Rebel sources said Russian-made Konkurs anti-tank missiles had been supplied by Americas key Gulf ally, Saudi Arabia. They have already been used to destructive effect and may have held up a promised regime assault on Aleppo.... In the hills above the Syrian village of Kafra Hamra, north of Aleppo, The Daily Telegraph found rebels talking almost lovingly of the Konkurs as they kept watch on the regimes tanks 800 yards away.
We have one or two left but my unit has run out already, said Abdullah Daass, a burly, bearded fighter with the Free Men of Syria brigade. We were given five. We fired four, and took out four regime tanks, and one was a dud.
Mr Assads regime has hundreds of T72s in northern Syria. The future of this war may depend on how many more portable missile systems the rebels are given. In the past two weeks the tanks have made a number of sallies, testing rebel lines, but have been driven back, rebels say.
After the fall of Qusayr on June 5, the regime promised an all-out attack on Aleppo, but it has not yet materialised.
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/20/2013
18:24 ||
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AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai has been mulling his response to US efforts to repair damaged ties after a public spat over the Taliban opening an office in Qatar for peace talks.
Karzai and US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke twice by telephone after the Afghan government became enraged that the office was opened in a blaze of publicity and US officials were apparently about to arrive for talks.
The office used the formal name of "Islamic Emirate Of Afghanistan" from the rebels' 1996-2001 government, and a Taliban spokesman at the opening press conference declined to say they supported the peace process.
"John Kerry assured that the Qatari government has removed the 'Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan' sign from the Taliban office and the office is for peace talks only," a statement from Karzai's office said late on Wednesday.
Karzai told Kerry that Afghan public opinion was "extremely negative" over the way in which the Taliban office had been unveiled in an event that many experts described as an international publicity coup for the insurgents.
US deputy ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo told a UN Security Council meeting on Afghanistan on Thursday that the office must not be treated as, or represent itself as, an embassy or other office representing the Afghan Taliban as an emirate, government, or sovereign.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Thursday he hoped planned US-Taliban peace talks could start "sooner rather than later".
"I think peace talks could reinforce security gains and further contrib
A Bayonne man was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for lying to federal officials investigating a North Bergen man and an Elmwood Park man who were planning to kill on behalf of a Somalia terrorist group.
Mohamed Osman, 21, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise on Sept. 15, 2010, to making materially false statements to investigators in a matter involving international terrorism. Osman could have been sentenced to up to 8 years in prison.
In addition to the prison term, Debevoise ordered Osman to serve three years of supervised release.
Mohamed Alessa, of North Bergen, and Carlos E. Almonte were convicted of a conspiracy to travel from New Jersey to kill on behalf of al-Shabab, a terrorist group. In April, Alessa, now 23, was sentenced to 22 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release; and Almonte, now 27, was sentenced to 20 years and the same lifetime of supervision.
Osman admitted that during his contacts with Alessa and Almonte he had become aware of their "ideology and beliefs," officials said.
Osman also said he had heard Alessa say he would begin killing in the United States if he was unable to do it abroad, officials aid. Osman also admitted that he knew it was against the law to make false statements to the investigators.
Authorities say that during a June 2010 interview with members of the FBIs Joint Terrorism Task Force, Osman falsely denied knowing about Alessa and Almontes plans to travel to Somalia to fight against government and multinational peacekeeping forces there.
#1
However, if you're a registered Donk you can lie blindly to any Congressional committee and get off with just a denunciation in a couple second quip on the evening news.
Former President Jimmy Carter has signed on to a petition to Secretary of State John Kerry urging the United States to back off certain sanctions on groups that are deemed terrorist organizations, so that peace workers can go in and work.
Specifically, the petition signed by Mr. Carter requests that Mr. Kerry exempt peace groups from laws that make it a crime to offer negotiation training and humanitarian law classes to terror groups, Breitbart said.
The petition states: The Secretary of State can, and should, exempt peacebuilding activities from this counterproductive application of the law. Doing so would open the door for professional peacebuilders to fully engage in helping to end armed conflicts and suffering around the world, while making the U.S. safer.
The petition drive was started by the Charity and Security Network. Group members told The Hill that theyve been concerned with their inability to complete bridge-building projects with the Taliban in Afghanistan and with Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
#2
Jimmy Carter: History's Greatest Monster. Why won't he just die?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/20/2013 14:26
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Because he has the Baptist Sweater of Doom. He will walk thru south central Gawga in the pale moon light scaring the shit out of teenage parkers forever.
Kyrgyzstan has voted to end the United States' lease on an airbase key to supplying military operations in nearby Afghanistan.
Lawmakers in the mountainous Central Asian republic voted 91-5 Thursday in favor of ending the agreement in June 2014 to lease the Manas Transit Center. The bill will come into force when it is signed by President Almazbek Atambayev, who has repeatedly pledged to end the lease.
The move comes despite U.S. expectations that the base would remain in exchange for higher rent. The United States pays $60 million annually for the base.
All U.S. troops moving in and out of Afghanistan travel through Manas. Large numbers of troops are set to flow through the facility as part of the withdrawal of most international troops next year.
Russia warned the West on Thursday that arms to Syrian opposition forces will end up in the hands of extremists, amid reports that Moscow has readied a shipment of fighter jets for the Syrian government.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the radical al-Nusra Front - an outfit that has been listed by the United States as a terrorist group - would handle weapons earmarked for the opposition.
"The overwhelming number of weapons that get to Syria will be distributed by Jabhat al-Nusra," he said in an interview with the Rossia-24 television channel, according to Russian news agencies.
Russia, Syria's key arms supplier, has strongly criticized military support for the rebels, while defending as legitimate its own arms sales to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Lavrov reiterated that Moscow would honor all weapons deals with the Syrian government.
"We're fulfilling all our contracts," Lavrov said. Asked about the controversial shipment of S-300 air defence systems, he merely said that "those contracts have not been fully realised."
The advanced surface-to-air missiles are designed to counter aircraft and cruise missiles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow postponed the S-300 missiles in order "not to destroy the strategic balance."
A media report said Thursday however that a batch of Russian combat training jets is ready for shipment to Syria.
Norfolk, Va. - After 51 years of service, the USS Enterprise headed to Newport News Shipbuilding for the final time this morning. NewsChannel 3's Todd Corillo was the only television reporter onboard for the trip.
Once at the shipyard the ship's nuclear fuel will be removed from its eight nuclear reactors.
The move will mark the final voyage for the ship before the formal decommissioning, which will take place once the defueling process at Newport News Shipbuilding is complete. She is expected to stay in Newport News until 2016 when she will be towed to Puget Sound in Washington to be scrapped.
Nearly 150 shipyard workers were present for the move as a last tribute to a vessel that many of the workers had a role in building. Same fate as the first Enterprise.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/20/2013
11:55 ||
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#1
Same fate as all the Enterprises. But the fate of CV-6 rankles the most, arguably the finest fighting ship in US Naval history, in a league only with Constitution, it was scrapped in New Jersey after plans fell thru to make it a museum ship in NY. Even saving the tripod mast for the Naval Academy failed..... piss poor performance. But it was so soon after the war it was inevitable.
Sadly nuclear powered ships will never (well not anytime soon) be allowed to be museum ship.
#4
...Was told many years ago by one of the docents aboard USS Yorktown at Patriot's Point, SC (he was a veteran of USS Bon Homme Richard in WWII)and we got to talking about the fate of CV-6. He pointed out that not even Bull Halsey had enough pull to save her, and nobody could figure out why until it finally occurred to them: CV-6 would have been preserved and cared for, and politicians would look at it and say, "Why, this ship looks just fine! You admirals don't need any more new carriers, just keep using the old ones!"
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/20/2013 18:10
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#1
I'm no sort of economist, but I think these are the high points:
1) Both Chinese and International-Finance Types have been raiding the accumulating Chinese foreign-exchange reserves via a nasty little arbitrage engine based on immobile, unused, "banked" copper supplies sitting in bonded warehouses somewhere. The article isn't clear on who's been footing the bill for the arbitrage, but it *must* be Chinese central bankers defending their arbitrary yuan peg given the structure of the copper arbitrage engine.
2) Chinese regulators have either noticed the scam, or they knew about it all along, and the central bankers have decided that it was hurting their bottom line too much, and decided to end the party by calling the cops on their own shin-dig. The bankers acting as the cut-outs in this little game have just had their cookie jar privileges revoked.
3) The amount of immobile copper tied up in these arbitrage engines is significant, and the cost of storing it, which was easily covered by the profits of the scam up to now, is now more than it's worth to keep them in warehouse. All that copper's about to crash the working copper market in a big way.
4) The money being made on the arbitrage is now gone, that's a big chunk of profit that's no longer propping up the international finance people and their Chinese partners.
5) What function was the arbitrage serving the greater Chinese economy? Was it keeping the Chinese central bankers from repeating the 1930 US Federal Reserve sterilization error? I dunno, at this point my limited capacity for parsing High Economic Bullshit runs into a brick wall.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
06/20/2013 16:55
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#2
Sometimes the warehouses that held the collateral copper were empty too.
#4
No, I doubt it - but the thieves will find that their larceny isn't paying off like it used to. In a year or two, they'll have learned their lesson. But in the short-term, they'll have not yet received the signal. Unless I'm seriously under-estimating the efficiency of the black market communication network.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
06/20/2013 20:41
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Back in the 80s when, on a couple of occasions, I visited the Soviet Union, I always wondered what was it really like to live in that godforsaken place. But it didnt much matter. For all the creepy spying that was going on, I realized Id be out of there in a week or two.
Follow-up to yesterday's posts ref General Abdul Rashid Dostum: A new book coming out in the fall from Professor Brian Glyn Williams, Department of Islamic History at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.
PEACE talks between US and Taliban officials have been plunged into chaos before they have even begun, as tensions surrounding the process continue to grow.
The proposed talks are now reportedly unlikely to take place today, as had been expected, following anger from Afghan President Hamid Karzai. A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the initial meeting was likely to be held in the "next few days," but would not be more specific.
