admitting that his party was still hesitant about extending support to the protesters, Moudud said BNP high-ups will meet in a couple of days to come to a decision about the party's position on the issue.

Asking not to be named, a number of BNP standing committee members told The Daily Star that BNP would suffer if it fails to read the youths' mind. They were not sure about the position of the party's top leadership on the issue.

"We should support the youths' movement even if it goes against our electoral ally Jamaat," a BNP leader said wishing anonymity.

Another BNP leader observed that the party was in a dilemma about the youths' movement, as both the Jamaat issue and youths' support are closely intertwined with it.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Africa North
Rumor: Hamas sending troops to protect Morsi
Did Hamas dispatch 7,000 militiamen from the Gaza Strip to Egypt to protect President Mohamed Morsi, who is currently facing a popular uprising?

Reports that appeared in a number of Egyptian opposition media outlets in the past few days claimed that the militiamen entered Egypt through the smuggling tunnels along the border with the Gaza Strip.

The reports quoted unidentified Egyptian security officials as saying that the Hamas militiamen had been spotted in the Egyptian border town of Rafah before they headed toward Cairo, to shore up the Muslim Brotherhood regime of Morsi, which Hamas may have feared was in danger of collapse.

The officials claimed that the Hamas militiamen had been deployed in a number of sensitive locations in the Egyptian capital, including the Al-Ittihadiyeh Presidential Palace, as part of a plan to protect the Muslim Brotherhood regime.
Posted by: lord garth || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hamas doesn't have "7,000 militiamen".
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 6:22 Comments || Top||

#2  How much could 7,000 checked towels cost? Of course they do.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/10/2013 6:33 Comments || Top||

#3  So the Hamas militia infrastructure of Gaza has been reduced by something approaching a infantry division? I'm sensing something of an opportunity for a ground engagement.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/10/2013 6:54 Comments || Top||

#4  Egyptians returning home. Gaza was Egyptian pre-'67 and should make a home for all the dingbats. Let Israel fix up Gaza as part of a real country.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/10/2013 7:57 Comments || Top||

#5  Wikipedia states
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Military_wing

"Israel estimates the Brigades have a core of several hundred members who receive military style training, including training in Iran and Syria. Additionally, the brigades have an estimated 10,000 operatives of varying degrees of skill and professionalism"



Posted by: BernardZ || 02/10/2013 9:31 Comments || Top||

#6  as long as they're fighting hoops of fire, they're "skilled"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/10/2013 10:46 Comments || Top||

#7  Ah, yes, the Sherden, the Pharaoh's mercenary bodyguard.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/10/2013 11:51 Comments || Top||

#8  Hamas doesn't have "7,000 militiamen"

Not in Gaza...
Posted by: Pappy || 02/10/2013 12:54 Comments || Top||

#9  Somehow I don't think I'd feel all that secure.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/10/2013 16:29 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Sen. Rand Paul Gets It: Containment and Radical Islam
The text of a speech delivered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) at the Heritage Foundation on February 6, 2013.
Long, but worth it.
Posted by: || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The more I hear from this fellow, the more I like what I am hearing.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 11:41 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Pal Security Arrest 25 Hamas Cell Members In WB
[Ynet] Paleostinian security forces have placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
25 Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, hard boyz in the West Bank, mostly in the Ramallah region. Explosives were also found.

A Hamas source claimed that the suspects were in possesion of funds to distribute to Hamas prisoners in the West Bank.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority


India-Pakistan
Karachi tells a tale of shame
[Dawn] THE government may rightly take pride in its legislative record but its abject failure in controlling lawlessness in the country's commercial capital may shame and haunt it for long.

There is no denying that the government's policy of unifying all parliamentary forces in order to remove distortions inserted in the constitution by two military dictators worked wonders. It also deserves plaudits for the National Finance Commission Award which will enhance and support provincial autonomy.

But blaming a steady slide in the law and order situation in 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...
, which is often likened to the country's jugular, on the legacy of dictators, even if partially true, would hardly on its own have improved the security of life and limb of its many million inhabitants.

And Bloody Karachi represents the worst example of what happens when various state institutions work at cross purposes. The Sindh coalition government, the Supreme Court and the agencies entrusted with the nation's security must all share the blame.

While in the past, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement
...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead...
(MQM) was blamed, with considerable justification, for most of the violence in the city, a look at the contemporary scene tells one that the story is no longer as straightforward as it was in the past.

Various political parties and players in Bloody Karachi have cried wolf so many times that their credibility has been diminished. So, when the MQM talked of 'Talibanisation' many saw it as a euphemism for its unease at the influx of Pakhtuns from Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
and South Wazoo displaced by the army action there.

But now reports in the independent media, such as Herald magazine, are documenting instances of the Pak Taliban taking over several strategically important city localities. Reports are very clear of the extent of Taliban control, even if not popularity, over these areas.

It is strange that nobody was alarmed when within a matter of months dozens of Awami National Party workers/leaders were killed and the party's flags removed from entire localities. The political blame game continued but nobody pinpointed the real threat.

All this while the agencies tasked with keeping an eye on the Taliban were busy making sure that the Lyari
...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot....
gangs could be organised into another formidable armed force in the city to counter the predominant armed political player.

Street crime and extortion peaked, assassinations became the norm, and protest shutdowns became the order of the day though they didn't achieve anything beyond delivering another lethal blow to economic activity in a city that needs to feed millions of mouths each day.

Speaking anonymously, some Sindh police officials also say that the Supreme Court's extraordinary interest in appointments in the department from the start of the government's term has also created a leadership crisis as the bosses aren't sure how long they'll last in office.

"This has resulted in a tentative approach and nervousness very quickly travels down to all ranks. Instead of sure-footed handling that such a critical situation warrants, what we have are half-baked, unsure measures," said one officer.

But he was also clear that despite this rather "unnecessary" handicap all the police personnel were doing their best at the individual level. "You only need look at how many coppers have died in the line of duty in Bloody Karachi in recent years to appreciate that."

For a city the size of Bloody Karachi both in terms of its spread and population the strength of the police force is wholly inadequate. Count out from the investigative and law enforcement pool those serving to protect the so-called VIPs in a highly volatile environment and you are left with next to nothing.

The record of the better-equipped and funded paramilitary Rangers is no improvement on that of the much-maligned police force. Every journalist has counted the escort vehicles of elected officials but very few have written about the motorcade of the army major general who serves as the Rangers director general.

The only positive aspect of the Rangers in theory is that being under army command, they aren't susceptible to political influence, unlike the police force. But like the services' intelligence agencies it won't be correct to say they may not have an agenda at all.

The major failing of the elected coalition government, where initially most elected parties were represented, was not to have strengthened the police force and taken firm steps to depoliticise it. Parties that collaborated on major constitutional reform couldn't do the same in such a critical area.

And this failing will continue to haunt them. In the current term, the two major coalition partners were together in the province as well as the centre but there is no guarantee that the next term will see the same.

If the next elections' result once again brings them together at the helm at least in Sindh, they will only have themselves to blame if a different set-up at the federal level belonging to other parties sends their administration packing on the grounds of lawlessness in the city.

Given that the coalition, which should have taken the lead, and other key state institutions are either uninterested or clueless when it comes to arresting the bloodshed and mayhem resulting from ethnic and faith-based killings, the future doesn't look any better.

Neither the PPP nor the MQM have demonstrated the vision to safeguard their own long-term interests. A destabilised Bloody Karachi will threaten their political future rather than a third party's at least for the foreseeable future.

One will have to see if the 'neutral' caretaker set-up can address this critical area in its short tenure of eight to 10 weeks. The mandate of the caretaker government will clearly be to ensure the holding of free, fair and credible elections. Perhaps it'll see stemming the violence as a step towards that goal.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Arabia
Yemen Asks Security Council to Help Investigate 'Suspicious Weapons Cargo'
[Yemen Post] Yemen has officially asked the UN security council to help investigate a weapons cargo which has been recently seized off the country, the state news agency reported on Friday.

The Yemeni authorities have suspected Iran of shipping the weapons, which included anti-aircraft missiles, to an gang as part of the Iranian support of to Shiites in the far north and separatists in the south to destabilize the country.

Iran has denied any link to the cargo, which was part of other several arms shipments Yemen has recently seized at its ports including pistols and other equipment produced in Turkey.

The Yemeni representative to the UN Jamal Al-Salal handed the Yemeni request to Gary Francis, the chair of the UN security council committee on monitoring the sanctions against the Iranian republic, Saba said.

The request was made after preliminary investigations by the Yemeni authorities revealed that Iran was involved in the weapons cargo, according to the agency.

Yemen's leader Abdrabu Mansour Hadi has several time accused Iran of seeking to destabilizing his country.

The accusations included that Iran is providing financial and arms support to the Shiite 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" ...
Group and violent, armed factions which are seeking the separation of the south. Hadi also revealed the arrest of several Iranian spy cells but Iran has rejected the accusations.

Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [7 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


China-Japan-Koreas
U.S. Congress to Ban Food Aid to N.Korea
Except that there's an exception...
The U.S. Congress is expected to pass a bill banning food aid to North Korea this year. The same bill was put before the Congress last year but was shelved due to partisan dispute over the federal debt, extending the current Farm Act for another nine months.

A congressional source on Wednesday said Senate majority leader Harry Reid re-introduced the Farm Bill late last month prohibiting the diversion of funds raised for foreign aid to send food to the North. The U.S. has given food aid to the North from funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The bill would ban the practice until 2018 except if the president grants an exception he considers in the U.S. interest.
And there it is. Champ can do as he wishes. And we wonder why he feels so imperial -- Congress not only lets him get away with it, they write it into the law.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Like the Senate in Imperial Rome. A debating society.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/10/2013 14:28 Comments || Top||

#2  See also CHINESE DEFENSE > THE DPRK SHOULD INVADE THE SOUTH NOW.

