SUICIDE BOMBING OF MOSQUE IN PAKISTAN HAS LEFT SCORES DEAD AND WOUNDED – The announced death toll had risen to 44 as of this printing but more are expected as rescuers pull people from under the rubble. At least 150 were injured in the blast with many of those in critical condition. The Mosque in Peshawar was habitually frequented by police, the army, and bomb disposal squads. The Mosque was said to be full and the suicide bomber is thought to have positioned himself near the center of the congregation when he detonated his device. The roof collapsed and police officials say the falling debris was responsible for the majority of the deaths and injuries. It is believed that nearly 300 worshippers were inside the building when the blast occurred. Rescue efforts are continuing. Conflicting information has been reported about who was responsible for the blast with some people claiming to represent the TTP claiming they had carried the operation out while other TTP representatives stated that attacks on Mosques are prohibited in the terror group..
PASSPORTS – The latest information on the availability of passports indicates that the Directorate is primarily working on applications that were made (and paid for) prior to the most recent closings. Commercial passports are reportedly still being issued and require a business license. The cost for the commercial passport is said to be fixed at $615.00.
TALIBAN PRESSES IRAN ON TREATMENT OF AFGHANS – A spokesman for the Minister of Refugees and Repatriation said that concerns have been raised to their Iranian counterparts over the poor treatment of refugees in the country. Several videos began circulating in January of the appalling conditions Afghan refugees are facing in Iran. Earlier in 2022, similar videos resulted in large-scale demonstrations at the Iranian Embassy in Kabul.
OIC TO TALIBAN “REOPEN UNIVERSITIES FOR GIRLS” – The Organization for Islamic Cooperation urged the Taliban to join mainstream Islamic states and reopen education opportunities for girls and women. It is believed the most recent call came after the disturbing news that women would not be allowed to sit for University bans.
KABUL RESIDENTS MYSTIFIED OVER HIGHER ELECTRICITY BILLS – Residents are outraged by an increase in their monthly electric bills after receiving 1-2 hours of power per day over the last month. The former head of the national power company said it is likely that employees are not able to travel around the cities to read each customer’s usage and is making estimates instead.
CONFLICT TRACKER Kabul: Yesterday evening, the Azadi Front claimed to have carried out an attack on a Taliban checkpoint in the Kute Sangi neighborhood of Kabul. 4 Taliban were reportedly killed, and 2 others wounded. No Azadi Front fighters were reportedly hurt or killed.
NEXT 24 HOURS
SIGNIFICANT SECURITY OPERATIONS EXPECTED IN PAKISTAN IN WAKE OF MOSQUE BOMBING – Pakistani military and police are expected to conduct large-scale search operations that target suspected ISIS, TTP, and Balochistan Liberation Movement locations. According to a source in the Ministry of the Interior, the leadership of Police and Military units were incensed after the attack on their colleagues. The source went on to claim that many units have pledged to provide ‘no quarter’ to suspected terrorists as these security operations get underway. The source concluded by expressing an opinion that recently elevated security measures had been put in place based on the intelligence of a specific threat to the Pakistani police. Source believed the attack yesterday was the threat they were worried about. At-risk Afghans will see a significant security presence in cities throughout Western and Central Pakistan. While security checkpoints had already been activated in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, additional checkpoints (temporary) are planned. Security vehicle convoys are expected to be heavy and house-to-house searches are likely. Pedestrians and vehicle occupants can expect document searches as they travel around the city.
IRAN POINTS FINGER AT ISRAEL OVER ISFAHAN DRONE STRIKE – While Israel has carried out many attacks on Iranian facilities in the past, some security analysts are saying this attack is being viewed differently. Facing international criticism over support for Russia in the Ukraine War and the largest domestic protests in recent memory, there are concerns that Iran may react far differently in the past. Should military operations that target Israel directly, threatens Azerbaijan, or involves the targeting of US military forces in the Persian Gulf, it is likely that borders will be closed and all commercial traffic between Afghanistan and Iran will cease for at least a time.
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The Somali army announced the killing of 136 Death Eaters of "al-Shabaab ...... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa... " movement, including three leaders, and wounding 98 others in a military operation in the Lower Shabelle region, south of the capital, Mogadishu, on Thursday.
"Among the dead were three field commanders, who are the frontline official in Lower Shabelle region, the perpetrator of the attacks, and the naval operations official, and they were targeted while they were gathering there," Deputy Information Minister Abd al-Rahman Yusuf said at a presser in Mogadishu.