Officials of Karzai's government have been angered by the opening of a Taliban political office in Doha on Tuesday, and said the US had violated assurances it would not give official status to the insurgents.
"As long as the peace process is not Afghan-led, the High Peace Council will not participate in the talks in Qatar," Karzai said in a statement, referring to a body he set up in 2010 to seek a negotiated peace with the Taliban.
Specifically, the officials objected to the ceremonial opening of the office - which included a prominent Taliban flag and a banner with the insurgent group's state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan - giving the impression that the Taliban had achieved some level of international political recognition.
What color was the tablecloth? What shape was the table?
The Taliban has said it does not recognise the government of Karzai.
A statement on Qatar's foreign ministry website last night clarified that the office which opened was called the "Political Bureau for Afghan Taliban in Doha" and not the "Political Bureau for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan".
The US and the Taliban had announced only this week that officials from both sides will meet in Doha, the capital of Qatar, in coming days, in a step forward for a stuttering peace process after 12 years of bloody and costly war between U.S.-led forces and the insurgents.
But the precise timing of the negotiations is now uncertain, while US officials work furiously to keep the nascent peace talks on track.
US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Karzai on the phone, telling him his concerns were justified and that he would work to resolve the issue.
I imagine Jahwn was actually telling Karzai to sit down and shut up or he won't be allowed on the helicopter when it leaves Kabul in late 2014...
It remained to be seen how long Karzai's boycott of the peace process - of which he is said to be deeply sceptical - will last.
The announcement of the diplomatic moves on Tuesday had raised hopes that Karzai's government and the Taliban might enter their first-ever direct negotiations on Afghanistan's future, with Washington acting as a broker and Pakistan as a major outside player.
The Taliban has until now refused talks with Kabul, calling Karzai and his government puppets of the West. But a senior Afghan official said earlier the Taliban were now willing to consider talks with the government.
As long as they get everything they want...
US officials said that in the talks, America would stick to its insistence that the Taliban break ties with al Qaeda, end violence, and accept the Afghan constitution, including protection for women and minorities.
Unless that doesn't work, in which case it's all negotiable...
#1
Obama wearing his golf attire and john Kerry in his yacht hat " hey Taliban fellows come to America to vote democrat and have free health care, free food, free housing, an electric car, and free lunch at free school."
Taliban ." We hate women and gays. Alah Acbar"
Obama "George bush ruined the peace talks.
HT: Drudge
"Some of 'gang' members have been calling amendments that would require 700-miles of fencing and 100 percent operational control "non-starts" for the bill." Used to be that we could figure out which party was supporting what based upon news pronouncements. Today, not so much....BOHICA....
#1
They say the bill would double the number of Border Patrol agents. But if the agents are unarmed, emasculated and forbidden by the Champ from arresting anybody what good does it do to double their number?
The problem, (dis)honorable Senators, is that you have compromised your credibility to the point where nobody believes you anymore. There are those of us who remember how you lied about immigration in 1986 and so we figure you are lying now. So you can take your new bill and shove it up your butts. We don't need new laws. We need to enforce the laws that we already have.
#3
it's another promise they'll fail to actually perform. The only sure thing in this is the amnesty
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/20/2013 14:27
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Don't forget that 'They will have to wait 13 years to apply for citizenship' provision.
That too is a bold-faced lie. Homeland InSecurity will be writing up exemptions right and left until everyone is eligiable - right in time for the '14 election.
#5
Same offer during Bushies term. Never built more than a few miles of real fence extended by a 'virtual' fence along with maybe a couple dozen BP personnel. Lies from the start. Lies to the finish.
BTW - can't you just count down to the 'it's the sequester that stopped us' lie?
#6
The protection + expansion of the US Welfare-Nanny State + Socialism ranks above all.
As a class, come 2015 they think that the US Debt burden will legally, or as a matter of accounting, be passed on to the OWG + GFU e.g. NAU, etc. UNFORTUNATELY, OWG OR NO OWG THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY STILL WANT THE US-N-ONLY-THE-US TO PAY THE LARGEST SHARE OF CONTRIBUTIONS + DEBT.
IOW, the US will still end up being responsible for its Debt no matter ow the DemoLefties + Aligned try to hide it or pass it on.
#7
US Debt stands roughly at 17.2Trilyuhn, US Congresscritters + Politicos are still using the old number of $16.7Trilyuhn on the MSM-Net, + I S-T-I-L-L don't see Mexico, Canada, Greenland, etal. in any rush to help pay or reduce the US Debt.
Many federal agencies have small enforcement teams; these are composed of sworn peace officers who must be trained. Postal inspectors are the best example but every agency that has to investigate fraud, mis-use of federal funds, etc., has an enforcement team. It's a dangerous world out there (ask the postal inspectors) and the officers have to be ready.
I don't have a quarrel with an IRS or Treasury team training with AR-15s. Unless they point them at me...
SWAT teams. Secret Service. Federal Marshals. FBI. Everyone has got to have their own duplicating fire teams. Little empires. Of course the 'country founded by geniuses, but run by idiots' moment is the shooting at Fort Hood which was a 'gun free zone'.
#3
Reminds me of the Park Service here in Alaska. Everyone wanted to be a pilot. Got the birds from law enforcement confiscations. Real cherry super cubs and 185s. Then they flew them and wrecked them. 90 day wonders.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/20/2013 17:56
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#4
Dept Education has SWAT teams.
Better question - what Fed dept doesn't have a SWAT team?
Iranian President-elect Hassan Rowhani was on the special Iranian government committee that plotted the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, according to an indictment by the Argentine government prosecutor investigating the case. described in all the right places as a "moderate"
The AMIA bombing is considered the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentinas history, killing 85 and wounding hundreds more. The Argentine government had accused the Iranian government of planning the attack and Irans terrorist proxy Hezbollah of carrying it out. Numerous former and current Iranian officials are wanted by Interpol in connection with the bombing. so arrest him when he leaves the country
Former Iranian intelligence official Abolghasem Mesbahi, who defected from Iran in the late 1990s, testified that the decision to launch the attack was made within a special operations committee connected to the powerful Supreme National Security Council in August 1993. but that was a Long Time Ago, so no harm, no foul
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/20/2013
07:28 ||
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#1
Doesn't make him non-moderate---it's only Jews Zionist thug oppressors.
CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell resigned from his post Wednesday, after managing the resignation of former CIA Director David Petraeus over an extramarital affair, and defending the agency's performance over the attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.
Morell was passed over for the top CIA spot by President Obama in favor of his counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, who announced Morell's departure Wednesday. Brennan said Morell will be replaced by Avril Haines, currently a deputy assistant to the president and legal adviser at the National Security Council.
Morell agreed to the State Department's request to remove a reference to militants in a controversial memo of talking points about the Libya attack.
Dozens of emails that the White House released a month ago show Morells involvement in circulating the revised points. In one email, he noted the State Department had "deep concerns" about referencing prior "warnings."
A page of hand-written notes showed Morell scratching out mentions of Al Qaeda, the experience of fighters in Libya, Islamic extremists and a warning to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on the eve of the attacks of calls for a demonstration. Ultimately, all of that was scrubbed from the talking points. The final version said "extremists" participated, without mentioning prior attacks and warnings in the region.
Senior administration officials told reporters that Morell made the changes to the talking points because of his own concerns that they could prejudge an FBI investigation into who was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Morell also drew criticism for stating that the CIA's interrogation program produced some useful information.
The US government's secret seizure of Associated Press phone records had a "chilling effect" on newsgathering by the agency and other news organizations, AP's top executive said Wednesday.
"Some longtime trusted sources have become nervous and anxious about talking with us," AP president and chief executive Gary Pruitt said in a speech to the National Press Club.
"In some cases, government employees we once checked in with regularly will no longer speak to us by phone. Others are reluctant to meet in person ... This chilling effect on newsgathering is not just limited to AP.
"Journalists from other news organizations have personally told me that it has intimidated both official and nonofficial sources from speaking to them as well."
Pruitt spoke one month after the US news agency revealed that it had been notified after the fact that the US Justice Department had secret subpoenas of two months of phone records from its news operations.
The AP has said US authorities appeared to have sought out the records as part of a criminal investigation into leaked information contained in a May 2012 AP story about a foiled terror plot.
Pruitt, who previously called the seizure "a massive and unprecedented intrusion" into newsgathering, said the Justice Department "violated its own rules" on how it handles investigations of leaks to news media.
He said the collection of records pertaining to more than 100 journalists was "an overbroad and sloppy fishing expedition" and failed to follow procedures on notification.
Pruitt said that authorities maintained that by notifying the AP ahead of the sweep "it would have tipped off the leaker" but argued "that kind of reasoning would apply in every single case."
This rationale would mean news organizations would never know when its records are being obtained, news sources would become less willing to speak and "the public will only know what the government wants them to know."
Precisely the point, and you got it in one try. Now then, what are you as a news person going to do about it? You can roll over and accept your status in the new order, or you can work with the remaining brave sources to bring out what's going on -- and editorialize about it instead of slurping at Champ's fountain...
The Syrian Air Force has suffered major losses in the last year, as the aircraft and helicopters were unleashed on rebels (and civilian supporters) and took a beating. Of the 370 usable fixed wing war planes the Syrian Air Force had two years ago, about half are now out of action because of combat losses or wear and tear. Nearly two-thirds of the 360 helicopters are gone, for the same reasons.
Syrian Air Force losses have been heavy, with some 400 aircrew dead, captured, or missing. Nearly a hundred fixed wing and over a hundred helicopters have been lost. About half of these aircraft were captured or destroyed on the ground as rebels attacked, and often captured, air bases. The jets (and a few transports) were hit while landing and taking off, and this threat often led to airbases being abandoned, with aircraft incapable (because of damage or lack of spare parts) of flying out being destroyed or just left behind. The rebels have about a dozen flyable helicopters and some helicopter pilots have defected, but there is not really a rebel air force just yet.