ARTIC = DPRK is at or very near to decisive "make-or-break" point, Better for the DPRK to wage war now agz the ROK or US-ROK [Japan?] + risk Chinese MilPol intervention in DPRK to its advantage than to keep getting weaker-n-weaker steadily but certainly vee China, US, ROK + every other Nation in NE + East Asia???

* WORLD NEWS > SOUTH KOREA ON "FIRST STRIKE ALERT" OVER [North Korea] NUCLEAR TESTS.

versus

* FREEREPUBLIC > [Zero Hedge] IS CHINA MOBILIZING FOR A WAR AGZ JAPAN? Various NDTV Repors or claims of mass PLA Troop, Vehicle deployments in Pert-acknowledged "strategic" Fujian + Zhejian provinces [logistics support].

MAP = provinces are offshore = right next to TAIWAN which is China's main/ultimate focii.

Lest we fergit, CHINA wants the Senkakus [Okinawa?] to guard the sea/maritime approaches to, from its desired future PLA Milbases in [post-Unification] TAIWAN. "CONTINENTAL SHELF" = UW SEAFLOOR RESOURCES = GOOD-TO-ALSO-HAVE.

* SAME > [Japan Times] CHINESE VESSELS BUSY CIRCLING THE SENKAKUS AGAIN.

FYI, besides allegedly locking on its weapons radars agz Nippon JMSDF Ship + Helo, China during same suppos scrambled another 10 PLAAF strike-fighters as a just-in-case???

* WORLD MILITARY FORUM > SOUTH KOREA "CENTRAL DAILY" MEDIA: US, SOUTH KOREA DO NOT RULE OUT PREEMPTIVE MILITARY STRIKE AGZ NORTH KOREA OVER NUCLEAR TESTS.

* SAME > US OFFICIALS: NORTH KOREA MAY TEST-FIRE KN-08 "MUSUDAN" NUCLEAR-CAPABLE INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSLES DURING THIRD NUCLEAR TEST.

* TOPIX > [Stars & Stripes] IFF SEQUESTRATION CUTS TAKE EFFECT, USS "GEORGE WASHINGTON" MAY BE ONLY US CARRIER READY TO RESPOND IN A CRISIS.

Ahhh yes, NORTH KOREA vs. the "MIGHTY GEORGE" once again.

Some MilBloggers-Posters opine that "sequestration" + related woes gives the Bammer a PCorrect-Deniable excuse to allow China + PLA to militarily forcibly change the map in NE Asia quyickly before the US can PCorrectly intervene on behalf of its Ally(s) but I won't get into that now.

* TOPIX > VARIOUS = US TO BECOME A SECOND-RATE POWER.

* CHINESE DEFENSE > CHINESE SHIP CONTINUES PATROLLING DIAOYU ISLANDS WATERS.

CHINA REJECTED JAPAN-PROPOSED "ISLAND-SHARING" AS PER THE SENKAKUS, BUT WILL CHINA ACCEPT THE IDEA VEE THE "WEAK/DECLINING" = "SECOND-RATE" [worse/lower?] USA - Will China demand + get US-accepted "Base Rights" to Guam-CNMI e.g. PLAN/Navy + PLAAF in Guam [NW Field] or CNMI???

Will Guam "capsize" like Celine "Titanic" Dion's mighty but vulnerable USN Battleship USS "Oklahoma" wid the USDOD + PLA here???

[HUGO CHAVEZ ISLAND,LAND-SINKING
"EARTHQUAKE/TECTONIC BOMBS" + "TITANIC" THEME here].

The good news is that it taint an ever-increasing-in-size Asteroid(s), Sl9 Jupiter Chunks, Solar Storm, or the Himalayan Super-Caldera.

But once again, I digress ...
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/11/2013 0:13 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian troops, rebels clash over Damascus highway
[FOXNEWS] Syrian troops backed by warplanes battled rebels for control of a key highway in Damascus
...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy...
Saturday, a day after opposition forces cut the strategic artery as part of what they say are efforts to lay the groundwork for an eventual assault on the heavily defended capital.

Rebels have been on the offensive in Damascus since launching a series of attacks on government positions on Wednesday. They brought their fight to within a mile of the heart of the capital on Friday, seizing army checkpoints and cutting a key highway as they pressed their campaign for the city, the seat of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's
Terror of Aleppo ...
power.

The fighting is the heaviest to hit Damascus since July, when a first rebel assault managed to capture several neighborhoods before a punishing government counteroffensive. After that rebel foray, the regime quickly reasserted its control over the city, which has spared Damascus much of the violence and destruction that the civil war has wrought on other major urban centers.

Both the rebels and the government consider the fight for Damascus the most likely endgame in a civil war that has already killed more than 60,000 people. The city is heavily fortified and dotted with armed checkpoints, and activists say it is surrounded with three of the most loyal divisions of the army, including the Republican Guard and the feared 4th Division, commanded by Assad's brother Maher.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


India-Pakistan
Talks with TTP
[Dawn] THE timing was likely a coincidence, but the stark contrast in the comments made on Thursday by Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani
... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI...
and Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
says much about the confused response of the state to the threat from militancy. In a meeting with outgoing Isaf commander in Afghanistan Gen John Allen, the Pakistain army chief is quoted in an Isaf blurb as having acknowledged that "there is more to do". Yes, there is more to do, Mr Sharif echoed in a statement of his own, but it is for the government to better negotiate with the Pak Taliban. What is particularly striking about Mr Sharif's statement is how it contained not a word of condemnation of the TTP's violence or its agenda. Instead, the PML-N supremo saw fit to throw in several digs at the government for its "track record" of unreliability.

Since Mr Sharif has raised the issue of a track record, it would make sense to examine the track record of the Taliban themselves in both honouring previous peace agreements and in carrying out ugly and savage attacks against both state and society repeatedly. Which peace agreement have the Taliban ever adhered to? Have they evicted the foreign terr-orists operating among them on Pak soil? Have they renounced ties with Al Qaeda? Have they laid down their arms and accepted the democratic system? Have they exhibited any tolerance for the basic principles of the Pak constitution? The answer to each of those questions is no -- so perhaps the more relevant question for Mr Sharif, and others advocating peace deals with the TTP at this stage, is: who will guarantee that the TTP will abide by the terms of an acceptable peace deal, and how? It's almost perverse that the offer of talks by the Pak Taliban has come in the middle of an alarming wave of violence carried out by them -- and yet some politicians are advocating extending the hand of peace to groups that want nothing more than to hack off that arm and plunge a knife into the heart of the very idea of a modern state.

Sifting through the possible reasons for the TTP's offer of talks, it is apparent that driving a wedge in politics and society was a likely priority. As Gen Kayani and his army have lamented -- though of course there is much more than meets the eye there -- the state cannot win a war in which society and politicians are divided about the very necessity of that war. Mr Sharif appears to have taken the TTP's bait and the country will be all the worse off for it.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Delacroix's iconic 'Liberty' intact after vandalism
[FRANCE24] One of the most iconic symbols of the French Revolution, Eugène Delacroix's 1830 "Liberty Leading the People", was defaced on Thursday by a 28-year-old woman with a black marker at the Louvre's branch in the northern city of Lens.

The famous work shows a bare-chested female figure bearing aloft the French Tricolor with one hand and a musket in the other.

"The integrity of the work has not been affected, as the inscription was superficial and remained on the varnished surface without reaching the layer of paint," a Louvre spokesperson said in a statement on Friday, amid fears that a piece of France's national heritage had been permanently defaced. Specialists have since removed the mark, which measured approximately 30 centimetres (12 inches).

The painting was immortalised after it was featured on 100-franc bank notes from 1978 to 1995.

Motive unknown

According to judicial sources, the woman scrawled "AE911" on the canvas using an indelible black marker.

On Friday morning, French media were speculating that the graffiti could be a reference to the "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth" group, which believes that the 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center could not have resulted solely from the impact of two fuel-heavy airliners.

"We won't know if there is any political significance until police questioning ends," the museum's Communications Director Raphäel Wolff told FRANCE 24 on Friday morning.

"She is still under arrest and the state prosecutor is here at the museum investigating this," he added.

The vandal is due to appear before a judge on Saturday, and prosecutors have ordered that she undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

"Liberty" is the showpiece work at the Louvre-Lens, which opened its doors for the first time on December 4.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Could'a been worse, coud'a been BR549 the mark of Sample.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/10/2013 6:39 Comments || Top||

#2  It's a beautiful painting. Lucky thing the psycho was an ignorant dingbat, incapable of effective destruction, much less creation. Decades of prison life would be appropriate, nonetheless.
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 02/10/2013 10:33 Comments || Top||

#3  On Friday morning, French media were speculating that the graffiti could be a reference to the "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth" group, which believes that the 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center could not have resulted solely from the impact of two fuel-heavy airliners.

any architect or engineer who believes that intense fire couldn't melt or weaken steel leading to progressive collapse should have their license removed. Idiots
Posted by: Frank G || 02/10/2013 10:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Thank you, Shipman.

Now, when folks ask me how to get to be a star in Hollywood I tell 'em it's easy. First you get a handfull of marbles and stuff 'em in your mouth. Go down to the beach and start talking over the sound of the waves and with all them marbles in you mouth. And, by the time you've lost all your marbles, you'll be a star.
Posted by: Junior Sample || 02/10/2013 20:58 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
2 Malaysians Charged With Promoting Terrorism
[Ynet] Malaysian prosecutors have charged an al-Qaeda-linked former army captain and a woman with inciting terrorist acts that could have involved violence in Syria.