Yusuf added that the army also destroyed vehicles and confiscated combat equipment of the rebels, during the military operation that targeted the villages of "Tawakul" and "Ghars Jerid" in the city of Janali in the southwestern state.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
Takfir - Wikipedia
Takfir or takfīr ( Arabic: تكفير, romanized : takfīr) is an Arabic and Islamic term which denotes excommunication from Islam of one Muslim by another, i.e. accusing another Muslim to be an apostate.
Posted by: Papa Cooky ||
01/31/2023 15:41 Comments ||
Top||
#2
“New York post - The US military eliminated "a number of ISIS members" - including one of the terrorist group's top operatives - in a Wednesday strike in northern Somalia, the Pentagon announced.”
“ While the US military frequently focuses on Somalia’s al-Shabaab fighters, it has rarely targeted ISIS members in the country. Most of the US strikes on ISIS last year occurred in Syria.”
Posted by: Papa Cooky ||
01/31/2023 15:46 Comments ||
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#3
Looks like there's an office the Bidet misministratio will shut down soon.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/31/2023 15:53 Comments ||
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#4
As I recall, Papa Cooky, ISIS in Somalia is pretty much restricted to Puntland. Somaliland is pretty clean of both ISIS and Al Shabaab. Al Shabaab mostly roams around Somalia proper and into the border provinces of Kenya.
[ShabelleMedia] Unknown assailants tossed a grenade bomb at a cop shoppe in Somali capital, Mogadishu on Sunday night, witnesses said.
The attack too place at Howlwadag District cop shoppe and it caused unspecified number of casualties.
The police responded with fire after the exploration which was aimed to destabilise the capital, recovering from three decades of war.
There was immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing which becomes the second attack in two nights.
Al-Shabaab ...... the personification of Somali state failure... intensified attacks in Mogadishu since the government launched an offensive last night to liberate the country from the turbans.
The security of the capital has been extremely tightened within additional NISA personnel deployed to main streets.
Last week, al-Shabaab button men gained access to Mogadishu mayor’s office, where at least 6 were killed in a six-hour siege.
[ShabelleMedia] The Somali government announced today that the wife of the leader of ISIS in Somalia, Abdulkadir Mu’min, was sentenced to military prison.
The Somali Armed Forces Court has sentenced Fartun Abdirashid Hussein, the wife of Abdulqadir Mu’min, to eight years in military prison.
Fartun, who was arrested in Mogadishu, had a working relationship with Bilal al-Sudaani, one of the big shots of ISIS, who was recently killed in a US raid in the Bari region.
The Prosecutor’s Office also said that Fartun was in charge of ISIS’s financial affairs and regularly transferred money between $100-200 dollars to ISIS through her phone.
The pro-Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... faction in Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... is led by Sheikh Abdulkadir Mumin, a former al-Shabaab ...... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... holy man who pledged his allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2015.
The US Navy SEAL operation carried out on Wednesday targeted Bilal al-Sudani, who is thought to have played a key role in bankrolling the terror group’s activities in Africa and Afghanistan, as well as leading the organization in Somalia.
The Pentagon said US special forces have killed al-Sudani and 10 other bandidoshard boyz in a raid on a mountain cave complex in a remote part of Bari region, northern Somalia.
Using aliases Fa'iso, Asiyo, and Faysa, the wife of the notorious bad boy was arrested in March 2022 and has been facing trial in the military court. Among others, she is accused of facilitating the group's finances besides being a lifetime member who monitors progress in the group.
Police reports indicate that she was arrested in Hilwaa District in the suburbs of the capital Mogadishu, and has since been battling to clear her tainted name. Her husband, Mumin, is a former UK-based theological leader according to court records, and was one of the pioneer members of IS-Somalia.
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] Saudi 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. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century... sent military reinforcements to snuffies affiliated with the Islah Party, who are now stationed under the name of the "Joint Forces", in the coast city of Shuqra in Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... province, southern Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , informed sources reported on Sunday.
Southern activist muppet Ahmed al-Hanshi confirmed in a post on his "Facebook" page: "The Saudi-led coalition sent a shipment of weapons to the Joint Forces Command in Shuqra."
He added that the weapons shipment arrived Saturday night in the east of Ahwar city on board a locomotive and a truck.
The arms shipment was received by "military vehicles belonging to the joint forces, and they were transported to several military sites in Shuqra," according to al-Hanshi.