The air force is rapidly disappearing because of combat and operational (accidents and poor maintenance) losses. At this point the government has nothing to lose and simply regards the remaining aircraft as similar to diminishing ammo supplies. Use it or lose it to advancing rebels.
#4
Honestly, given Arab maintenance standards, I would have thought the attrition rate would have been much higher than that. Do they have Russian mercs on their airbases keeping their frames taped together?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
06/20/2013 15:32
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Sources say it is believed that top terrorists insurgents Aba Jeh-ali, Hubaideelah Romeulee, Karim Yama and Rosali Jehsoh met in Yala province before Tuesday night's attack that killed a police officer and injured seven others.
The funeral for slain Pol Captain Sama-air Luemaewas was held yesterday morning at a mosque in Raman district. Sama-air, sub-inspector at Krong Pinang police station, died from his injuries at the hospital. He and seven other policemen were hit by a bomb blast while on patrol.
The 30kg bomb was hidden in a drainage pipe running under the Krong Pinang-Ban Luemu Road and was detonated when the police vehicle drove by it. Police suspect this attack was carried out by a group of terrorists insurgents led by Aba Jeh-ali.
Ten minutes ahead of the attack, another incident took place in Pattani province where suspected terrorists insurgents armed with AKA rifles ambushed three plain-clothes paramilitary rangers on a motorcycle. After a 10-minute gunfight, one ranger was killed while the other two were rushed to the hospital.
[An Nahar] U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... leaves Friday on a 12-day trip during which he will return to the Middle East, hold high-level talks in Southeast Asia and make his first visit to India.
At the start of his seven-nation tour, Kerry will head first for Doha to meet with top Qatari leaders and take part in a meeting of the core ministers from the Friends of Syria group, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement Wednesday.
The top U.S. diplomat will then travel to India from June 23-25 for his first official visit since taking up his post on February 1 to chair the fourth annual U.S.-India strategic dialogue.
The forum is a way of "reflecting the strong strategic partnership between our countries," Psaki said, adding they will discuss issues ranging from security and defense to science, climate change and economic ties, as well as space cooperation.
From Delhi, Kerry will travel to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... to meet top Saudi officials, before heading to Kuwait City on June 26.
From June 27 to 29, the U.S. secretary of state will return to the Middle East region with a stop in Jordan before making his fifth visit to Israel to meet Israeli and Paleostinian leaders.
Kerry is trying to coax the two sides to resume negotiations frozen for almost three years, and has being pursuing what he calls "a quiet strategy" to kickstart the grinding of the peace processor.
He had been forced to postpone the trip to Israel planned for earlier this month as the U.S. administration weighed the crisis in Syria.
But in his first few months in office, he will now have visited Israel more times than his predecessor Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as America's Blond Eminence and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Al Haig ... during her whole four-year tenure.
From Jerusalem, Kerry will head to Brunei from June 30 to July 2 for meetings with Asian leaders including annual ASEAN-U.S. talks as well as the ASEAN regional forum and a foreign ministers meeting of the East Asia Summit.
He is due to return to Washington on July 2.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013
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People like Jawn Kerry represent the cream of our intellectual, diplomatic and cultural institutions. (stop laughing, I'm going somewhere with this!) As such, and because we are a rich and prosperous nation, it is selfish to keep him to ourselves. I propose we send him on long-term missions to troubled nations such as Syria and Egypt to guide their progress towards peace and modernity. And yes, he can take Hillary with him.
[An Nahar] Jordanian border guards killed on Wednesday a Syrian and maimed two others after they attacked Jordanian soldiers at the border while trying to enter the country, the army said.
While border guards have stopped Jordanians trying to slip into Syria to fight on several occasions, it is rare for Syrians to attack Jordanian troops.
The army said the incident began when a group of people tried to enter Jordan from Syria and "attacked a border guard forward post".
"A firefight followed that killed one attacker and maimed two others," said the army statement published by the official Petra news agency.
Authorities took the maimed men to hospital, the statement added, without giving further details on the attackers.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013
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[REUTERS] Calls by Sunni Mohammedanholy mans for a holy war against the Syrian government and its Shi'ite allies are fuelling radicalism in the region, a senior Iranian official said on Wednesday.
Earlier this month, prominent holy man Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi ...crackpot Egyptian Islamist theologian. He is best known for his program Shariah and Life on Al Jazeera, with an estimated audience of 60 million kindred souls worldwide. He is also well-known for IslamOnline, which occasionally advocates things like slavery and thumping the old lady with a rod no thicker than an inch, and has published more than 120 books, including Islam: The Future Civilization. Joe has long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Moslem Brüderbund. Some of his views have been controversial in the West, though less so among the rubes of the Mysterious East, and he was refused entry to the United Kingdom in 2008. In 2004, 2,500 Muslim academics from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and from the Palestinian territories condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving Islam a bad name.... called for jihad in Syria after fighters from Shi'ite Lebanese group Hezbollah intervened to help Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... , in a move which stoked sectarian tensions.
Shi'ite Iran, a close ally of Assad and backer of Hezbollah, has accused Arab and Western states of fomenting terrorism in Syria by arming rebels caught up in the two-year-old revolt.
"There were steps and fatwas from holy mans like Mr Qaradawi, these fatwas escalate and encourage apostasy and radicalism in the region," Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Iranian Deputy Minister for Arab and Foreign Affairs, told news hounds in Kuwait.
The Syrian conflict is widening a divide in the Middle East between the two main denominations of Islam.
Kuwait, which lies across the Gulf from Iran, has voiced concern that the Syrian crisis is heightening sectarian tension and becoming a battlefield for regional powers.
Abdollahian said bully boyz in Syria have been attacking all sects and creating rifts between communities. He called for a political solution to the crisis which has killed more than 90,000 people.
Abdollahian, who was in the Gulf Arab state to meet with Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khaled al-Sabah, denied that Iran was giving military aid to the Syrian army.
"We give economic, political and media support to Syria," he said. Hezbollah was involved only to protect the Lebanese-Syrian border and to shield Lebanese living in Syria from violence, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013
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#1
pot calling kettle black.
Actually, I'm for any conflict that has muslims killing each other. The sooner and more, the better.
[Maan] Egypt has declared a state of alert in the Sinai after myrmidon Islamist fighters set up a military base in the peninsula, Egyptian security officials said Monday.
Egyptian forces and police have imposed curfews on Sinai cities el-Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah. Military helicopters were seen hovering over the cities, a Ma'an news hound said.
Militants from Egypt, Paleostine and Mali affiliated to Jihadist groups and al-Qaeda have deployed heavily in bunkers in a desert area in central Sinai, Egyptian security officials told Ma'an.
Around 30 "dangerous" Death Eaters affiliated to Jihadist and Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... groups entered Sinai through tunnels from the Gazoo Strip to join the camp, the officials said.
The Death Eaters have large amounts of ammunition and weapons, suggesting they plan to join demonstrations against the Moslem Brüderbund planned for June 30, the security sources added.
Sinai clan chiefs have formed a popular committee in north Sinai to protect protect strategic facilities and public properties during the planned protests.
Abdul-Hamid Salami, chief of the al-Fawakhiriya clan in el-Arish, said Friday that clan dignitaries would hold an emergency meeting on Monday with army and police commanders to discuss ways to protect the peninsula against security chaos.
"We have learned a good lesson from the previous experience during the Jan. 25 revolution," Salami told Ma'an.
"We will sacrifice our souls to protect all security facilities in Sinai, and will not allow Paleostinians to infiltrate through smuggling tunnels seeking to support a certain party at the expense of the Egyptian people.
"We hereby warn in advance that the people of Sinai will defy any external elements and prevent them by force from destroying Sinai or reaching Cairo."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013
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#1
Birthday Gam Shot
Neetu Chandra [Bollywood][She holds two Dan black belts in Taekwondo and represented India in the 1997 World Taekwondo Championships in Hong Kong][Filmography](age 29)
#6
Two yahoos, supposedly KKK members, were rounded by the FEEBS and charged with plotting to make an X-Ray machine to target Obama and officials in Israel. Does this seem implausible to anyone else?
#11
I googled it: the half-thickness of x-rays in air is 4 meters. I don't know how much they spread out. It can't be that coherent, it's an X-ray machine.
[An Nahar] U.S. plans to arm Syrian rebels have raised fears in Israel that the weapons could fall into the wrong hands, but analysts played down the threat -- provided no big guns are involved.
Washington said last week that it would provide Syria's rebels with military support in the form of small arms after it determined that the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons.
U.S. President Barack Obama I am the change that you seek... on Wednesday declined to categorize the arms the U.S. will send to the rebels.
"I cannot and will not comment on specifics on our programs related to the Syrian opposition," Obama said, at a presser in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom...
Two months ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged caution over such plans saying it "presents the question of which rebels and which weapons?"
And Israel's former deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon has repeatedly warned that such a move would be a "mistake."
Other Israeli officials have drawn parallels with Afghanistan in the 1980s, when U.S. supplies to Mujahedeen fighting the Russians found their way years later to al-Qaeda.
Analysts said the extent of the threat to Israel depended on what weaponry was involved and where it ended up.
"If it means the provision of small arms and ammunition, such as RPGs and mortars... I don't think that's going to mean anything for Israel, and am not even sure it will for the rebels," said Jonathan Spyer, senior researcher at the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.
Even "if some of those weapons reach the hands of extreme jihadist elements, such as Al-Nusra Front (in the Golan Heights) ... it is not a major strategic threat, but rather an irritant," he said.
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06/20/2013
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#1
"Not a major strategic threat, but rather an irritant" > Uh, uh, YEAH!?
Communist insurgents killed five civilians and kidnapped five soldiers in the southern Philippines on Tuesday in the latest violence following the collapse of peace talks.
Philippine military spokesman Colonel Ramon Zagala said about 40 New People's Army guerrillas attacked a tree plantation on Mindanao Tuesday, killing five workers and burning equipment. Just the day before, NPA fighters in another part of Mindanao seized five soldiers as they were passing through on motorcycles, he added.