Yazid Sufaat, who previously spent seven years in detention without trial, and Halimah Hussein face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Yazid's been romping around for awhile in Malaysia, one those connect the dots kind of guys. He was the host of a meeting attended by several al-Q bigs, including at least two of the 9-11 hijackers -- Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. He helped provide cover for Zacarias Moussaoui in his wanderings. He was jugged in, I think, 2002, when he came back from Afghanistan. He's a biochemist by training and had been an instructor at al-Q's Derunta biowarfare training camp. He was held until November, 2008. He was released because he promised to be good:
"We released him as he had shown remorse and repentance after almost seven years of rehabilitation,"said Malaysian Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan.
He was one of the major links between al-Q and Jemaah Islamiyah, being BFFs with Hambali. Malaysia didn't take that sort of thing nearly as seriously as Indonesia ended up taking it after the Bali bombings. Had he been in Indonesia, he probably would have ended up with some serious jug time, if not a death penalty.

This article starring:
HALIMAH HUSEINal-Qaeda
YAZID SUFAATal-Qaeda
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
UK to sell military equipment to Uzbekistan after Afghan withdrawal
Great Britain will sell military hardware to Uzbekistan in exchange for safe passage for the thousands of vehicles and containers that are to be brought home from Afghanistan, RIA Novosti reported on Friday, Times reported with reference to British Defense Minister Philip Hammond. London plans to complete withdrawing troops from Afghanistan by late 2014.

According to the draft agreement, which has not been discussed by the British Parliament, Uzbekistan will ensure transporting British equipment through its territory. During his visit to the Afghan province, Hammond said that the treaty is under ratification.

"We do not sell weapons that can be used for internal repression of any country," he said. "However, after 2014 Uzbekistan will face new risks. The matter rests not only in protection from the rebels or the Islamists, but fight against crime and drug trafficking."

The minister said that the British military equipment that can be sold at a reduced price to Tashkent, will help increase security at the Uzbek-Afghan border, which will be vulnerable after withdrawing the international coalition from Afghanistan.

According to the British military leadership, up to 80 tons of military equipment is taken out of Afghanistan every two days. But after the 11 year operation, there are still 6,500 containers with ammunition and 2,600 vehicles.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Iranian Hezbollah's Candidate for Iran Prez KHARAZI can't take back Russia - OOOOOOPPPPSSS, my bad, I meant Taijikistan - widout Uzbekistan, now can he???

* FYI CHINESE MIL FORUM POSTER MAP = shows A FUTURE RUSSIA as ALL LANDS WEST OF THE CAUCASUS [Kievan Rus = Muscovy], wid all LANDS + STANS EAST OF SAME AS BELONGING TO FUTURE CHINA???

Another OWG Bikini Barbecue bites the dust.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/10/2013 23:17 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Teacher slaying suspect killed in southern Thailand
The man suspected of slaying teacher Chonlathee Charoenchol in Narathiwat province last month was gunned down in a clash with security forces in Pattani provnince on Saturday.

A joint task force of police and soldiers raided a house around 11:30 a.m. after receiving a tip that a wanted terrorist militant suspect was hiding there. Knowing that he was surrounded, Suhaidee Tahe opened fire at them and fled into the nearby forest. Soldiers and police shot back and after a 10-minute gunfight, they found his dead body lying with a 9mm handgun beside him.

According to police, Suhaidee was a top leader of a terrorist separatist group in Bacho district of Narathiwat, where he had lived. They said he was wanted under eight warrants from Bacho police station and another warrant from Saiburi for involvement in bomb attacks, killing state officials, burning schools and most recently for murdering Chonlathee.

The murder of Chonlathee Charoenchol shocked the government and security authorities for its cold-blooded nature. The teacher was shot at lunchtime on Jan 23 in front of 292 students and 15 other teachers in the cafeteria of Ban Tanyong School.

On that day, four men arrived on two motorcycles and headed for the canteen. A gunman approached Chonlathee, said a few words to him and shot a 9mm handgun twice at his head. The gunman then drove away in Chonlathee's car.

A total of 158 teachers have been slain since the resumption of violence in the country's three southernmost provinces in 2004.
Posted by: ryuge || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Thai Insurgency


Arabia
Yemen Says Latest Iranian Weapons 'Revealed Conspiracies against Its Stability'
[Yemen Post] Yemeni security bigshots said on Saturday the weapons cargo seized recently at the Aden port has exposed Iran's attempts to destabilize Yemen which is preparing for a comprehensive dialogue conference.

At a presser, interior minister, Abdulqadir Qahtan, said the weapons were seized onboard an Iranian vessel, Jihan 1, and included anti-aircraft missiles and dangerous explosives and equipment.

Congratulating the Iranian people and government on the national day, he criticized the plots to destabilize Yemen through smuggling dangerous weapons. "Yemen is a Mohammedan country and its people are in need of food not cargoes of dangerous explosives and weapons designed to destroy humans and lands," he said.

At the news conference, chair of the national security system, Ali Hassan Al-Ahmadi, said Yemen is suffering from increasing smuggling of weapons and that the recently seized arms cargoes were very dangerous to the country's security.

"The cargoes should not be blamed on arms dealers and saboteurs. They included cleansing and dangerous explosives which means governmental and systemic bodies have been behind," he said.

On Friday, the state news agency Saba revealed that the Yemeni government had asked for help from the UN security council to investigate the latest weapons cargo pointing to Iran as being involved in that cargo.

"The recent arms cargoes were different from those smuggled by arms dealers which usually include light weapons such as pistols and machine guns," Al-Ahmadi said. "The latest cargo revealed clear evidence there are conspiracies to affect Yemen's stability and security".

He affirmed that Yemen has the right to defend its people and lands and will sue those involved in comprising to destabilize it.

Another interior ministry official revealed the complicated way the Iranian weapons were smuggled onboard a diesel transport ship saying it was carrying 73 tonnes of diesel and about 40 tonnes of dangerous weapons.

"The weapons were hidden and smuggled in a very complicated way inside one of the diesel tanks onboard the ship. The authorities discovered the cargo after hard search but definitely after obtaining reliable information about it," the official continued.

In recent months, several arms cargoes have been placed in durance vile
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
at Yemeni ports including Turkish pistols and equipment to produce light weapons.

Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Africa Horn
Sudan militia kills 17 civilians
[Bangla Daily Star] Khartoum-backed militia in Sudan's South Kordofan state have killed 17 civilians, rebels said yesterday, adding to tensions with South Sudan over a failure to implement security agreements.

The rebels accused a group of ethnic South Sudanese of ambushing a civilian lorry on Friday at Abu Nuwara, about 80 kilometres from the border with South Sudan's Upper Nile state.

In addition to the dead, 35 people were maimed, the incident occurred in a government-controlled area.

South Sudan's army last Sunday accused Sudan of launching a deadly air assault along the frontier in Upper Nile state, and local government officials in South Kordofan reportedly blamed South Sudanese militia for attacking nomads on the Sudanese side of the boundary.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan


Iraq
Iraqi Christian leader: Arab Spring promoting bloodshed
[Egypt Independent] The newly appointed patriarch of Iraq's largest Christian community said on Saturday that the Arab Spring had been hijacked by narrow interests and had promoted tension and bloodshed.

Asked about the impacts on Christians of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East that eventually led to the ouster of strongmen in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya and the conflict in Syria, the head of the Chaldean Church Louis Sako said the changes had initially signaled hope.

"But unfortunately, it went in a different direction, and was taken over by a narrow faction," Sako told AFP in an interview.

"We are watching the situation in the Arab Spring countries. Where is the spring? There are fights, there is tension, and there is blood and corruption."

Sako was selected as the new patriarch of the Iraq-based Chaldean Church on 1 February, replacing Emmanuel III Delly who retired in December after reaching the upper age limit of 85.

The Chaldean church, which has 700,000 followers and uses Aramaic -- the language that Jesus Christ would have spoken -- belongs to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.

But along with other Iraqi Christian communities, it suffered persecution, forced flight and killings in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, many thousands fled after 44 worshippers and two priests were killed in an attack on a Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad on 31 October 2010, an atrocity claimed by Al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq


India-Pakistan
Sticks and stones
[Dawn] WHEN President Morsi of Egypt was quoted calling Zionists the descendants of "apes and pigs", there was not a ripple of comment or criticism in the Mohammedan world. And yet much of his recent visit to Germany was overshadowed by hostile questioning from the media.

His clarification that his words had been taken out of context cut little ice with his audience.

This silence in the Mohammedan world reflects the deep anti-Semitism rife in the Islamic world. To most Mohammedans, there is no difference between 'Jew', 'Zionist' and 'Israeli'. This ignorance and prejudice is reinforced by the virtual absence of any personal contact between Mohammedans and Jews.

Morsi, in his 2010 statement, went on to urge Mohammedans to bring up their children and grandchildren to hate Zionists. Now being pressed by the United States and others to publicly repudiate his earlier rant, Morsi is caught between the demands of his position as president of an American ally and the dogma of the Moslem Brüderbund.

But among Mohammedan leaders, Morsi is hardly alone in his anti-Semitism. President Ahmadinejad of Iran has never made a secret of his views on Jews and Zionists. In September 2008, he assailed them at the United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
General Assembly as "a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists" dominating financial and political centres in Europe and the US in "a deceitful, complex and furtive manner".