The "Joint Forces Command" in the Abyan axis warned, in a statement issued on August 23, of the consequences of any military attack targeting its positions in the province by the UAE-backed factions.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2023 00:00 ||
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[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The Central Bank in Aden on Monday revealed negative repercussions facing the local currency in the areas controlled by the Saudi-led coalition in southern Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , in reference to a new expected collapse of the currency.
During its meeting, Monday, to address this problem the bank indicated its decision to stop what it described as "inflationary financing," stressing the need to take measures to confront the expected collapse wave.
The local currency lost much of its value in recent days, with the decision of the Aden Central Bank to raise foreign exchange rates within its weekly auctions to more than 1,250 riyals per dollar.
The warnings of the Aden bank came a day after the President of the Riyadh-formed "Presidential Council" Rashad al-Alimi’s statements upon his arrival in Aden, in which he promised to improve conditions in the areas controlled by his government that are experiencing an unprecedented collapse.
In the southern provinces under the control of the coalition, economists expect the local currency to exceed the barrier of 2,000 riyals to the dollar.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
Will the US Fed and theTop 10 US Bankss do the same here eventually.
As many have 100's of Billions vested worldwide. eg. JPMorgan & Chase Bank</em>
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] Unidentified button men assassinated on Monday a prominent security official in the city of Taiz, southwestern Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , media sources reported.
The sources stated that unidentified button men shot Brigadier General Abdullah al-Qaisi, the former advisor to the Director of Taiz Security and an academic at Taiz University, while he was leaving his house at dawn today in al-Jamhouri neighborhood, abruptly ejecting him from the gene pool.
The reasons and motives for the liquidation, or the party responsible for it, are not yet known, according to the sources.
The liquidation comes in the context of the collapse of the security situation in the city, which is witnessing widespread liquidations, amid the escalation of conflicts between the Islah Party and the UAE-backed factions led by Tariq Saleh.
BREAKING: Azerbaijan's Ministry of Internal Affairs conducts counter-intelligence operation against Iran's spy network in the country, several people detainedhttps://t.co/DvG3qLLXbmhttps://t.co/lEsQGPOKX1
[AlAhram] Some 200 people were evacuated Monday from a camp housing hundreds of migrant workers in Spain after a fire engulfed the site.
The fire at the El Walili camp, located in the southeast Spanish region of Almeria, took place on the same day that the camp was supposed to be demolished following an order from the Nijar city council. A court order for the camp's demolition said structures there were dilapidated and built without a housing license.
It was unclear how the fire started. Calls to local authorities on Monday went unanswered.
Most of the camp's residents were men from sub-Saharan Africa and Morocco, working on the many farms in the area. Together with tourism, agriculture is a primary source of income for the region.
The camp consisted of hundreds of huts built around 15 years ago and housed up to 500 migrant workers. Many shelters were built out of the same plastic used in the local farms' greenhouses and lack any services like electricity or running water.
The evacuated inhabitants were taken by bus to a nearby warehouse where charity workers received them. Some 60 people had arrived at the hall by Monday afternoon.
Carmen Dominguez, president of the local branch of the Medecins du Monde organization, said the camp was meant to be a temporary accommodation while new housing for the migrant workers was being built.
But a Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... ese man leaving the camp said he had lived in the camp for two years.
``Now everybody will be out in the street, outside right now that it's very cold, very cold, that's going to be very hard,`` said the man, who only identified himself as Abdulai.
Residents and nonprofits working with migrants colonists had requested the city council to delay the eviction until winter was over.
APDHA, a human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... group working with migrants colonists in the southern Andalucia region, said authorities had no appropriate relocation plans for the migrants colonists.
[Dawn] Four alleged bandidosfaceless myrmidons were killed and another surrendered to the police during intelligence-based operations in Swabi and Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Monday.
According to Swabi District Police Officer Najamul Hassan, two bandidosfaceless myrmidons blew themselves up and a third surrendered to police after law enforcement personnel encircled their hideout in Chota Lahor tehsil.
Officials in Swabi said the personnel of Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), police and intelligence agencies launched a joint operation after receiving information about the presence of bandidosfaceless myrmidons in Hund village.
They said the bandidosfaceless myrmidons opened fire on law enforcers after they were ordered through a megaphone to surrender. The security forces retaliated and during a heavy exchange of fire, two bandidosfaceless myrmidons blew themselves up with hand grenades, while another surrendered to police.
Two constables were also injured during the encounter. They were identified as Mujibullah and Naseeb Khan and were taken to Bacha Khan Hospital.