Zagala condemned the latest attacks saying, "This is clearly contrary to what they're saying, that they want to end violence through peace talks."
Regional military spokesman Major Leo Bongosia said the attack on the plantation is part of an extortion attempt. He said, "The plantation did not give in to the NPA's extortion demands. The usual tactic is to burn the equipment as a warning."
"Perhaps they fought back and resisted," Bongosia said when asked why he thought the civilian workers were gunned down by the militants.
In Davao City, an NPA unit abducted five soldiers as they were traveling unarmed in civilian clothes to buy supplies for a community food program. Local military chief Colonel Leopoldo Galon said the kidnappers wore military-style uniforms. The soldiers are being held at gunpoint by insurgents in Paquibato district. However, one officer escaped while his five other companions were taken hostage.
#6
"Last fall, the insurgency website Kavkaz Center reported that there were 150 fighters from the "Caucasus Emirate" in Syria, divided into four brigades."
35 or 40 man 'brigades'? Is this a translation error of some sort, or are they really that grandiose?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
06/20/2013 15:28
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#7
"How many Chechens have gone to fight in Syria?"
Not nearly enough.
Posted by: Barbara ||
06/20/2013 18:02
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#8
Watch : Chechen And More On Ingushetia - And Watch Turkey Watch
[Pak Daily Times] A suicide kaboom rocked a market in Yemen's mainly Shia northern city of Saada on Wednesday, killing a civilian, a rebel group said.
The attacker, riding a cycle of violence, "went kaboom! at the entrance of the market where there were many passersby... One civilian was martyred," the Ansaruallah (Supporters of God) rebel group said on its website.
A rebel earlier told AFP the bomber had set off his charge in the middle of the market, but the statement said he had been unable to enter and so had blown himself up at the entrance.
The defence ministry said two people had been killed and 11 others maimed, without saying who the dead were. The rebels belong to the Zaidi sect of Shia Islam and have controlled the northern part of Yemen since a 2004 uprising they launched against the central government. Intermittent fighting killed thousands of people before a ceasefire was reached in February 2010.
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06/20/2013
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[An Nahar] The Taliban office opened in Doha to facilitate peace talks does not carry the name of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," as it appeared earlier, Qatar said on Wednesday.
Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid 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... denounced as a provocation the use of the formal name of the Islamist movement's government from 1996 until it was toppled in 2001.
"The office that was opened in Doha yesterday is the political office of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and is not the political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," Qatar's foreign ministry said, quoted by QNA state news agency.
"The official name agreed to open this office was the political office of the Taliban in Doha."
Taliban representatives and Qatari officials on Tuesday opened the office in Doha, in a ceremony that featured a large poster reading "the opening of the political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Doha".
Taliban front man Zabiullah Mujahid told Agence La Belle France Presse that the office was intended "to open dialogue between the Taliban and the world".
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#1
OTOH the Taliban still refer to the "Islamic Emirate of AfghAnistan", despite what Qatar or any other Muslim Govt. says.
* FYI DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > TALIBAN "UNAWARE' OF THEIR POLITICAL OFFICE IN QATAR.
Nobody told them anything about it - OOOOOOOOO
PPPPPPPPSSSSSIES.
Well, clearly someone(s) must get their Name(s) mentioned to Allan at evening prayers tonite.
and
* RUSSIA TODAY > US TO OPEN DIRECT DEALINGS WID TALIBAN AFTER DECADES-LONG FAILURE TO CONTROL MINERAL-RICH REGION.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/20/2013 8:06
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#3
Send UN & Chinese Non-Aligned Movement Reps Into The Peace Talks With The International Red Cross & The Red Crescent Society & The Arab League & The Aga Khan Reps - Also
Two soldiers were wounded when an explosive device was apparently detonated by militants in the Russian federal republic of Ingushetia. The Interior Ministry of the Russian North Caucasus said the explosion occurred in the village of Alkun that borders Chechnya.
[An Nahar] The new U.S. ambassador to Libya arrived in Tripoli on Wednesday, an embassy source said, nine months after her predecessor and three other Americans were killed in an Islamist attack in Benghazi.
Career diplomat Deborah Jones will present her credentials on Thursday to the General National Congress, Libya's highest political and legislative authority, state news agency LANA said.
Jones succeeds Chris Stevens, a popular figure among the Libyan people, who was killed along with the other three when Islamists overran the Benghazi mission and a nearby CIA annex on September 13.
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[IsraelTimes] Khader Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader's brother, was buried earlier this month in southern Leb after reportedly dying in battle in the Syrian town of Qusair in late May.
A video uploaded to YouTube showed crowds of Hezbollah supporters, holding yellow flags bearing the Shiite militia's emblem, pictures of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and garlands, accompanying Khader's coffin in a funeral parade in the southern village of Qana. Hezbollah fighters bore the coffin.
The Hezbollah chieftain was spotted by an Al Monitor news hound in the Syrian town of Qusair, weeks after the fight between Syrian rebels, Hezbollah, and Assad forces ended in a opposition defeat.
Nasrallah's son Hadi was killed in a firefight with the IDF in southern Leb in 1997, and his remains were exchanged in a swap with Hezbollah for the body of an elite IDF solider a year later.
#1
so Sheikh Hassan will be coming out from hiding under his daughter's bed to lead the Hezbullies into battle, right? Coward
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/20/2013 8:05
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#2
I am sure Nasrallah was on scene to help send off his brother. At this point it might be enlightening to recall the words of Henry Adams' great-granddaughter Wednesday, "No wait".
[TEHRANTIMES] Al-Qaeda-linked snuffies detonated several bombs and breached the main UN compound in Somalia's capital Wednesday, sparking shootouts that killed at least 12 people. A UN official said at least three foreigners were believed to be among the dead.
The attack comes only six months after the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... expanded its presence in Mogadishu, where it had kept only a small operation because hard boyz had controlled much of the capital until being pushed out in an offensive in 2011.
Al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... said on its Twitter feed shortly after Wednesday's attack began that its fighters "are now in control of the entire compound and the battle is still ongoing."
African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... and Somali security forces responded and took control of the compound about an hour later. The UN staff who sought refuge in the bunker then were evacuated to the secure military base and airport complex across the street, Parker said.
A UN official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not an official front man, said he believed three foreigners were killed: one Kenyan and two South Africans.
"There was not very much time to get into the safe area," said another UN official, Ben Parker, a front man for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia.
The top UN official on Somalia, Nicholas Kay, also works out of the building but was not inside the compound when it was attacked.
At 11:30 a.m. the compound was rocked by the first kaboom. At least two others followed, Parker said. Dozens of staff from UN humanitarian and development agencies were in the compound and many were moved to the secure bunker, he said.
Mohamed Ali, an ambulance driver, said he transported five dead civilian bodies and 10 people who were maimed.
An News Agency that Dare Not be Namednews hound who went inside the UN compound after the battle saw two dead bodies of what appeared to be al-Shabaab attackers wearing Somali military uniforms. An official said seven attackers died in total.
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#1
A UN official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not an official front man, said he believed three foreigners were killed: one Kenyan and two South Africans
[An Nahar] Fighters from Hizbullah joined Syrian troops battling rebels near Damascus on Wednesday, monitors said, as Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's regime kept up a push to cut off the Death Eaters' supply lines.
"Army troops and Hizbullah members fought rebels near the Khomeini hospital in Zayabiyeh village," southeast of Damascus, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"Hizbullah fighters, who have a strong presence at Sayyida Zeinab (in southeastern Damascus), are trying to seize control of villages near Zayabiyeh and Babila."
The Syrian army shelled both Zayabiyeh and Babila, said the group which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground for its reports.
Hizbullah's Al-Manar television said the army was advancing towards Zayabiyeh, just south of the confessionally mixed district of Sayyida Zeinab, named after an important Shiite Musselmen shrine.
The party has been fighting alongside the army for months in the district, which lies in an area that rebels from southern Damascus have used as their main rear base.
Activists say the regime is trying to crush the rebellion on the outskirts of Damascus in order to cut off supply lines leading into rebel pockets inside the capital.
"There is a fierce campaign against the (rebels) south of the capital," said Damascus-based activist Matar Ismail.
"The humanitarian situation is very critical... We believe the (regime) is trying to test the (rebels') strength, in order to try to advance on the south of the capital," Ismail told Agence La Belle France Presse over the Internet.
Ismail said Hizbullah and the Abu al-Fadl Abbas brigade -- a mostly Syrian Shiite force that has also attracted Shiite fighters from elsewhere in the region -- were playing a key role in the fight.
Hizbullah was also credited with an important role in the Syrian army's recapture of the former rebel stronghold of Qusayr in central Homs province earlier this month.
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah has said the group will remain engaged in Syria's conflict.
The Syrian army meanwhile renewed shelling of other rebel areas near the capital, including northwestern Zabadani and Qalamoun to the northeast.
Both areas are also a short distance from the Lebanese border.
Elsewhere, fierce battles broke out between rebels and troops in Idlib, in northwestern Syria, the Observatory said.
Opposition forces captured an army post on the road linking the coastal province of Latakia to Ariha in Idlib province, and two tanks were destroyed.
In regime stronghold Latakia, an kaboom at an ammunition depot maimed at least 13 soldiers, said the Observatory.
State television said the blast was the result of a technical failure, and that only six had suffered light wounds.
Wednesday's violence comes a day after at least 83 people were killed across Syria, said the Britannia-based Observatory.
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[Pak Daily Times] One died and more than 6,000 people were evacuated in central Russia overnight after a series of massive kabooms at an arms depot blew out windows and sparked a fire, the emergency situations ministry said Wednesday.
The blasts began Tuesday night and continued for hours during an operation to dispose of old munitions at the depot near the town of Chapayevsk in the Samara region about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) southeast of Moscow.
Russian television footage showed huge columns of black smoke and bright orange flames rising from the depot, and a correspondent for Rossiya 24 television at the scene said kabooms rang out every minute during the night.