This charge resonates deeply among many simple Mohammedans who see a secret Jewish plot to dominate the world. This has its roots in a document called Protocols of the Elders of Zion that was forged and disseminated by the czarist secret police in 1903. Despite being discredited decades ago, the Protocols continue to inform Mohammedan attitudes towards Jews.

However,
alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk...
it was not until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 that Mohammedans across the world began to express their anger and hatred against Jews openly. Unfortunately, they draw no distinction between Jews and Zionists, although many Jews are not Zionists and many Zionists are not Jews.

Much of the support for Israel and the Zionist movement in the US, for example, comes not from Jews but from Christian Evangelists. They believe that the End of Days will come when the Jews have reclaimed the Promised Land pledged to them by God. The Chosen will then ascend to Heaven. Evangelists are convinced that they will be in this select band that, ironically, excludes Jews.

Mohammedans often argue that when Jews were persecuted across Europe, and were being exiled and subjected to bloody pogroms, they were protected in the Islamic world. There is much truth in this, although the record is mixed. Often, Jews were treated as dhimmis and forced to pay jaziya, a special tax levied on non-Mohammedans. As second-class citizens, they were often made to wear distinguishing marks.

But it is certainly true that compared to their lot in most of Europe, they were far better off in Mohammedan countries where many of them were very successful. However,
a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package...
following the creation of Israel, thousands of Arab Jews migrated to the new state. Now, very few live in Mohammedan countries.

This mass migration has meant that few Mohammedans have ever met a Jew, and are therefore willing to believe any slur applied to them. So when Morsi described them as "bloodsuckers who attack the Paleostinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs", few Mohammedans questioned his choice of words.

It is certainly true that the Paleostinian conflict has fuelled the virulent anti-Semitism rife in the Mohammedan world today. Over the years, I have lost count of the many articles critical of the Israeli occupation of Paleostinian lands that I have written. Indeed, many of my European and American friends have voiced their revulsion at Israeli policies in the West Bank.

I should mention here that several of these friends are Jewish. It would thus be a mistake to assume that all Jews blindly support Israel's expansionist land grab and its oppression of the Paleostinian people.

But while the Paleostinian tragedy might explain some of the anti-Semitism rampant among Mohammedans, it's not the whole story. I suspect there's a strong element of envy that underlies these negative feelings: here is a small group of people who, despite being homeless and persecuted for centuries, has managed to achieve so much against all odds.

Mohammedans tend to credit American support for Israel's success. While it is certainly true that US military equipment has been crucial to Israel's domination, its soldiers have fought bravely and have been brilliantly led. Israeli high-tech factories export their state-of-the-art equipment across the world. Israeli agronomists have transformed the desert.

Jewish scientists and writers have won scores of Nobel prizes. Indeed, this tiny community has contributed to finance, the arts and the sciences out of all proportion to its numbers. But in our blind anger, we overlook these glittering achievements. Even in terms of Islamic texts, Jews are 'ahle-kitab', or 'people of the Book'. While there are many negative references to them as well, the fact is that they are the followers of the oldest of the three major Abrahamic faiths.

So while Mohammedans can (and mostly do) oppose Israeli policies, this should not blind them to the dictates of common decency and good sense. Calling adversaries names might assuage our anger, but it does not change reality. I am reminded of the childhood rhyme: "Sticks and stones may break my bones/But words will never harm me."

Apart from moral considerations, practical politics demands a more mature approach. When people like Morsi and Ahmadinejad resort to such childish and hateful rhetoric, the rest of the world tends to be more, and not less, supportive of Israel. Israeli leaders like Netanyahu can underline this anti-Semitism to their friends and detractors in the West, and ask for their help against such implacable foes.

Israelis have long equated criticism of their country with anti-Semitism, seeking to use this ploy to silence its critics. Even Jewish detractors of Israel are subjected to this slur by the powerful Zionist lobby in the US. But by using shrill anti-Semitic rhetoric, Mohammedans have undercut their own credibility. Now, even rational criticism of Israel is ascribed to anti-Semitism. Ultimately, this has damaged the Paleostinian cause.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...I should mention here that several of these friends are Jewish. It would thus be a mistake to assume that all Jews blindly support Israel's expansionist land grab and its oppression of the Paleostinian people....


really??
The Jews, living on THEIR land constitutes a "land grab" and oppression? That's why Israel has walls and defensive protection systems, because they are oppressing the rockets and missiles being fired at them.

In conclusion: F#CK YOU, you useful idiot.
Posted by: Mikey Hunt || 02/10/2013 0:29 Comments || Top||

#2  The author's name is Irfan Husain, Mr Hunt.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 6:29 Comments || Top||

#3  The Obama administration uses the PR firm of Porter-Novelli. Just a thought.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 11:49 Comments || Top||

#4 
The Porter-Novelli Approach

In today’s global and socially networked world, step change is increasingly not an option and profoundly new solutions are often required. In our world, yesterday’s basement blogger is today’s citizen journalist and a mere observer in a crowd now becomes an engaged and influential participant. Technology is not the only cause of these shifts, but it has turbo-charged our industry. Everything we do at Porter Novelli is designed to achieve one goal: to transform the opinions, beliefs and behaviors of those who matter most to our clients. We make this happen through a consistent and systematic approach that pairs a deep, data-driven understanding of what makes people think and act the way they do with sophisticated metrics that enable us to identify, monitor, manage and engage the most influential audiences.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 11:54 Comments || Top||

#5  Sweet Jesus... thanks for scaring the hell out me Besoeker.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/10/2013 13:39 Comments || Top||

#6  We make this happen through a consistent and systematic approach that pairs a deep, data-driven understanding of what makes people think and act the way they do with sophisticated metrics that enable us to identify, monitor, manage and engage the most influential audiences.

Ick. At least Saul Alinsky was upfront about what he was up to.
Posted by: Dopey Sinatra9196 || 02/10/2013 16:03 Comments || Top||

#7  Much of the support for Israel and the Zionist movement in the US, for example, comes not from Jews but from Christian Evangelists. They believe that the End of Days will come when the Jews have reclaimed the Promised Land pledged to them by God. The Chosen will then ascend to Heaven.
How real is this or is it just another left-wing canard?
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 16:29 Comments || Top||

#8  The Great Tribulation
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 16:50 Comments || Top||

#9  Thanks Besoeker. I'm aware of the Great Tribulation. What I'm curious about is the influence of the Tribulators on US policy.
Posted by: tipper || 02/10/2013 17:31 Comments || Top||

#10  IMHO - most Americans hold Israel in high esteem because of their similar cultural mores, David against the Arab Goliaths, general assholish behavior of their neighbors, and the only democratic state in the region. Not the End Of Days thing
Posted by: Frank G || 02/10/2013 18:17 Comments || Top||

#11  most of the evangelical community that I interact with favor Israel (modern country0 because it is a reflection of the inheritance we have as Christians. I am yet to hear any proclamations about support of the modern country outside of a call to the promises of the OT... I base this on a sample of roughly 75 evangelists whom I have personally heard speak.

many have talked on the subject of the role of Israel and the tribulation, but in the cases i have witnessed, that was a teaching of prophesy; not a call to support Israel to hurry the second coming.
Posted by: abu do you love || 02/10/2013 19:43 Comments || Top||

#12  No Mo Euro. ALL the nations will officially be against Israel. All Christians, along with the Holy Spirit will cease to exist on the earth. Islamic nations all around Israel will launch an attack on Israel, only to be wiped out by Nuclear explosions and a resulting earth quake.

A man will make peace to the world. A false prophet will support him from Rome. The Jewish temple will be approved to be rebuilt on the spot where the Dome of the Rock is destroyed in the Islamic conflict. After the first 3 1/2 years the world ruler will have his image placed in the Jewish temple to be worshipped and sacrifices will be orderred to be stopped. He will now be god of the world. The religious leader from Rome will support that. No one can buy or sell without a mark by number or his name on their skin as worshippers of him or they will be killed. Resistance to that will be a constant conflict even to the final vicious battle at Armageddan that could end all known human life on earth, thus the return of Christ to establish His Kingdom at the end of the 7 year tribulation.
Posted by: Dino Shomomp7692 || 02/10/2013 21:07 Comments || Top||


Europe
French Communist Party drops hammer and sickle
[FRANCE24] The most widely-recognised symbol of communism worldwide -- the Hammer and Sickle -- will no longer appear on French Communist Party membership cards. The party faithful are worried the decision bodes ill for a party with deep roots in France.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  How about the seal of the city of Chicago instead, stands for about the same rhetoric and utter corruption that the previous symbol represented?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/10/2013 9:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Lose the failed economic philosophy and you might have a chance.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/10/2013 12:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Too bad the Obama seal is being used....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/10/2013 12:29 Comments || Top||

#4  The new communism means never having to work, so a hammer and sickle no longer apply
Posted by: Glomoger Glaiter2792 || 02/10/2013 12:55 Comments || Top||

#5  On whose head?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 13:09 Comments || Top||

#6  Too bad the Obama seal is being used....

A blue 'D' within a circle has been taken as well.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/10/2013 13:10 Comments || Top||

#7  And the 100-125% tax bracket on wealthy Frenchies???

Just out of curiosity.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/10/2013 23:22 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Lawyer among four killed
[Dawn] Four men, including a senior lawyer, were bumped off in the city on Friday, police said.

They said that Mian Mohammad Tariq, 55, the senior advocate of the Sindh High Court, was rubbed out in Gulistan-e-Jauhar on Friday evening.

They said that an armed man fired a single shot at him and escaped after the victim parked his car in the parking-lot of Haroon Royal City.