In Dera Ismail Khan, two bandidosfaceless myrmidons were killed during an encounter with security forces in the Loni area of Kulachi tehsil.
According to sources, a search operation was conducted in the area on a tip-off about the presence of bandidosfaceless myrmidons there. During the operation, the bandidosfaceless myrmidons opened fire on the security forces. In the retaliatory firing, two bandidosfaceless myrmidons were killed.
The sources said a large quantity of arms was also recovered from the possession of the dead murderous Moslems.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP); A suicide bomber struck a crowded mosque inside a police compound in Pakistan on Monday, causing the roof to collapse and killing at least 59 people and wounding more than 150 others, officials said.
Most of the casualties were police officers. It was not clear how the bomber was able to slip into the walled compound, which houses the police headquarters in the northwestern city of Peshawar and is itself located in a high-security zone with other government buildings.
Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander for the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on Twitter.
But hours later, TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani distanced the group from the bombing, saying it was not its policy to target mosques, seminaries and religious places, adding that those taking part in such acts could face punitive action under TTP’s policy.
A suicide kaboom at a crowded mosque in Pakistain’s Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 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 Pakistain's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire... killed at least 32 people on Monday, the latest attack targeting police in this northwestern city where Islamist snuffies remain active.
Hospital officials said at least 147 people were maimed, with many of them at death's door.
Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif called the blast a suicide kaboom. There were at least 260 people in the mosque, police official Sikandar Khan added.
No one has grabbed credit for the bombing, which destroyed the mosque during noon prayers, causing a wall to collapse on top of worshippers.
"We’re getting that the terrorist was standing in the first row," Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told Geo TV.
While the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) denied responsibility for the attack, sources earlier indicated that it might have been the handiwork of some local faction of the outlawed group.
TTP spokesperson Muhammad Khurasani while disowning the attack in a tweet said, “TTP guidelines strictly prohibit attacks on mosques and public places”.
Earlier, a spokesperson for the TTP’s Mohmand chapter had claimed responsibility for the attack and termed it revenge for the killing of Khalid Omar Khorasani in Afghanistan last year.
The death toll from the suicide attack on a mosque in Peshawar’s Police Lines area a day earlier rose to 100 on Tuesday after more bodies were recovered from the attack site.
Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) spokesperson Mohammad Asim said that 100 dead bodies had been brought to the medical facility. In a statement, he said 53 injured citizens were currently being treated seven of whom had been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).
He said that most of the injured were out of danger, adding that all the injured were being provided medical facilities free-of-cost.
On Monday, 59 people, mostly police officials, were martyred and over 150 were injured after an explosion ripped through a mosque in Peshawar’s Red Zone area. The powerful blast blew away the wall of the prayer hall and an inner roof.
The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack. It later distanced itself from it but sources earlier indicated that it might have been the handiwork of some local faction of the outlawed group.
Peshawar Division Commissioner Riaz Mehsud said that the rescue and search operation at the blast site has been completed, after almost 24 hours.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/31/2023 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Military does not say if incident in West Bank city was deliberate attack against soldiers; Paleostinian health officials say Nassim Abu Fouda was shot in the head
A Paleostinian man who allegedly drove his vehicle into an Israeli soldier was rubbed out in the West Bank city of Hebron on Monday morning, the military and Paleostinian health officials said.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said troops operating in Hebron identified a suspicious vehicle.
"The soldiers asked the driver to stop the vehicle in order to inspect it. A soldier approached the vehicle and the driver rammed into his leg," the military said.
The troops shot up the car as it expeditiously departed at a goodly pace, before it crashed, the IDF said, adding that the soldiers had reported hitting the car with the gunfire.
The Paleostinian Health Ministry identified the man as Nassim Abu Fouda, 26.
According to the official Paleostinian WAFA news agency, Abu Fouda was shot while driving his car near the Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Moslems as the Ibrahimi Mosque.
The man was hit in the head by the gunfire, and taken at death's door to a nearby hospital, where he died, WAFA said.
The military said the incident would be further investigated, but did not describe it as a deliberate attack against the soldiers.
Don’t let your foot slip when the soldiers are on edge, either.
[IsraelTimes] Defense Ministry says Captagon amphetamine pills were hidden in doors of office refrigerators
The Defense Ministry said security guards on Monday foiled an attempt to smuggle thousands of captagon pills from the West Bank to the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip this morning.
The ministry said the pills were hidden in the doors of office refrigerators. The shipment — en route to the Gaza Strip — was found at the Tarqumiyah Crossing, in the southern West Bank.