Almost 6,500 residents were evacuated from the settlement of Nagorny around five kilometres from the depot where the force of the kabooms smashed windows, the emergency ministry said.
President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... -- at a meeting with the emergency situations minister and regional governor -- ordered payments of 10,000 rubles ($311) to cover immediate costs to each evacuated person.The depot contained around 18 million shells, the regional Investigative Committee said in a statement. Television footage showed blown-out glass and window-frames and unwent kaboom! shells lying in yards and on the roads leading to Nagorny.
A section of the highway between the cities of Samara and Volgograd was shut off because of shrapnel and unwent kaboom! shells, Channel One state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported, "We were driving along and then there was an kaboom and the force of it blew out all the windows in the car," a bloodied casualty told Rossiya 24. A total of 48 people needed medical treatment and 11 were hospitalised, the regional Investigative Committee said.
There were no reports of deaths. Russian television showed victims with bandaged heads and limbs. An ambulance worker told Rossiya 24 that most of the injured were in cars, which had glass fly out of windows or even overturned. The emergency situations ministry used aircraft to drop water on the fire, which had spread to surrounding forests. The situation had stabilised on Wednesday, the ministry said, with kabooms ceasing around 6 am (0200 GMT), while fire continued to smoulder at the depot. Samara regional police said the kabooms began during work aimed at disposing of the old shells. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... the emergency situations ministry said there had been "unsanctioned kabooms of munitions". Regional Sherlocks launched a criminal probe into a breach of safety regulations.
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[Pak Daily Times] The suicide kaboom at a funeral in Shergarh, Mardan on Tuesday killed an independent MPA and 34 others, injuring dozens more. It seems the MPA was the target. The incident once again indicates that for the Death Eaters, nothing is sacred, not even the last rites of a person. This attack was the deadliest in three months. The MPA, Imran Mohmand, had apparently been receiving threats and had been provided police security, but this proved unable to prevent the bomber from exploding himself next to the MPA soon after the funeral prayers ended. While the ritual condemnations from high officials and the announcement of cash compensation for the dead and injured was once more on display, this is by now an insufficient response to the persistent terrorism that has brought the country to its knees. This bombing was the deadliest since the blast 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... on March 3 that killed 50 people, and occurred just three days after the horrendous attack on a women's university bus in Quetta that killed 25 people, including 14 girl students. Shergarh borders Malakand, formerly a stronghold of the gunnies that was cleared through an army operation in 2009. Though there has been no claim of responsibility so far, the cast of usual suspects is headed by the Taliban, who hold sway in Mardan after being ejected from the 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... valley by a military campaign. To put things in perspective, it is important to recall that 150 people were killed by Death Eater actions during the election campaign. After the campaign dust settled and governments were formed at the Centre and in the provinces, the terrorist 'offensive' has not ceased, if anything it has intensified.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali has put his finger on some of the anomalies attending the country's anti-terrorism efforts. In a television interview, Chaudhry Nisar said the military needed to be purged of "Pasha-like" officers, a reference to former ISI chief General Pasha. The meaning of this pointed reference became clearer later in the interview when Chaudhry Nisar talked about the intelligence agencies. General Pasha may or may not deserve the 'accolade' paid to him by the interior minister, but his tenure was perhaps the high point of the duality of policy adopted by the military establishment vis-à-vis Death Eater groups. The arbitrary division of these groups into 'good' and 'bad' Taliban ignored the nexus between those operating in Afghanistan and those targeting Pakistain. That 'fiction' has since been exposed in the media. On the intelligence agencies, of which there is a considerable panoply, Chaudhry Nisar decried the tendency to act as rivals to each other, at the cost of a coordinated and concentrated anti-terrorist struggle. As these lines are being written, there are reports that a national security policy is under consideration amongst Prime Minister 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... , the interior minister and COAS General Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... . This has not come a moment too soon. In this space we consistently advised the previous government that an overarching, centralised structure for the anti-terrorist struggle with a shared database was a sine qua non for an effective anti-terrorist strategy. Chaudhry Nisar appears to have endorsed the idea in principle in his remarks. It remains to be seen if the civilian and military authorities, and the Centre and provinces can bring all their intelligence assets on the same page against an elusive and deadly enemy. Without that, the authorities will continue to chase their tail, reduced as they are to reactive rather than proactive steps.
Amazingly, in the face of the latest attack that has killed the second MPA in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... (KP) since the elections, the Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) leaders continue to harp on the tired formula of peace talks with the murderers of innocent men, women and kiddies. Their blinkered view continues to lay the blame for such incidents on the war on terror and drone attacks. What drone attack, even had it occurred, would justify killing people at a funeral indiscriminately and cruelly? The PTI and others of its ilk need to wake up and smell the coffee. What the country (and KP) needs to understand is that we are confronted by a fanatical enemy impervious to logic or reason. Talking to such elements is like talking to a brick wall. They need to be answered in the same language they have long employed, the language of force. *
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[Bangla Daily Star] Four people, including three coppers, were maimed during a shootout between police and alleged Jamaat-Shibir cadres in Satkania upazila early yesterday.
All upazilas are on the map. Really. Where the map is, well that is a different question.
After the shootout police incarcerated You have the right to remain silent... five Jamaat-Shibir cadres and recovered three arms, two machetes and a knife from the spot.
Marked X, as always. The weaponry is being thoroughly cleaned, as Jamaat-Shibir cadres turn out to be remarkably careless. A rust spot has already been discovered -- discretion forbids the naming of the location -- and a dinged edge. I'll wager the sergeant has been exercising his vocabulary on this one.
They are Md Nasir, 45, Chhagir Ahmed, 23, Md Arif, 22, Abu Sufian, 22 and Md Iqbal, 32. They all hail from the upazila, said police adding, the arrestees were preparing for robbery in the area.
Acting on a tip-off,
Mahmoud the Weasel's youngest double second cousin, twice removed has joined the family business, and shows great promise...
a team of Satkania police conducted a drive at a farm of Iqbal in Churamoni area around 3:30am.
A proper time. The good citizens are all in bed, and therefore not underfoot, leaving police and miscreants to encounter one another in full flower.
Sensing police presence the myrmidons opened fire forcing the law enforcers to fire back, said Yamin Suman, assistant sub-inspector of the cop shoppe.
Young Assistant Sub-Inspector Suman has been studying his Encounter Handbook, it is clear. Well done, lad!
Iqbal sustained bullet injury in his leg during the shootout while Sub-Inspector Kazi Shafiqul Islam, constables Abdul Mannan and Md Belayet were maimed in scuffling with the alleged robbers, he added.
One bruised his elbow in a fall, the other took a small hurt in his pride. But tweezers were employed to remove the splinter, and he's sure to be back on the job in considerably less than the customary fortnight.
Iqbal was taken to Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
The arrestees were known as "Iqbal Bahini" in the area
Double dipping? 'Tis not many who could carry off being both Jamaat-Shibir and Bahinis of any sort.
and they were involved in the February 28 mayhem in the upazila, said Suman.
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06/20/2013
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#1
Taking prisoners at 3:30 a.m. doesn't sound like the RAB MO.
[An Nahar] Imam of Sidon's Bilal bin Rabah Mosque Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir accused on Wednesday the army of "defending" alleged apartments owned by Hizbullah gunnies in the southern city.
He demanded during a presser that these apartments be vacated before Monday, saying: "The military option is one of several available to us should our demand fail to be met."
He hoped that the residents of the city would follow reason "in order to thwart greater dangers that are looming in the future."
"I am not issuing threats as we are all bound to coexist in Leb," he stressed.
"Do not support the oppressor against the oppressed," demanded Asir.
He then recounted how he had demanded that the Hizbullah apartments be vacated seven months ago.
His demand was met with a vow by caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel to fulfill the request within 15 days, but he failed to do so.
On Tuesday's festivities between Asir's supporters and members of the Hizbullah-affiliated Resistance Brigades in the Sidon neighborhood of Abra, he said that the unrest started when Mahmoud al-Sous shot up a number of shops and attacked youths in the area.
He accused him of carrying out his actions in collaboration with the army intelligence, rejecting the army statement on the clash and revealing that photographs of Sous and the members of the branch had been taken.
The unrest on Tuesday left at least one person dead and four others maimed.
Voice of Leb radio (93.3) said the fighting broke out between Asir supporters and "Mahmoud al-Sous' group, which belongs to the Resistance That'd be the Hezbullies, natch... Brigades."
The Lebanese army deployed in Sidon as the violence comes amid soaring sectarian tensions in Leb that have escalated because of the raging war in neighboring Syria.
The army said several people were maimed by the gunfire.
He has alleged several times that the group uses several apartments in Abra to stockpile weapons and house fighters.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013
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#1
Sure looks like a fake beard to me.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/20/2013 23:10
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[REUTERS] Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid 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... said on Wednesday his government would not join U.S. peace talks with the Taliban and halted negotiations with Washington on a troop pact, underscoring the fragile nature of hopes for a negotiated peace in Afghanistan.
The United States and the Taliban have said officials from both sides will meet in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on Thursday, in a step forward for a stuttering grinding of the peace processor after 12 years `,of bloody and costly war between U.S.-led forces and the bad turbans.
But Afghan officials, angered by the opening of a Taliban political office in Doha on Tuesday, said the United States had violated assurances it would not give official status to the bad turbans.
"As long as the grinding of the peace processor is not Afghan-led, the High Peace Council will not participate in the talks in Qatar," Karzai said in a statement, referring to a body he set up in 2010 to seek a negotiated peace with the Taliban.
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#1
Looks like Karzai + Kabul Govt. have put the Bammer Admin on "damage control" vee the Taliban talks.
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > TALIBAN REJECT ALL US DEMANDS | HUMBLED US MAKES CONCESSIONS TO TALIBAN TO START TALKS - TIMES OF INDIA.
* RELATED WORLD NEWS > [Telegraph.UK] US DROPS DEMAND TALIBAN RENOUNCE AL-QAEDA TO ALLOW TALKS TO PROGRESS.
* WAFF > [StrategyPage] TALIBAN DIVIDED ON MAKING PEACE.