The victim suffered one bullet wound in the back. The bullet reportedly pierced through his body. He was rushed to a nearby private hospital where he died due to a loss of blood, Shah Faisal SP Zahid Hussain said.

Later, the police shifted the body to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities.

The police said that the victim took cases of civil nature. Currently, he was pursuing a case in which a piece of land in the Khokhrapar area had allegedly been encroached upon by a builder. He was representing the other party, which claimed to be a rightful owner of the land, they said.

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...
Bar Association president Naeem Qureshi announced that lawyers would observe a complete boycott of the legal proceedings on Saturday in protest against the killing.

'Sectarian' killing

A man was rubbed out in a North Bloody Karachi locality apparently for sectarian reasons on Friday, police said.

They said that assailants riding a cycle of violence intercepted Imran Ahmed, 35, near the Nagan traffic intersection when he was heading towards a mosque to offer Friday prayers, fired at him and rode away.

The maimed was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where he died during treatment. He was an employee of the education department and his office was located in New Bloody Karachi's sector 5-E, the police added.

They said that it appeared that the murder was an incident of sectarian killing.

A front man for the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat claimed that the victim was a party sympathiser.

Following the killing, tension gripped the locality.

Killing in Orangi Town

A young man was rubbed out in Orangi Town on Friday, police said.

They said that assailants riding a cycle of violence shot up Salahuddin Khan near Qasba Colony intersection within the remit of the Pirabad cop shoppe and rode away. He was struck down in his prime.

The body was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities.

The police said that the victim had no political affiliation and it appeared that the incident could be a result of some personal enmity.

Youth rubbed out

A young man was bumped off near Taj Medical Complex on Friday morning.

Police said that gunnies riding a cycle of violence targeted Aamir Shahzad, 35, near a juice shop within the remit of the Brigade cop shoppe and fled.

The victim was ferried to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where he was pronounced dead.
He's dead, Jim!
on arrival, the police said.

He sustained three bullet wounds. He was not affiliated with any political or religious party, they added.

A case (FIR 17/2013) was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistain Penal Code on a complaint of a relative of the victim against unknown persons.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Every cloud"?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 6:24 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Rebels close in on heart of Damascus
[FRANCE24] Syrian government forces battled on Friday to recapture sections of the Damascus
...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
ring road from rebels pressing in on the capital, opposition activists said.

War planes fired rockets around Jobar, Qaboun and Barzeh neighbourhoods, the sources said. Heavy fighting
... as opposed to the more usual name-calling or slapsy...
was taking place at the Hermalleh junction on the ring road just south of Jobar, which had been seized by the rebels.

Rebel fighters based in the eastern Ghouta region broke through government defensive lines on Wednesday, capturing parts of the road and entering Jobar, 2 km (one mile) from security bases in the heart of the city.

Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
, struggling to contain a revolt in which 60,000 people have been killed since March 2011, has lost control of large parts of Syria but his forces, backed by air power, have so far kept rebels away from central Damascus.

Captain Islam Alloush of the Liwa al-Islam rebel unit said his fighters did not plan to stay on the road. Their control of surrounding areas already rendered the road useless as an army supply line.

"They are fighting off the regime forces but they do not intend to stay at Hermalleh if their losses mount. The objective of this operation is a slow advance toward Damascus," he told Rooters.

Snipers

Alloush said the rebels had posted snipers in Jobar, where army roadblocks had been overrun or surrounded.

A university student living in Jobar said control of the Harmalleh junction was changing hands between the rebels and the army. By attacking the road, he said, the rebels had linked Jobar with the eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held expanse of suburbs and farmland adjoining Damascus.

The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition activist group, said 44 people were killed in Damascus on Friday. They said 46 people were killed on Thursday, mostly from army shelling.

With a supply line open to military bases on the coast, Assad's core forces from his minority Alawite sect are still based comfortably in the Qasioun mountains on the northwest edge of Damascus, from where they have been shelling the suburbs.

Rebel commanders say they have made mistakes in the past, entering Damascus and other cities without first cutting army supply lines.

Fawaz Tello, a veteran opposition campaigner connected with rebels in Damascus, said the operation was part of a slow encroachment by rebels on the capital.

"Even if the rebels withdraw from the ring road, it will become, like other parts of the capital, too dangerous for the regime to use it," said Tello, speaking from Berlin.

"We are witnessing a 'two steps forward, one step back' rebel strategy. It is a long way before we can say Assad has become besieged in Damascus, but when another main road is rendered useless for him the noose tightens and his control further erodes."

Assad, aged 47, has been president of Syria since the death in 2000 of his father Hafez al-Assad, the "Lion of Damascus", who had ruled for 30 years.

Resentment against the dynasty's repressive ruled boiled into pro-democracy protests in March 2011 and the country has slid into full-scale civil war, with rebel forces based around the country's Sunni majority. Assad is backed by Shi'te power Iran.

The prospect of a negotiated settlement is slim. But Syrian Information Minister Amra al-Zubi said on Friday the opposition was welcome to come to Damascus to discuss Syria's future in line with Assad's proposals for a national dialogue.

Assad's main foes, who have mostly been driven into exile, had already rejected the proposal.

Zubi did not respond to an initiative by opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib, who heads the Syrian National Coalition, to meet Assad's ceremonial deputy Farouq al-Shara if the authorities began releasing tens of thousands of political prisoners.

Khatib, a moderate holy man from Damascus who met representatives of Assad's main backers, Russia and Iran, in Germany this week, said he will withdraw his initiative on Saturday if the authorities do not release all the women tossed in the slammer
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
during the revolt.

World powers fear the conflict - the longest and deadliest of the uprisings that spread through the Arab world two years ago - could envelop Syria's neighbours, further destabilising the region.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


India-Pakistan
Malik urges Taliban to nominate 'real representative' for talks
[Dawn] Interior Minister Rehman Malik
Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship.
on Saturday urged Pak Taliban to nominate their real representative, if they are serious in holding peace talks with the government.

Speaking to media representatives, he said the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) is not serious in holding a dialogue with the government, as, he said, they have nominated a "murderer and proclaimed offender for talks."

Expressing their willingness for conditional peace talks with the government, the Pak Taliban had called for three top politicians of the country -- PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
, Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
Ameer Syed Munawar Hasan, and the chief of the JUI-F Maulana Fazlur Rehman
Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ...
-- to act as guarantors for negotiations for stopping the armed conflict in the country's tribal areas.

TTP front man Ehsnaullah Ehsan, in a video interview on Feb 3 appearing with Adnan Rashid, the prime convict in the Pervez Perv Musharraf
... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...
attempted suicide kaboom case, said that if the above mentioned politicians acted as guarantors for the peace talks, they would be willing to negotiate in the best interest of the country.

The interior minister suggested today that different factions of Pak Taliban should form a team after consulting each other for the negotiations. He said the dialogue process before the coming elections will be a welcome step.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


The Grand Turk
Officer resignations fuel concerns over Turkish military morale
Scores of Turkish air force officers have quit since the start of the year, according to opposition lawmakers and media reports, a further sign of weak morale after a top naval commander quit over the jailing of hundreds of his colleagues.
Weak morale or principled opposition to current trends? I vote for the latter -- at some point it becomes clear that working from within just isn't going to work.
Admiral Nusret Guner, who was operational commander of Turkey's navy, said last month the conspiracy cases and jailings of his colleagues had driven him to quit and that he had feared he would become the next victim. Guner had been due to take over the navy's top role later this year.

The cases are part of an effort by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, in power for a decade, to stamp out "anti-democratic forces" and bring to heel the once-supreme military, which regularly interfered in politics and staged three outright coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980. Erdogan has received praise at home and abroad for bringing the military under civilian control.

But the years that defendants spend in prison without conviction have raised suspicions the conspiracy trials are aimed at muzzling opposition, with even some sympathizers saying the number of officers charged has spiraled out of control. The detentions have sapped morale in NATO's second-biggest army, which has been fighting a three-decade-old insurgency against Kurdish militants in the southeast and trying to prevent a spillover of the civil war in neighboring Syria.

The latest reported resignations by 110 air force officers prompted a statement from the office of the chief of general staff, which rarely talks to the media, refuting suggestions that the military had been weakened. January and February were the normal period for military officers to submit voluntary resignations or early retirement requests, the statement said.

Erdogan said late on Wednesday the departures were routine and described suggestions the army had been weakened as "ugly", although he acknowledged last month that lengthy pre-trial detentions were sapping army morale, an apparent bid to distance himself from increasingly unpopular coup trials.

About 100 journalists are also in prison, as well as thousands of activists, lawyers, politicians and others. Most are accused of plotting against the government or supporting outlawed Kurdish militants.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wonder what the figures are in the US military, versus the previous two decades?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/10/2013 9:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Weak morale or principled opposition
Are not mutually exclusive.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/10/2013 10:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Resignations or purge?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 15:13 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Bomb blast kills family of six in southern Afghanistan
[Dawn] A landmine kaboom destroyed a civilian vehicle in southern Afghanistan and killed six members of a family, provincial authorities said Saturday.

"Six people all onboard -- two elderly men, two women and two men -- were killed in a landmine kaboom in Nad Ali district of Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
province," Ahmad Zirak, the provincial governor's front man, told AFP.

The blast at around 7:00 pm on Friday took place as they were travelling from one village to another in the district, Zirak added.

Mohammad Ismail Hotak, deputy director of the coordination center for security forces in Helmand, confirmed the toll.

Roadside bombs are the favourite weapons of Talibs fighting to oust the Western-backed government of President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
, and the indiscriminately placed explosives regularly kill civilians.