The drugs were handed over to police for further inspection.
Captagon is an amphetamine-type stimulant manufactured mostly in Lebanon Hezbollahstan ...In 2006 unknown persons blew up Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the car he was traveling in, the road he was traveling on, and a few innocent bystanders of no account whatsoever. The person or persons unknow weren't Hezbollah, you can bet on that. Really. Even though there was an international tribunal that said it was them... and Syria. Much of it has been bound for illegal recreational use in Saudi 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. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century... Israeli officials call it the "Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... drug," as it was supposedly used by jihadists to prevent fear and fatigue during fighting in Syria and Iraq.
Captagon pills have previously been seized en route to the Gaza Strip.
Captagon is considered by far Syria’s biggest export, dwarfing all its legal exports put together, according to estimates drawn from official data by AFP.
More than 400 million pills were seized in the Middle East and beyond in 2021, according to official figures, with seizures last year set to top that.
Customs and anti-narcotics officials told AFP that for every shipment they seize, another nine make it through. I guess everybody has a Secretary Mayorkas, hmmm?
That means even with a low average price of $5 per tablet, and only four out of five shipments getting through, Captagon is at least a $10 billion industry.
[AlAhram] A roadside kaboom targeting a bus transporting Syrian police in the country's south Monday maimed 15 of the officers, the Interior Ministry said.
The ministry said in a terse statement that the officers were returning to the capital Damascus from the southern province of Daraa. The bomb went kaboom! on the north-south highway near the town of Khirbet Ghazaleh.
It said seven officers were seriously maimed.
Such attacks are not uncommon in Syria, where a nearly 12-year-old conflict has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million.
In October, a bus bombing killed 18 Syrian soldiers in a Damascus suburb and maimed at least 27 others.
Similar attacks over the years have killed and maimed dozens of soldiers in government-held parts of the war-torn country. In March last year, bandidosbandidos bad boys attacked a military bus near the historic town of Palmyra in central Syria, killing 13 troops and wounding 18 others.
Syrian authorities usually blame members of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group who have been active in southern and central Syria, despite their formal defeat in Syria in 2019.
The leader of IS group, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in battle with Syrian opposition fighters in Daraa province in mid-October.
[An Nahar] A total of 10 people were killed in a series of dronezaps targeting pro-Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites.... factions in eastern Syria, including three dead in strikes on Monday, a war monitor said.
A pro-Iranian commander was among the three killed in the dronezaps Monday, the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that they had been inspecting the site of strikes that had killed seven others the previous evening.
"A commander in an Iran-backed group and two of his lover companions, all of them non-Syrian, were killed this morning after renewed dronezaps," the Observatory said Monday.
The commander's pick-up truck was targeted while he was inspecting the site of the Sunday evening strike that destroyed a convoy of six refrigerated trucks transporting Iranian weapons to Syria from Iraq.
The convoy was struck in the Albu Kamal border region where pro-Iran groups have a large presence, said the Observatory, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria.
The seven killed Sunday were truck drivers and their assistants, all of them non-Syrians, the Observatory said, adding that they were "killed as a result of unidentified aircraft targeting a convoy of Iran-backed groups".
No country claimed the strikes, but Israel has carried out hundreds of air and missile strikes against Iran-backed and government forces in Syria, where the U.S. military is also active.
"The trucks were transporting Iranian weapons," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman had told AFP Sunday.
Tehran provides military support to its ally Damascus in Syria's civil war, including through armed factions.
The strikes hit a convoy of trucks, but also the headquarters of Iran-backed groups in the area, activist muppet Omar Abu Layla, who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet, told AFP Monday.
"There was heavy damage in the area that was struck," he said.
A pro-Syrian government radio station had reported Sunday that "unidentified war planes targeted, in a number of raids, six refrigerated trucks", without providing further details.
The Syrian government did not immediately comment on the strikes. AFP also reached out to Iraqi authorities who declined to comment on the attack.
For some reason Rudaw paired its article on the subject with a photo of Iranian-backed Afghan Fatimiyoun militia men taken in Syria's eastern Deir ez-Zor province. Perhaps it’s meant to be a hint about the identity of the undescribed commander and/or his escorts... or perhaps the editors just wanted a generic group of a pro-Iranian militia.
Some overlap with the article above, which ai leqve you to untqngle, dear Reader.