[Pak Daily Times] LAHORE: Christian women were attacked and paraded naked by a mob with the support of the ruling party, said a blurbd issued by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC).
Three Christian women -- Arshad Bibi, Sajida Bibi and Sauriya Bibi -- the daughter-in-laws of Sadiq Masih, a resident of Sereser Chak No 21, Kasur, were brutally beaten and then paraded naked by gunnies employed by Muhammad Munir, the son of Abdul Rasheed, a landlord who has the support of the ruling party, the PML-N. The incident occurred on the night of June 3 when the male members of the family were attending to their jobs. The attackers, armed with weapons and batons, were able to enter the house by scaling the boundary wall and unlocking the gate from the inside. At that time, the women were sleeping in the house along with their father-in-law Sadiq Masih, 73, and mother-in-law Rani Bibi, 70.
The mob, lead by Muhammad Munir, Abrahim, Muhammad Rafique and their sons Ahmed, Asif, Abid, Wassem, Waqas and Shabir and three unidentified persons, entered the house. When the attackers invaded the house, they started looking for the sons of Sadiq Masih, checking all the rooms and throwing their belongings about. When they could not find his sons, they started beating the three women.
The party workers then took the three Christian women out into the street where the lights were on and tore their clothes off.
Then they started shouting to attract the attention of the people nearby, to let them see the extent of the Dire Revenge™ and the power of the landlord. Nobody dared to stop them as the attackers were holding weapons. Due to the victim's screaming and shouting, some elderly people of the village came out and put their turbans on the feet of the attackers as a sign of high respect and honour. After this, the attackers released the women but threatened the villagers that if they complained about the incident they would face more trouble.
While this was going on, somebody called in the police, and after much time the officers arrived. Instead of taking action against the attackers, the police tried to calm down the mob, which was protesting against the incident.
The cause of the incident was apparently that on two occasions some goats belonging to the Christians had entered the fields of the landlord, Munir, who claimed that they had damaged his crops. As the goats belonged to the Christians, Munir confiscated them.
On the morning of the incident, Shaukat, the son of Sadiq Masih, approached Munir in the company of his sisters-in-law and requested him to release their goats. Munir refused to do so and stared beating him. Munir slapped him many times and cursed him. When Shoukat, in retaliation, slapped him back, Munir became furious and threatened him. It was this incident that lead to the Dire Revenge™ attack. At this time, they also injured Sadiq Masih, who received several injuries to his leg.
On June 4, Advocate Sardar Mushtaq Gill, National Director at LEAD (Legal Evangelical Association Development) was informed by Rev Saleem Gill to give legal aid and assistance to the harassed family. Advocate Gill visited the victims and collected the details of the case and approached the Pattoki deputy superintendent of police (DSP) for the registration of a case. Consequently, an FIR was registered against the landlord and his henchmen under numbers 231/13 of Section 452, 354, 337/FI, 149,148 of the Pakistain Penal Code (PPC). The victims received a certificate from the Punjab Health Department mentioning the injuries that they suffered, but the police did not take action against the perpetrators, either for the humiliation of parading the women naked or the violence perpetrated on them.
Instead, the police quickly filed a case against the Christians under FIR 234/13 under sections 440, 379, 148 and 149 of the PPC on behalf of the landlord. This came as no surprise to the victims as it is a common practice of the local Mohammedans to create pressure on the Christian community to withdraw FIRs. One member of the National Assembly, Rana Ishaq, from the ruling party, the PML-N, is forcing the police not to act against the perpetrators, as they are also supporters of the ruling party.
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#3
Then they started shouting to attract the attention of the people nearby, to let them see the extent of the Dire Revenge and the power of the landlord. Nobody dared to stop them as the attackers were holding weapons.
[An Nahar] A Bahraini court sentenced six people to 10 years in prison on Wednesday after they were convicted of carrying out a bombing that maimed two people, the official BNA news agency reported.
The group were accused of "setting tires ablaze using a gas cylinder to create as much damage as possible to public and private property," public prosecution chief Muhanna al-Shayji was quoted as saying.
They are also charged with "intentionally causing a fire for terrorist aims that maimed" a woman and her son.
The statement did not say where or when the bombing took place, but judicial sources said the attack was in 2012.
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[An Nahar] Yemeni rustics have kidnapped 11 soldiers, including two officers, and are demanding the release of a relative convicted of murder, tribal sources said on Wednesday.
Members of the Al-Marakisha tribe, in the southern province of 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... , kidnapped two colonels and nine soldiers, to pressure authorities to release Ahmed al-Marakisha, the sources said.
The man's son insisted on his father's release to set the captives free.
"We kidnapped today (Wednesday) two officers, and yesterday nine soldiers on the main road in Ahwar, in Abyan. We demand the release of my father who is behind bars since 2008," he said.
An army officer in Abyan confirmed the kidnappings.
Marakisha faces a death sentence for murder.
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[An Nahar] A group of 30 Egyptians and Emiratis have been charged by the UAE authorities for allegedly setting up an illegal branch of Egypt's Islamist Moslem Brüderbund, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.
The suspects have been referred to the Gulf nation's State Security Court, prosecutor Ahmed al-Dhanhani said.
He accused the group of having "established and managed a branch for ... the international organization of Egypt's Moslem Brüderbund, without a permit".
The founders of the branch set up an administrative structure aimed at recruiting members for the Moslem Brüderbund, strengthening its presence in the UAE and maintaining allegiance to the main party, he said.
The group also "raised money through donations, Zakat (Islamic alms), and membership fees to support" the Moslem Brüderbund, he added.
Around a dozen Egyptians, some of them doctors, engineers and university professors, belonging to the group had been nabbed Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! between November 2012 and January 2013, according to Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... The tossed in the calaboose Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! group was also linked to a separate network of around 94 Emirati Islamists, including 13 women, who are on trial for forming a "secret organization plotting to overthrow the regime".
Most or all of the 94 defendants are members of Al-Islah association, which UAE authorities say is linked to the Moslem Brüderbund.
Wednesday's statement by the prosecution said the 30-member group "received financial support from the secret organization".
The case of the arrested Egyptians has sparked a sharp deterioration in relations between Abu Dhabi and Cairo, already strained since the June 2012 election of Mohamed Morsi, who hails from the Brotherhood, as Egypt's president.
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[IsraelTimes] Egyptian President Morsi explained that he cut diplomatic ties partly over the involvement of Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah fighters in the Syrian civil war in support of President Bashar Assad.
The decision created an additional hardship for thousands of Syrian refugees who have found shelter in Egypt, many hoping to go on to third countries, and others hoping to return home someday.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that more than 77,000 Syrian refugees have made their way to Egypt.
The break in relations means the refugees have nowhere to turn for consular services like renewing passports and obtaining official documents.
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[An Nahar] Popular Nasserite Organization head Osama Saad stressed on Wednesday that the security deterioration in the southern city of Sidon endangers the civil peace and aims at creating a sectarian civil war.
He expressed regret in a presser over the security, stability and economy losses in the city, a day after festivities erupted between Salafist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir and the Hizbullah-affiliated Resistance Brigades in the suburb of Abra.
"The attack launched by al-Asir supporters forced people to evacuate their homes," Saad said.
The official reject attempts to involve Sidon in "sectarian sedition."
Saad slammed "those who intervened to protect people who aim at destabilizing the situation in the city," accusing al-Mustaqbal ... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... movement and other Islamists of participating in Tuesday's incidents.
Clashes erupted on Tuesday afternoon between supporters of Asir, the imam of Sidon's Bilal bin Rabah Mosque, and the Resistance That'd be the Hezbullies, natch... Brigades in the Sidon neighborhood of Abra, leaving at least one person dead and four others maimed.
The Lebanese army deployed in Sidon as the violence comes amid soaring sectarian tensions in Leb that have escalated because of the raging war in neighboring Syria.
The army said several people were maimed by the gunfire.
Asir, who espouses an austere form of Sunni Islam, is known for his opposition to Hizbullah.
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#1
I thought the City Elders of NOT-ZION SIDON denied the presence of Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra in their city???
* FYI WORLD NEWS > [CNN.com] ANALYST: AL-QAEDA AFFILIATE IN SYRIA [Al-Nusra] IS THE BEST-EQUIPPED BRANCH OF THE GROUP.
[ABCNEWS.GO] A senior police official says snuffies attacked a military convoy with rocket-propelled grenades and other heavy weapons in northwest Pakistain, killing six soldiers.
Shafiullah Khan says two soldiers were maimed in the attack Wednesday, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the main northwest city of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. . Two vehicles were destroyed.
Khan says the soldiers retaliated, killing four Death Eaters.
No one has grabbed credit for the attack, but suspicion will likely fall on the Pak Taliban.
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[An Nahar] After an absence of 10 years, the Miss Algeria beauty contest is to resume on Friday in the western city of Oran, organizers said.
A total of 20 women aged between 18 and 26 have been carefully selected from Algeria's main cities to line up for the beauty pageant, co-organizer and jury member Hamza Ameziane told Agence La Belle France Presse on Wednesday.
The women must be "at least 1.7 meters tall with classic (bust, waist, hip) measurements of 90, 60, 90 centimeters," and are expected to have had French language training, he said.
The competition was suspended in 2003 after the death of Cheradi Hamdad, who launched the beauty contest in 1996 during Algeria's devastating civil war and whose son Faycal Hamdad has now taken up the mantle.
"This first edition was difficult to organize because of a lack of sponsors," Hamdad told the French-language newspaper Liberte, adding that with this show he hoped to "restore the image of Algeria."
The judges include stars of Algerian cinema, notably the actress Bahia Rachedi, as well as Genevieve de Fontenay, an 81-year Frenchwoman who has presided over the Miss La Belle France contest for more than 50 years.
It is too late for the winner to participate in this year's Miss World contest, due to be held in Bali in September, but Ameziane says she will vie for the "Best model of the world" title in Brussels later in 2013.