Less than a week ago a Taliban roadside kaboom blast killed five civilians, including a family of four, and two coppers in the country's troubled south.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Taliban

#1  Roadside bombs are the favourite weapons of Talibs fighting to oust the Western-backed government of President Hamid

And the problem would go away if only those westerners would leave and let us overthrow Hamid: it's all the fault of Bush and his successors.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 9:03 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Mali Islamists Flee To Sudan's Darfur Region
[Ynet] Islamist fighters from Mali have reached Sudan's western Darfur region after fleeing French Arclight airstrikes and advancing ground troops, a Sudanese rebel group said on Friday.

French troops have pushed beturbanned goons out of cities and into desert and mountain hideouts in a four-week operation to prevent Mali becoming a base for attacks in Africa and Europe.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
271 people detained in St. Petersburg security raid
Russian security officials in St. Petersburg detained 271 people, mostly from Central Asia and the North Caucasus region, during a Friday raid on Muslim prayer rooms at a central market. They said the raid was conducted to check residency permits and to eliminate networks of religious extremists planning terrorist attacks.

A statement published by the regional investigative committee said officials were verifying the documents of the detainees, who include citizens of Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as an Egyptian and an Afghan.

Russia's migration service began deportation procedures on Saturday for 10 of the detainees, and about 30 were found to be in violation of Russian migration laws.

The police said a man from southern Russia, Murat Sarbashev, was suspected of distributing extremist literature and video clips showing terrorist acts in 2010 and 2011.

Video footage broadcast on Russian television showed heavily armed riot police officers pulling men out of the market and shoving them into waiting buses.

Security officials in St. Petersburg say an extremist group is operating in the city and has been planning terrorist attacks. The raid was expected to reveal “extremist literature, weapons, objects and documents relevant to criminal cases, and people who have carried out such crimes."
Posted by: ryuge || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Can't you just see our ICE doing this?
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/10/2013 9:00 Comments || Top||

#2  ..why that would be racist. /sarc off
Unless they knew they were either Republicans or unregistered unlikely to bother to vote. At least that way they could get the address for someone else to vote from.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/10/2013 9:29 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Egypt: One killed, 211 injured in nationwide clashes
[Egypt Independent] Health Ministry Spokesperson Ahmed Omar is now saying that the total number of people injured nationwide is 211, while also saying that one person has been reported killed during clashes near Ettehadiya Palace.

According to Omar, all but 72 of the injured have been released from local hospitals after being treated.

Gharbiya saw this highest number injured, with conflicting reports of 164 or 165 people injured. Fourteen people were injured in clashes around Ettehadiya Palace in Cairo, while 22 were injured in Alexandria, six in Kafr al-Sheikh and five in Sharqiya.

Gharbiya has been the scene of ongoing clashes between protesters and security forces since Friday afternoon, particularly around the governorate headquarteres in Tanta.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry reported earlier that the total number of police injured nationwide during clashes Friday was 102, which includes those injured in Cairo and Alexandria as well as in Delta cities.

A source from the mnistry told MENA Saturday that one injury was from live ammunition, while another 16 were injured by birdshot.

There were also 93 arrests during clashes Friday, with eight being arrested near Ettehadiya Palace, 31 in Alexandria, 40 in Gharbiya and four in Kafr al-Sheikh.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


India-Pakistan
Violation of loudspeaker law goes unpunished
[Dawn] Despite numerous violations of the law regarding loudspeakers in mosques and imambargahs, few cases have been registered and even fewer arrests made, a report from the Counterterrorism Department (CTD) of the Punjab police suggests.

Under Section 3 of the Loudspeakers and Sound Amplifiers Ordinance, 1965, mosques can use loudspeakers only to broadcast the azan and the weekly sermon. The law bans mounting loudspeakers outside mosques or other places of worship.

In a report sent to the provincial government, the CTD blamed the police for failure to implement and enforce the ban.

The report mentions 72 violations of the law in the Rawalpindi police region -- 31 in Rawalpindi, 22 in Jhelum, 13 in Chakwal and six in Attock -- and says that no cases were registered with the police.

Previously, the CTD had reported 23 violations in December 2012, and 59 in November. Only one case was registered in this period, in Attock in November, but no arrests were made.

Shoaib Aqueel, Deputy Superintendent of Police, told Dawn that violations of this ban had been increasing.

"When we notice a violation, the local police and district administration discuss the issue with religious scholars of the different sects," he said.

"We try to create awareness of the ban, which is imposed by the government, and ask them for their help in maintaining law and order," he said adding district police committees are also involved in this process.

"If talking to the violators of the law proves unproductive," he continued, "the local police begin the process of registering cases against them." When arrests are made under Section 3 of the ordinance, a senior police official clarified, the accused is taken to court for a trial.

Raja Samiul Haq, an advocate, explained that if convicted by a court, a violator of this law can face three months simple imprisonment, a fine of Rs2,000, or both.

The case against the violator has to be registered by the police, and a police officer of the rank of sub-inspector or higher has the authority to confiscate a loudspeaker or amplifier being used in an illegal manner.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa Horn
Iman: Women who were raped at Tahrir Square deserved it
"They tell you women are a red line. They tell you that naked women -- who are going to Tahrir Square because they want to be raped -- are a red line! And they ask Mursi and the Brotherhood to leave power!," he said.

Abu Islam added that these women activists are going to Tahrir Square not to protest but to be sexually abused because they had wanted to be raped.

"They have no shame, no fear and not even feminism. Practice your feminism, sheikha! It is a legitimate right for you to be a woman," he said.

"And by the way, 90 percent of them are crusaders and the remaining 10 percent are widows who have no one to control them. You see women talking like monsters," he added.
What, no juices? Your universe is sadly incomplete, O Imam.
Posted by: lord garth || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "look at that! Talking about those hussies has given me a stiffie!"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/10/2013 10:13 Comments || Top||

#2  You ain't heard nuthing yet --- ask him about goats.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 15:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Awaiting response from National Organization for Women and the UN Human Rights Council in 5....4....3.....2....3....4.....12
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 02/10/2013 15:32 Comments || Top||

#4  "We manifest our concern"

The Un Sub-sub-Secretary General manifested his concern...

Ooops not even that...
Posted by: Phaith Grique4599 || 02/10/2013 17:12 Comments || Top||

#5  You ain't heard nuthing yet --- ask him about goats.

On please don't ask him about goats, bananas or tomatoes. We'll never get him to shutup!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/10/2013 17:37 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Accord evades Fatah, Hamas in Palestinian unity bid
[Egypt Independent] Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo to seal a reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas were to hold a second round of talks on Saturday after the failure of initial efforts, delegates said.

The talks are being held under the umbrella of the provisional governing body of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is charged with bringing non-members Hamas and Islamic Jihad into the PLO.

A round of discussions on Friday night lasted eight hours.

"The atmosphere was positive but we need another meeting to sort out some interpretations and differences in point of view," Maher al-Taher, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told reporters.

PLO executive committee member Wassel Abu Yussef said the main differences were over polls to the Palestine National Council, the PLO's parliament, and over legislative and presidential elections in the Palestinian territories.

"Fatah wants the [transitional non-partisan] government [tasked with organizing the elections] formed at the same time as a decree setting the date for elections," Abu Yussef explained.

"Hamas wants the government to be formed first to end the division before the date of elections is decided."

Also, Fatah and independent figures in the PLO provisional governing body want the same system to apply for the PNC and parliament, whereas Hamas wants proportional representation within the Palestine National Council.

The Islamist movement which rules Gaza wants a breakdown of 75 percent proportional representation for polling in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the rest under a one-person, one-vote system.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads Fatah and the PLO, has convened the conference of all Palestinian organisations in the Egyptian capital, where his party and Hamas signed a reconciliation agreement on 27 April 2011.

Most of its clauses have gone unheeded and deadlines have been postponed.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Hamas


India-Pakistan
Lal Masjid cleric's interview in burqa still a mystery
[Dawn] Maulana Abdul Aziz removing his veil of his burqa on the state run PTV remains the defining image of the Lal Masjid crisis of 2007.

But nearly six years later, it is still not clear whose brainwave led to this spectacle. Both the federal secretary of information and the man managing PTV have little idea whose idea this was.

The Lal Masjid Commission grappled with the mystery on Friday in Islamabad.

A conflict between the Musharraf regime and the Lal Masjid administration provided a basis for the operation which started on July 3 and lasted till July 11, 2007.

The clampdown claimed lives of 103 persons, including 10 army personnel and one Ranger.

Maulana Aziz, the Khateeb of Lal Masjid, who was also the principal of Jamia Faridia was tossed in the calaboose
Please don't kill me!
by the law enforcement agencies on July 4, 2007 a day after the forces launched the operation.

Aziz who was 'caught' slipping out of the mosque in a burqa was presented on PTV on July 4, 2007.

The one man commission of Justice Shehzado Sheikh of Federal Shariat Court (FSC), however, remained firm that the issue was an important one as he felt that the orchestrated manoeuvre worsened an already tense situation.

The judge pointed out that the government had announced a general pardon and Rs5000 cash reward for the embattled students of Lal Masjid who were willing to come out and surrender.

But once Aziz was 'humiliated' thus in the 'drama on television, his infuriated followers stayed put and died in the subsequent operation.

Initially he was shown wearing burqa, the veil of which he then threw back from his face and the interview began.

Justice Sheikh began by asking MD PTV Mirza Yousaf Baig why he allowed the interview at that critical time.

Mr Baig surprised the judge as well as others when he said, "I never ordered the airing of the interview," adding that "I had expressed my reservations to then secretary information and told him that the interview would have serious implications."