[IsraelTimes] Unverified reports claim target was loaded with weapons and ammunition, after similar attack overnight and another strike in the morning
Unverified media reports claimed Monday that unidentified aircraft struck a truck near the Syria-Iraq border, hours after a similar strike was reported overnight Sunday and a separate attack in the morning hours.
The Syrian opposition online outlet Naher Media said the truck that was hit in the city of Abu Kamal was loaded with weapons and ammunition destined for Iranian militias. The claim could not be independently verified.
According to the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor with questionable veracity and unclear funding, one person was killed in the attack Monday afternoon, bringing the toll of the three recent attacks in the area to 11.
The organization, run by a single person, has regularly been accused by Syrian war analysts of false reporting and inflating casualty numbers as well as inventing them wholesale.
There were no further details on the apparent attack, but images circulating online showed smoke rising from the area.
The incident came after Arab media reported Sunday night that unidentified aircraft had struck a convoy of Iranian trucks at the al-Qaim crossing on the Syria-Iraq border, where frequent Iranian military activity has been reported.
Pro-Iran ...The nation is noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence... factions, including Iraqi groups as well as Lebanon Hezbollahstan ...a formerly French, now an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. ... ’s Hezbollah terror group, have a major presence around the Iraq-Syria border, and are heavily deployed south and west of the Euphrates in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province. Iran is believed to frequently truck weapons to Hezbollah from Iraq and via Syria.
In a third reported dronezap Monday morning, SOHR said a pro-Iran commander was among three killed. Further details were not known. It added that the overnight strike killed seven others.
The monitor could not verify the identities of the victims.
As a rule, Israel’s military does not comment on specific strikes in Syria, but has admitted to conducting hundreds of sorties against Iran-backed groups attempting to gain a foothold in the country, over the last decade.
The IDF says it also attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for those groups, chief among them Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Additionally, Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s attributed to Israel have repeatedly targeted Syrian air defense systems.
Israeli strikes have continued in Syrian airspace, which is largely controlled by Russia, even as ties with Moscow have frayed over the past year. Israel has found itself at odds with Russia as it has increasingly supported Ukraine while seeking to maintain freedom of movement in Syria’s skies.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2023 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] MPs Ghazi Zoaiter and Ali Hassan Khalil on Monday filed a new recusal lawsuit against Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar.
The lawsuit was filed before the Criminal Court of Cassation, with the two politicians citing "legitimate suspicion."
LBCI television reported that Khalil has also filed a lawsuit against Bitar before the Judicial Inspection Commission, accusing him of "willful misconduct" in the port blast case.
Al-Jadeed television meanwhile reported that caretaker Justice Minister Khoury will return to Beirut Monday evening in order to "resume his work tomorrow morning, address the rift between judges and find an exit for the Beirut port file."
Bitar took Lebanon Hezbollahstan ...the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity™, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade... by surprise last Monday when he resumed his investigation after a 13-month hiatus, charging eight new suspects including high-level security officials and Lebanon's top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat. The judge also scheduled interrogation sessions for Zoaiter and other figures who had been previously charged.
Bitar said he based his decision on a legal review that he himself conducted, with a source close to him saying the judge "is convinced it's crucial to hold officials accountable and finish his mission."
But others in Lebanon point to foreign interference in the case. A top security official said that the Lebanese judiciary had come under U.S. pressure to free detainees in the case, including dual Lebanese-U.S. citizen Ziad al-Ouf.
The week before reopening the case, Bitar had met with two French judges for hours about his investigation. The delegation suggested Bitar should resume work, arguing that holding suspects in detention without trial is a human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... violation.
Bitar's surprise move sparked a judicial battle with Oueidat, putting Lebanon's notoriously politicized justice system to yet another test.
Oueidat retaliated by charging the judge with "usurping power" and insubordination, and slapped Bitar with a travel ban. A defiant Bitar meanwhile told AFP he would not step down, adding that Oueidat "has no authority" to intervene in the case.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2023 00:00 ||
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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
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa...
...... the personification of Somali state failure...
...... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
...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. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century...
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 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 Pakistain's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire...
...In 2006 unknown persons blew up Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the car he was traveling in, the road he was traveling on, and a few innocent bystanders of no account whatsoever. The person or persons unknow weren't Hezbollah, you can bet on that. Really. Even though there was an international tribunal that said it was them...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites....
[IsraelTimes] Unverified reports claim target was loaded with weapons and ammunition, after similar attack overnight and another strike in the morning
...The nation is noted for 
...the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity™, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade...