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#4
Michael Yon on the subject:
Due to time constraints, I must write this as an unedited stream of consciousness. My apologies for the roughness.
Michael Hastings was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles. The single car accident happened at about 0425. He crashed into a tree and was burned beyond recognition. He was 33.
Mr. Hastings was the war correspondent whose Rolling Stone article led to the firing of General Stanley McChrystal, who at the time was the top General in Afghanistan.
Although Hastings was widely read, no serious war correspondents took him seriously, or at least not the ones I know. He did, however, accurately portray my words and context in his book The Operators. Hastings was like an undisciplined hitman with a pen and license to kill. One of his gonzo articles damaged the career and reputation of Lieutenant General Bill Caldwell, for no cause. My sense was that he picked fights with key people mostly to draw attention. Though Hastings was not respected among war correspondents, it is sad to see a man die so young so horribly. Just why he crashed into a tree at 0425 remains unknown. No doubt the conspiracies will begin to fly.
Hastings bad traits were predominate at this age, but he had some very positive qualities and I hoped he would improve with age. Unfortunately we will never know.
Abuja: Pirates in speedboats attacked an oil supply vessel and kidnapped four Indian and Polish crew members in increasingly dangerous waters off Nigeria's coast last week, two security sources said on Wednesday.
The gunmen launched their assault on the Singapore-flagged tugboat MDPL Continental One around 30 nautical miles from land on June 13, the security sources said. The vessel was ransacked and four crew were taken hostage off the coast of the oil-producing Niger Delta, one of the sources told Reuters.
The boat's management company CS Offshore told Reuters there had been an incident that day but declined to go into further details "in order not to endanger those involved".
Pirate attacks off West Africa's mineral-rich Gulf of Guinea have almost doubled from last year and threaten to jeopardise the shipping of commodities from the region. They have already jacked up insurance costs. The attacks are mostly carried out by armed Nigerian gangs also blamed for kidnappings and oil theft on land.
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This is even more exciting that the parading of the mighty Uruguayans!
[IsraelTimes] Some 170 troops from Fiji will join the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... peacekeeping force on the Golan Heights in the wake of the withdrawal of Austrian troops.
The new peacekeepers will arrive in the region at the end of the month, the United Nations announced Monday. The 380 Austrian troops left the region last week after fighting between government and rebel forces in Syria's two-year civil war placed them in danger. Croatia withdrew from the peacekeeping force earlier in the year due to similar fears.
There are currently 341 troops from the Philippines and 193 troops from India stationed on the Golan Heights as part of the UN Disengagement Observer Force, which has been stationed on the Golan since 1974, in the wake of a cease-fire agreement signed after the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
The force is supposed to be comprised of about 1,000 troops. Last week, UN Secretary-General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... called for adding troops up to 1,250 and enhancing the self-defense capabilities of the peacekeeping force.
#1
Their military program may have changed by now, but years ago Fiji had 3 Infantry Battalions. They rotated between UN duty, training and maintaining the Suva prison, and annual leave [harvest and fishing].
[An Nahar] A videotape for a group claiming the killing of the four Lebanese men who died in Baalbeck's Wadi Rafeq region on Sunday was leaked to media outlets on Wednesday.
The group, Brigade of Jihadist Fighters on the Syrian-Lebanese Border, announced in their message that they are behind Sunday's incident.
However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... security sources told LBCI television that the videotape is "fabricated and that it might have been disseminated to distract attention away from the real perpetrators."
"Investigation is ongoing in Sunday's crime and some clues were revealed that could lead to tangible results soon," LBCI said quoting the security sources.
The same source also noted that the names of several possible attackers were identified.
"Handing over the suspects to concerned authorities is a must to avoid the worsening of the situation."
Several meetings took place in the Syrian border town of Arsal in the presence of the municipality's council, and other prominent figures in the village, and a released statement after the talks condemned Sunday's crime.
"We lift any political cover on all suspects proven to have played a role in the crime and we call on the security forces to pursue the investigation and try the perpetrators."
Four people were killed on Sunday, including two members of the Jaafar clan, when their car came under gunfire in Arsal's barren mountains, state-run National News Agency reported.
The person or persons unknownrubbed out "two members of the Jaafar family, an Amhaz family member and a Turk" in an ambush while they were smuggling fuel through the Qaa area, a security source told Agence La Belle France Presse, asking not to be named.
LBCI, however, said the four were killed in "Wadi Rafeq, a border area between al-Qaa's barren mountains and Ras Baalbek."
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#1
Judean People's Front Brigade of Jihadist Fighters? We're the People's Front of Judea Jihadist Fighters Brigade!
[Pak Daily Times] LAHORE: Despite a plethora of claims for the last few years, the Punjab government has failed to protect the lives and property of citizens. Heinous crimes such as kidnapping for ransom and robbery have been on the rise with Lahore alone recording 900 kidnapping cases in the first five months of this year.
With an average of five people a day, criminals continued to abduct maidens of tender years, minor children, youth, government employees as well as traders of the city.
Around 22 people were kidnapped and six killed including a child.
Kidnapping for ransom has become a lucrative business and is on the rise as law enforcers fail to recover the victims. This has left many families with no option but to pay ransom for the recovery of their loved ones.
The crime rate has increased to an alarming level in all the six police divisions including Cantonment, Model Town, The City, Saddar, Iqbal Town and Civil Lines police division in the city despite the inflated claims of top bosses of city police on different occasions.
Around 3,386 incidents of kidnapping were reported in 2012, in 2011, 2,954 were reported. Nine hundred cases of kidnapping were registered in city cop shoppes from January to May 2013.
Around 36 incidents of kidnapping for ransom were reported in 2012, while the figure was 32 in 2011 and 31 in 2010. Two high profile personalities Dr Warren Weinstein, an American national and Shahbaz Taseer, the son of slain governor Salman Taseer were also kidnapped. A retired Wing Commander Iqbal was also kidnapped from Gazi Road Factory area on May 30, 2013. Police has registered the cases but have yet to recover the kidnapped.
The City Division has registered five kidnapping cases including a case where the accused killed a six-year-old child Shahzeb and dumped his body in a drain. However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... the kidnappers were jugged You have the right to remain silent... but the body has not been recovered so far. Tahir Azim, while going to his shop was kidnapped from Shadbagh area. Police started the paperwork but haven't done much else but he was only recovered after a payment of Rs 200,000 by his family. Investigation officer Iftikhar Rasool not only denied his failure to recover the victims but alleged that the incident was faked and dismissed the case.
Furthermore, in Tibbi City police area, Naseer Khan was released after payment of Rs 500,000 ransom money. Abdul Gaffar's family also paid five hundred thousand in ransom after being kidnapped from Main Bus stop. Similarly in Shafiq Abad, four-year-old Husnain was released after a ransom amount of three hundred thousand rupees was paid. The kidnappers were arrested later on.
Canadian national Ali Muhammad was kidnapped from Johar Town police jurisdiction and released after paying a handsome amount of 2.2 million rupees. The investigation officer was again Iftikahr Rasool who once again failed to act.
In addition to this, cantonment division's victim, a businessman Kh Muhammad Jehangir paid 14.5 million rupees to kidnappers while investigation officer Fiaz ul Haq failed to track down the kidnappers.
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[An Nahar] The trial of former Information Minister Michel Samaha, who is in jug, and of two wanted Syrian officers kicked off at the military court in Beirut on Wednesday.
Samaha, who is considered close to the Syrian regime, was tossed in the clink I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! in August last year for planning attacks in Leb along with Syrian security chief General Ali Mamlouk and a colonel known only by his first name as Adnan.
They were indicted in February this year "for transporting explosives from Syria to Leb in an attempt to assassinate Lebanese political and religious leaders."
A military magistrate said in his indictment that Samaha and Mamlouk should be given the death penalty.
They were also accused of targeting "Syrian gunnies" and "smugglers" in the northern Akkar region that lies near the border with Syria.
Investigators have said that explosives were found in Samaha's car.
According to the indictment, they were delivered by Adnan to Samaha in Syria with the approval of Mamlouk.
Samaha is also accused of "inciting sectarian strife."
Arrest warrants have been issued for Mamlouk and Adnan, whose full identity hasn't been established yet.
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[IsraelTimes] Egypt's president on Sunday appointed 17 new provincial governors, including seven members of his Moslem Brüderbund, adding to its already considerable power in the legislative and executive branches.
in the most recent vote for the legislature, islamist candidates (in some cases more than one islamist was running) received more than 50% of the vote in all but 6 provinces
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[Pak Daily Times] Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... Finance Minister Sirajul Haq has said that 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... would impart military training to men and women aged between 18 and 35 years as part of its strategy to promote the spirit of jihad in the nation and the armed forces.
Speaking at a news conference, he said that the party was not shy of supporting its commitment. He said the JI wanted to implement its training programme because it believed that the armed forces alone could not protect the country. The Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... is a partner of the JI in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government.
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Problems with the story of the fiery crash of Hastings' Mercedes Benz abound, but ultimately, the story appears to be what it appears to be: A man in his 30s, possibly drunk wraps his car around a tree in a posh LA neighborhood.
See here. The comments are somewhat amusing.
Michael Hastings, the journalist best known for the 2010 Rolling Stone story that led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, died Tuesday in a car crash in Los Angeles, his employers at BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone announced.
Nowhere in there does it say anything about then this sucker is going to jackknife out of control and char you like a steak ordered by a high-school dropout at Ponderosa.
#12
It was reported Hastings had been recently talking with Wikileaks and he thought he was being investigated by the FBI.
100 mph in 35 mph zone is asking for trouble. Would like to know more. What the air-bag module has on it? Speed, deceleration, hard braking, etc. Any vehicle component failures? Witnesses are not usually reliable judges of speed unless they are following at the same speed or have radar data.
NSA operatives hacked the cars computer causing it to accelerate out of control and crash into a tree.