However,
a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package...
Baig added that "the secretary information asked me to air the interview and I passed on the instructions to the chief coordinator of the television."

He further revealed that he had no idea that Aziz would be interviewed while wearing the 'burqa', claiming that he found out about the 'disguise' once the interview had been recorded.

Mr Baig informed the court that the decision had taken "elsewhere".

However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits...
when the commission turned to then secretary information Anwar Mehmood, his answers were not any more enlightening. He said, "I was asked to telecast the interview".

Later when asked to explain what he meant, Mr Mehmood told Dawn, "After the arrest of Maulana Aziz, I received a call from an unknown number and the caller asked me to record and air the interview of the holy man."

When asked whether he tried to verify the identity of 'unknown caller', he replied "no because I was not in a position to trace the caller."

Recording his testimony before the commission, then federal minister for interior Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao also said that timing of the interview was terrible.

He, however, added that when the military started the operation, he was not in Pakistain, adding that the interior ministry had nothing to do with the operation though it tried to settle the issue peacefully.

He said that after the operation Maulana Aziz was not sent to Adiala Jail but was kept in house arrest along with his family members in a rest house near Simly Dam.

President Gen (retired) Pervez Perv Musharraf
... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...
and then prime minister Shaukat Aziz had been summoned to appear before the commission on Friday, but both of them remained absent.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa North
FJP to launch new political front
[Egypt Independent] The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party said it will launch new political front called "The Conscious Front to Protect the Revolution."
Oh, snappy name!
The front, which will include Constituent Assembly members and other prominent political figures, was formed by the Brotherhood in order to counter the National Salvation Front, a coalition of opposition parties.

In a statement, the FJP said that some of the main participants in the new front included former presidential candidate Mohamed Selim al-Awa, Brotherhood figures Mohamed al-Beltagy and Helmy al-Gazzar, Cairo University political science professor Moataz Bellah Abdel Fattah, presidential adviser Seif Abdel Fattah, lawyer Essam Sultan, former Minister of State for Legal Affairs and Parliamentary Councils Mohamed Mahsoub, publisher Ibrahim al-Moallem, legal experts Tharwat Badawy and Ahmed Kamal Abul Maged, Ambassador Ibrahim Yossry and former Judges Club head Zakareyya Abdel Aziz, The Judges for Egypt movement Spokesperson Walid Sharaby.

Gazzar told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the front targets "being [a] national conscience that defends the continuity of the revolution as well as Egyptians' rights to freedom, dignity and justice." He added that the front includes figures that represent various political trends, and that it will not be a political party.

The also said that its slogan will be against "violence and bloodshed," and that it will stand for the rights of all political forces.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  "The Conscious Front to Protect the Revolution"


I'll guess that "Occupy Egypt" was already taken.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/10/2013 12:56 Comments || Top||

#2  So was the Couscous Front...
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/10/2013 13:54 Comments || Top||


Egyptian Islamic Jihad mufti supports killing of opposition members
[Egypt Independent] Sheikh Osama Qassem, a prominent Egyptian Islamic Jihad member, has said that violence is an option to defend President Mohamed Morsy, while also supporting a hardline cleric's recent fatwa allowing the assassinations of NSF members.

Qassem said in an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm published on Saturday that Islamists would carry weapons to defend Morsy if "saboteurs" continued to attack state establishments.

Qassem also said that the organization would return to its former violent ways as a last resort if security forces were "reluctant" to confront opposition members.
Qassem is considered the mufti for the once violent Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and spent 25 years in prison after being accused of assassinating the late president Anwar Sadat.

Asked about the latest statement by hardliner cleric Mahmoud Shaaban, Al-Azhar University professor, who had earlier issued a fatwa allowing the killing of NSF leaders, Qassem said that secular figures "deserved" to die.

Qassem added that Sharia allowed the killings, saying that people who protest violently against a ruler were guilty of "Haraba," a Quranic term defined as committing grievous crimes that "sow corruption and chaos on earth." Perpetrators are subject to severe punishment such as amputation and, in some cases, execution.

"The front deserves Haraba punishment," he added, describing it as a head of sectarianism.

Qassem also criticized Salafi parties' stances against such edicts, accusing them of "revolving within universe of the former president Hosni Mubarak."

"I'm not wondering of the Salafis' standing," he said. "If we remembered some of their stances before the revolution, we will find that they used to revolve within the deposed President Hosni Mubarak's universe. Some of them used to report [on] people for the sake of the ousted president."

Qassem also said that the organization would return to its former violent ways as a last resort if security forces were "reluctant" to confront opposition members.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Takfir wal-Hijra

#1  Ahhhhh, I love it when a few muzzies let the veil (and taqyia) slip.

The truth comes out yet again.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/10/2013 8:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Has he considered..... drones ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 8:22 Comments || Top||


Opposition forces to march on Ettehadiya, Tahrir for Mubarak departure anniversary
[Egypt Independent] Four marches demanding the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsy will take place on the on the anniversary of the departure of former President Hosni Mubarak on Monday, 11 February.

April 6 Youth Movement Spokesperson Tareq al-Kholi said the marches will go from Nour Mosque in Abbasiya and Rabe'a al-Adawiya Mosque in Nasr City to Ettehadeya Palace, and from Sayeda Zeinab Mosque and Fatih Mosque in Ramsis toward Tahrir Square to demand the overthrow of Morsy and his punishment for the killing and torturing of protesters.

Khaled Telima, a member of the Popular Current's executive bureau, said that the commemoration of the stepping down anniversary would involve marches in working class areas with banners denouncing torture and abuse during Morsy's era, while a symbolic march of the martyrs will head to the houses of their families in different governorates.

The anniversary of the stepping down is a good time to highlight the demands of the revolution which have not been met by Morsy, Telima added, claiming that there were no freedoms, human rights or sound economic politics under Morsy.

A number of other movements and revolutionary forces have also announced their participation in the marches.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  former President Hosni Mubarak

Miss him yet?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/10/2013 15:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Tahrir square is really a circle. Someday, people should start calling it that.
Posted by: lord garth || 02/10/2013 16:48 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Engineer Shaukatullah replaces Kausar as KP governor
[Dawn] On the advice of the prime minister, President Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari
... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ...
on Saturday appointed Engineer Shaukatullah Khan as new governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
province, replacing Barrister Masood Kausar, DawnNews reported.

The newly appointed governor, previously holding the portfolio of Federal Minister for States and Frontier Region, met the president along with Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Friday.

Sources told DawnNews that Kausar was replaced due to his ill-health.

Barrister Kausar was appointed governor by the president on Feb 8, 2011, bringing to an end the three-year-long tenure of Owais Ahmad Ghani, who oversaw the army launching a series of military operations in the militancy-infested Fata, including the turbans' stronghold of South Wazoo.

Engineer Shaukatullah belongs to a small town, Nawagai, in Bajaur agency. His father, Haji Bismillah Khan, was elected as a MNA twice from his native town. His brother, Inayatullah, is a senator.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Caribbean-Latin America
Luvianos: The firefight that never was
This is a translation of a Proceso article. The translation appeared in Borderland Beat. Rantburg.com did report on the gunfight at the time and its aftermath even as Edomex officials denied it even took place. Those reports can be found here and here.
MEXICO, D.F. (Proceso).-- Last year, on August 23, residents of the Mexico State municipality of Luvianos noticed suspicious activities that were a prelude to a new confrontation between groups of drug traffickers disputing the plaza.

"On the main entrance to the town that comes from the turn off from the road to Bejucos, on the exit towards Zacazonapan and in downtown streets, several pickups with tinted windows started to circulate, and, acting as if they were police, would stop cars that they thought looked suspicious to inspect them," says a resident who asked not to be identified.

A cab driver also commented that in the ranching community El Estanco, three miles east of the main entrance to Luvianos, a group of unknown individuals arrived in pickups with tinted windows and installed roadblocks on the roads, where they remained for more than two hours: "They were stopping everybody, those who were going to, and those that were coming out of, Luvianos."

Because they have lived through prior confrontations, the residents of Luvianos dug in inside their homes and closed their businesses. There was a rumor going around that members of La Familia Michoacana were looking for gunmen from Los Caballeros Templarios who had managed to infiltrate their territory to try to take over.

On Friday, the 24th, the number of clandestine roadblocks around Luvianos increased, and with that, the tension. Local authorities did not get involved.

The morning of the 25th (of August) began peacefully, as if the residents of Luvianos and the surrounding area had gotten used to the constant traffic of pickups with tinted windows. After midday, on the road that goes over the river and across the Barranca del Gato, about two miles east of Luvianos, the persons on one of those vehicles opened fire on a car.

"They wounded a woman on the arm; she was driving a car that a relative had loaned her and they said that people with La Familia were looking for that relative, that's why the fighting started," says one of the residents, who also asks to remain anonymous.

It was on the 26th at dawn that another group, in retaliation for the attack on the woman, went over to Barranca del Gato to attack the people at the roadblock. According to area residents, the first "big shootout" took place between Barranca del Gato and the ranch quarters at Cruz de Piedra, which are located about a half mile from Cerro de la Culebra (Culebra Hill).

"The shots could be heard from a long ways off. Those people use only cuernos de chivo (AK-47s) and AR-15s. They hit each other with everything they had, there were a lot of shots fired -- says one of the witnesses --; the shooting lasted more than 30 minutes, and, of course, there were deaths, everybody around here saw that.

But it's also the practice with those killers for each side to pick up their dead and all the fired cases. They do this so they won't leave evidence for the "greens" or the "blacks" (soldiers and federal or state police)."