Meanwhile Dick Cheney, piloting a stealth drone from his secret lair in the mountains of Wyoming, launched a Hellfire missile ensuring that the poor subversive journalist went out in a blaze of glory. The Hellfire also served the secondary purpose of obliterating any evidence of government involvement. Perfect.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
06/20/2013 14:05
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#19
...then again, I guess an ejected engine may end up in someone else's lap.
#21
Meanwhile - while suicide with a gun is rolled up into the national gun kill numbers, suicide with vehicle is never considered unless there's some obvious note left behind. It's hard to tag and for insurance and 'family' distress issues is often just written off to other causes.
#10
Here I was looking forward to Champ's being a lame duck his entire second term, and instead he's gone all unhinged loose cannon on us. Why can't the man shut up and golf?
#12
about 4000 killed in past 40 years in N Ireland (and only about a dozen or so in past 5 years)
In Syria about 2000 to 4000 killed each month
In Iraq about 200-1000 killed each month
Need we even look at Detroit and/or Chicago?
Posted by: BA ||
06/20/2013 14:36
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#13
Advocating the law of man as the absolute authority and ceiling of human potential is his deal.
Perhaps instead of listening to podcasts of his own speeches, he could get the audio of How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill. You just insulted the core of the very civilization which put your sorry ass in power, and I'm sure Martin Luther would want to beat you with a stick.
What an Ugly American Tourist. What a small, weak tea grasp at the history of his host. What a blasphemous statement that the authority of man is the end all of human capacity.
#15
He makes Clark Grizwald look like the Dos Equis man. The guest who invites himself to dinner and talks the whole time about how much better his furniture is.
I guess his Berlin speech was a bowl of jelly, but must have made more sense before it was translated from the native Austrian.
I don't get these trips, other than marking a vacation a business expense. Or can it be both that and a way to energize the locals as a political pressure tool vs. local/regional government, a medium to spread his curiously eastern style idea of governance and culture.
#16
good chance for Mooch to spend taxpayers $ on her lavish vacays plus he gets out of Washington during scandal hearings time
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/20/2013 18:00
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#17
Shut the f*ck up, Bambi, you worthless asshole. And mind your own goddam business.
I'd agree with him if he were talking about madrassas, but we all know he ain't. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
06/20/2013 18:00
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#18
He shows complete ignorance of the cause of the conflict. It's not about Catholics vs. Protestants, it's about the descendants of the Catholic Natives in the 1600's vs. the descendants of the Protestant Invaders in the 1600's.
[An Nahar] Mufti of Sidon Sheikh Ahmed Nassar on Wednesday warned that "the seditions that have been moving from one Lebanese area to another, especially those of a sectarian nature," have spread to the southern city of Sidon.
The city has become under the mercy of "a few individuals who have criminal records and who have been provided with paid protection," Nassar said.
"They escalated tensions in Sidon and its suburbs through stirring festivities and deliberate provocations without any deterrence or accountability, so a battle erupted and things went out of control across Sidon as gunnies from all parties and sides deployed on the streets," he added.
One person was killed and at least four others were maimed in armed festivities on Tuesday between supporters of Islamist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir and the Hizbullah-affiliated Resistance Brigades.
"Who will the security deterioration serve, for whose sake blood was spilled and on what basis the fighting stopped? It is the policy of local and regional political messages and the works of puppets being manipulated by unseen hands in Leb and abroad," the Sunni Mohammedan mufti added.
"We reject sedition which only serves the goals of the merchants of arms, blood and interests and we consider that involvement in stirring sedition is haram (forbidden in Islam), just like taking part in it," Nassar went on to say.
He called on the army and security forces to "strike with the hand of right and justice those who transgressed against citizens and who are well-known sedition advocates, or else people will continue to take things into their own hands."
Meanwhile, ...back at the pond, Gloria slowly backed away from the eight-foot bull frog. If the creature croaked she would surely be deafened... a meeting for Sidon's Sunni Mohammedan scholars condemned "the regrettable security incidents that happened yesterday and led to the martyrdom of an innocent citizen and the wounding of several others."
"The firing of shells proves that there are parties who do not value human life and civil peace, and the deployment of gunnies is a rejected act," said a statement issued after the meeting and recited by Bassam Hammoud, the political official of the Jamaa Islamiya in the South.
"Groups operating under the banner of the Resistance That'd be the Hezbullies, natch... must be quickly disbanded and gunnies must be deployed under any pretext and the state must not abandon its responsibilities," added the statement.
It warned that some parties are seeking to "turn Haret Saida into a 'new Jabal Mohsen' in the face of Sidon's residents."
It called on political parties to "rein in their members in order to prevent strife."
The city's MP Bahia Hariri also held a presser on Wednesday afternoon to comment on Tuesday's events.
"The repercussions of Sidon's events are harsh on the city and on Leb," Hariri warned, stressing that political conflicts should be "democratic and avoid turning into armed festivities."
The al-Mustaqbal ... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... politician stated her rejection of "all illegal arms in the city and of politically covering the perpetrators."
She vowed to work hard to avoid the recurrence of these incidents.
"Huge efforts are exerted to prevent a recurrence of this abnormal situation and the state should take action against anyone who took part in it."
"Sidon will always be a city of religious coexistence."
Earlier on Wednesday, the Sub-Security Council of Sidon deplored "the rhetoric of sectarian sedition that is being practiced by some well-known parties."
After a meeting in the southern city, the sub-council called on political officials to "lift the cover off the gunnies who took part in yesterday's festivities and to help the state preserve security."
The conferees also condemned "the irresponsible acts and the meaningless fighting that took place yesterday in the Abra region, which disrupted calm, paralyzed the commercial and economic activity and terrorized the citizens."
"No one can stay silent over this issue at all given its dangerous repercussions on civil peace," they added.
The sub-council stressed that it will "prevent all armed activities by any party," urging political forces to "shoulder their responsibilities and resort to the rhetoric of reason and the principle of the state."
It also decided to "intensify security patrols in the city of Sidon and the areas of the festivities, especially the Abra area, to preserve security and stability," reminding that "banners that incite sectarian sentiments must be removed."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013
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Top|| File under: Harkatul Mujahideen
[Ynet] Senior Egyptian army sources reported that 30 Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... operatives from Gazoo infiltrated into the Sinai Peninsula. According to the Paleostinian news agency Maan, the operatives were well armed, and security forces in the area have raised the alert to emergency level.
According to Egyptian security reports, there is concern that members of the Jihad will attack security headquarters in coordination with planned protests against the rule of President Mohammed Morsi.
[An Nahar] An armed gang has raided a northern Nigerian village and killed 48 people in an apparent reprisal attack targeting a local vigilante group, a state official said Wednesday.
"There was an attack by armed bandidos early Tuesday on Kizara village where 48 residents were killed in apparent assassinations by cattle rustlers that have been terrorizing the state for some time now," said Ibrahim Birnin-Magaji, commissioner for information in Zamfara state, where the village is located.
Dozens of gunnies arrived in the village before dawn on cycle of violences, he told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"Some of them climbed up the hill overlooking the village and opened fire indiscriminately," he said.
"They later moved house to house, telling residents that they were looking for members of local vigilante whom they said had been disturbing them."
He said those killed included the local chief, the chief imam and the head of the vigilante group in the village.
Many villages in Nigeria form local vigilante groups to defend themselves against violent cattle rustlers or other criminal gangs, sometimes leading to a cycle of festivities and reprisal attacks.
Zamfara state, located in Nigeria's northwest, has seen a number of such incidents.
There was so far no sign of any link to Islamist krazed killer group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... , which has been waging a deadly insurgency mainly in Nigeria's northeast. Nigeria's military is currently engaged in an offensive seeking to end Boko Haram's four-year insurgency.
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"Ironically, President Obama made his comments just as Archbishop Gerhard Müller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told a crowd in Scotland that religious education upholds the dignity of the human person. Archbishop Müller said that Catholic schools should promote "all that is good in the philosophies of societies and human culture." HT: Drudge
#7
reaffirms opposition to Catholic, Protestant, and private schools (hello teacher's unions!). Think he'll denounce Madrassa's when over in Muzzie land?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/20/2013 10:47
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#8
Frank, no more than I would denounce the Catholic school I graduated from.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
06/20/2013 13:40
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#9
Rambler, don't look now, but there's a nun behind you. She's got a ruler too.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Iranian President-elect Hassan Rowhani was on the special Iranian government committee that plotted the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, according to an indictment by the Argentine government prosecutor investigating the case.
[An Nahar] U.S. Secretary of State 
Hillary Clinton
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Maan] Egypt has declared a state of alert in the Sinai after
[An Nahar] U.S. plans to arm Syrian rebels have raised fears in Israel that the weapons could fall into the wrong hands, but analysts played down the threat -- provided no big guns are involved.
[Pak Daily Times] A suicide 
[An Nahar] The new U.S. ambassador to Libya arrived in Tripoli on Wednesday, an embassy source said, nine months after her predecessor and three other Americans were killed in an Islamist attack in Benghazi.
[IsraelTimes] Khader Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader's brother, was buried earlier this month in southern 
[An Nahar] Fighters from Hizbullah joined Syrian troops battling rebels near Damascus on Wednesday, monitors said, as 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
Nawaz Sharif
[Bangla Daily Star] Four people, including three 
[An Nahar] Imam of Sidon's Bilal bin Rabah Mosque Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir accused on Wednesday the army of "defending" alleged apartments owned by Hizbullah 
[An Nahar] Yemeni 
[An Nahar] After an absence of 10 years, the Miss Algeria beauty contest is to resume on Friday in the western city of Oran, organizers said.
Abuja: Pirates in speedboats attacked an oil supply vessel and kidnapped four Indian and Polish crew members in increasingly dangerous waters off Nigeria's coast last week, two security sources said on Wednesday.
[Pak Daily Times] LAHORE: Despite a plethora of claims for the last few years, the Punjab government has failed to protect the lives and property of citizens. Heinous crimes such as kidnapping for ransom and robbery have been on the rise with Lahore alone recording 900 kidnapping cases in the first five months of this year. 
[Pak Daily Times] 
[Ynet] Senior Egyptian army sources reported that 30 