The residents in the municipality believe that "somebody important" in one of the groups must have fallen in the first shootout because about 40 minutes after the shooting, there were pickups and cars chasing each other on the flanks of the Cerro de la Culebra (Culebra Hill), about two miles from the municipal seat.

Information gathered at the ranch houses and ranches adjacent to Luvianos tell of at least eight shooting skirmishes. The second confrontation, "for certain" -- says a witness --, was near the turn from Luvianos to Caja de Agua, where "the shooting was intense." Minutes later there was another volley of shots "with high powered weapons" at the ranch houses in La Toma de Agua, where the residents say "there were casualties on both sides."

The fighting between suspected gunmen with La Familia Michoacana and Los Caballeros Templarios reached all the way to El Pueblito and Acatitlan, about 10 miles from Luvianos. The chase extended to just past the Acatitlan River, towards the west and in the direction of La Estancia, where the road joins with the intersection that goes to Zacazonapan.

Some residents say that the final confrontation took place in the outskirts of La Estancia, hours after the slaughter on the river crossing at Barranca del Gato.

Adding up the testimony, it's calculated there were between 27 and 32 (persons) killed, and dozens of wounded. "They picked up their dead and took them away on canvas covered trucks; that's what they always do," says a local.

Along with their casualties, both sides carried away the evidence: they didn't leave any cartridge cases and they swept the roads with tires tied to the rear bumpers of the pickup trucks.

Law enforcement; not involved

The majority of the accounts agree that the municipal authorities and the state and federal police detachments assigned to Luvianos remained totally quiet during the gunfights. "They've paid them off," says a woman. "All of us who live around here already know that when the shooting starts the only thing we can do is hide because the police and the military are good for nothing," she adds, then she begs us not to publish her name.

Nobody in Luvianos can say with certainty which groups fought each other on August 26. The majority believes they were different groups from La Familia Michoacana who split up and are fighting to control the plaza. Others argue that Los Caballeros Templarios want to take the plaza from La Familia Michoacana, controlled around here by "El Faraon" and "La Marrana." The first individual is an alleged friend and protege of President Enrique Pena Nieto, former governor of Mexico State.

Another allegation is that it was a battle between the groups that La Familia Michoacana and the Zetas have put together and Los Caballeros Templarios and La Mano.

Some residents say that about seven young men from that area died in the shootout, but others state that the criminal groups won't touch people from the municipality. The first witnesses recount that they saw several young men run into the cornfields, some of them wounded. They say they went up to the houses to ask for clean clothes to change their bloody ones.

Despite this, another local says that: "Many of the young men who took off running and the ones they picked up (dead) looked like Central Americans, because of the way they talked when they knocked on doors and because of the features of those that were killed. They were between 17 and 30 years old. It's very common now for the people who work for the Luvianos criminal groups to be Central Americans".

The authorities of the State of Mexico and of the Luvianos municipality declared that on August 26 there was no slaughter nor any high intensity confrontation among suspected drug trafficking groups.

However, after that, beginning that afternoon dozens of federal and state police officers, in addition to several Army squadrons (sic), arrived at the municipal seat. They patrolled the battlefield hours after the shootouts but did not find bodies nor any cartridge cases.

They told the people here not to leave their homes during the next few days; the businesses closed down and classes were suspended from Monday through Wednesday in all of the Luvianos schools," a woman says.
Posted by: badanov || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Two questions:

1. Why would cleanup after a firefight include dragging tires on the road?

2. What does it mean that a drug gang brings in foreigners as common henchmen?
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/10/2013 12:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Why would cleanup after a firefight include dragging tires on the road?

Two reasons. Casting from tire tracks to be used as evidence. And a good tracker can follow them.

What does it mean that a drug gang brings in foreigners as common henchmen?

Cheap, anonymous, labor. No ties to the area(s) the narcos operate in, hence a very low chance of a security risk (such as popping up in a Mexican government database or having a relative or family member kidnapped or arrested to place pressure on the hired gun to cooperate.)

Lastly a very low possibility of alienating the population by 'hiring local' or hiring Mexicans who might end up killing a local. Guatemalans getting killed is also much easier to shrug off.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/10/2013 13:26 Comments || Top||

#3  1. Why would cleanup after a firefight include dragging tires on the road?

From reading scores of reports on Mexican press about intergang gun battles, typically they take place on the roads between groups of shooters riding in SUVs and pickups. The garden variety drug cartel shooters are charter members of the spray and pray club. They have to shoot large amounts of ammunition to hit their targets and to counter opposing fire. When they do they usually they produce large amounts of spent cartridges casings on the ground.

I gotta admit, removing spent casings after a intergang gunfire exchange is new information to me. I knew that some cartel groups will remove bodies to prevent identification by government authorities.

Dragging roads using tires sweeps the roads and scatters evidence of a gunfight, to what useful purpose I don't know.

2. What does it mean that a drug gang brings in foreigners as common henchmen?

The foreigners that Mexican cartels bring in to Mexico usually come from Guatemala, which is Los Zetas turf, and Honduras. They are formerly members of common street criminal gangs, sometimes they come from schools (students who have been promised cash and prizes if they become cannon fodder), and some are prior service military. Some are impressed into service at gunpoint. Bringing in foreigners is an additional cost to investigating authorities, and a buffer. What is a dirt poor Guatemalan farming family, for example, going to do if their precious winds up shot to death in Mexico as a shooter for a drug cartel? How are local police going to investigate in Mexico?

Dunno if that answers your question, but that is my explanation.
Posted by: badanov || 02/10/2013 13:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Reminds me of the brave Afghan Security Forces (NFD) woofing big kak about being in large, complex attacks with the TB.

Q: Any WIA? A: no.
Q: Any KIA? A: No, they drug away the bodies, but here is a fertilizer sack full of spent casings....(proof, praise be to Allan)
Q: Do you have any newer casings, these look like they came from the Battle of Gallipoli.
A: Crickets


Posted by: Besoeker || 02/10/2013 13:55 Comments || Top||

#5  Hmmm, they must be reloading, no other reason to clean up spent shell casings so thoroughly.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/10/2013 16:45 Comments || Top||

#6  Big runs on ammo all over these days ....
Posted by: lotp || 02/10/2013 19:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Thank you for addressing my questions so thoughtfully, lady and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to sit at the feet of such teachers.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/10/2013 22:59 Comments || Top||


Europe
Pope receives Knights of Malta on 900th anniversary
[FRANCE24] Pope Benedict XVI met with around 4,000 members and volunteers of the Order of Malta at the Vatican on Saturday in a special ceremony marking 900 years since the famous crusading order was placed under papal protection.

The order was created to provide care for poor and sick pilgrims to the Holy Land. It also goes by the name of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta.

"Because of their faith, and through the centuries, members of your order have helped the sick of Jerusalem, then pilgrims exposed to grave danger in the Holy Land," the pope told the group in a speech.

"In the 19th century, the order opened up and widened its assistance to the poor and the sick but without ever renouncing its original ideals. Your commitment must continue in this direction ... you must never forget your roots," he said.

The order was founded in 1048 but it was in 1113, after the Christian conquest of Jerusalem, that Pope Paschal II issued the Bull Pie Postulatio Voluntatis giving the knights the protection of the Church and assigning the order sovereign status to freely elect its superiors.

Following the loss of Jerusalem by Christian forces, the order operated from Rhodes, and later from Malta until moving to Rome in 1834.

The order has some 13,500 members -- assisted by 80,000 permanent volunteers and 25,000 medical staff -- engaged in humanitarian and medical relief work in more than 120 countries around the world.
Posted by: Fred || 02/10/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:



Who's in the News
37[untagged]
8Govt of Pakistan
4Arab Spring
2Govt of Iran
2Govt of Iraq
2Govt of Syria
2al-Qaeda
2al-Qaeda in North Africa
1Commies
1Govt of Sudan
1al-Qaeda in Arabia
1Hamas
1Jamaat-e-Islami
1Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami
1Lashkar-e-Islami
1Palestinian Authority
1Takfir wal-Hijra
1Taliban
1Thai Insurgency
1TTP

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
Comments Spam
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
RSS Links
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio
Sink Trap

Alzheimer's Association
Day by Day
Counterterrorism
Hair Through the Ages







On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2013-02-10
  Syrian troops, rebels clash over Damascus highway
Sat 2013-02-09
  India Executes Man Convicted in 2001 Attack on Parliament
Fri 2013-02-08
  Suicide bomber hits north Mali, troops clash in capital
Thu 2013-02-07
  Syrian Army Launches 'All-Out Attack' on Capital Region
Wed 2013-02-06
  Fat Lady Sings for Abd el Kader Mahmoud Mohamed el Sayed
Tue 2013-02-05
  Second big turban nabbed in northern Mali
Mon 2013-02-04
  Ansar Dine #3 arrested in northern Mali
Sun 2013-02-03
  Yemen Troops Kill 12 'Qaida Militants' in Restive South
Sat 2013-02-02
  Syria Suicide Attack on Regime Kills 53
Fri 2013-02-01
  Binori Mosque cleric among 10 killed in Karachi
Thu 2013-01-31
  Boko Haram 'commander' declares ceasefire
Wed 2013-01-30
  Mali and Niger forces retake Ansongo
Tue 2013-01-29
  Sahel jihadist groups splinter
Mon 2013-01-28
  Timbuktu mayor: Mali rebels torched library of historic manuscripts
Sun 2013-01-27
  French and Malian troops begin restoring control in Timbuktu

Better than the average link...



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.
52.14.221.113
Paypal:
WoT Operations (19)    Non-WoT (11)    Opinion (9)    (0)    Politix (2)