[PREMIUMTIMESNG] The Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, on Thursday said he ordered all armed herdsmen out of Benue State because they engaged in killing citizens with provocation.
He said it was his duty as a governor to take the decision in order to ensure the safety of lives and property of the citizens of the state.
Mr. Ortom spoke with State House correspondents shortly after he came out of a meeting of the National Economic Council NEC, at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He however, said unarmed herdsmen and those who do not engage in violence also need protection.
Mr. Ortom had on Monday given Fulani herdsmen in Tombo-Mbalagh, Buruku Local Government Area of the state, a two-day ultimatum to leave the area.
He gave the order in Tombo-Mbalagh during a visit to ascertain the damage allegedly inflicted on the community by herdsmen over the weekend.
"I ordered armed herdsmen out of my state. They are not friendly to my people. They are killing them and I cannot tolerate that," the governor said.
"My job as the governor is to provide security for lives and property. I cannot watch seeing people being killed unprovoked. It is not right."
Mr. Ortom said the only thing citizens of the state are engaged in is farming. He however, said "when you go to their farmlands and destroy their crops and then when they complain, you kill them. That will never be acceptable. I will not fold my hands to watch this happen."
He said his order is for coppers to arrest all arms-bearing herdsmen.
He also recalled that an amnesty programme he launched earlier enabled him to "disarm the criminal elements in my society because I believe in the rule of law and due process.
"Without the rule of law, there is no way we can govern. A stronger person will come and take over the affairs of the state from where ever you are. And so, we must abide by the rule of law," he said.
Mr. Ortom said apart from fighting corruption, governments at all levels must be ready to fight impunity as well.
He said impunity was worse than corruption.
"Another thing is impunity, it is worse than corruption. So, while we are fighting corruption, we must also fight impunity. This is not right.
"Those armed herdsmen, are they above the law? So, the coppers must track, arrest and prosecute them according to the law.
"I have told my people that as farmers, they have no business carrying arms. And so, I will protect them as long as I am governor is my state," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
1) "when you go to their farmlands and destroy their crops and then when they complain, you kill them. That will never be acceptable.
2)"I have told my people that as farmers, they have no business carrying arms. And so, I will protect them as long as I am governor is my state," he said.
Your failure at protecting them is why they carry arms. Democrat Pols in Africa?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2017 11:39 Comments ||
Top||
#2
He's a member of the All Progressives Congress*
* Consultative member in the Socialist International.
h/t Instapundit
The U.S. shale cowboys are back on their horses and leading a strong recovery in the oil patch that is not expected to falter even as WTI prices dropped last week below $50 per barrel for the first time in more than two months.
With lessons learned from the oil price crash and budgets streamlined and focused on the most prolific shale plays, U.S. drillers are giving OPEC a hard time by raising output and hedging future production. Meanwhile, the cartel members are trying to cut supply and fix the price of oil at such a range that would allow them to reap higher oil revenues, but not allow the shale patch to recover too much too fast.
Two and a half months into the supply-cut deal, it looks like OPEC is losing the campaign to prop up oil prices. The drop in prices that began last week saw them retreating to almost exactly the same level as on November 30 ‐ just below $52/barrel for Brent - when the OPEC deal was announced, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly report on Wednesday.
At the same time, reduced breakeven prices in many shale plays and forward locking-in of production is allowing the companies currently drilling in the U.S. to turn in profits even at a price of oil at $40 a barrel.
#1
The first go round required purchasing the fracking trucks, etc.. With plenty to go around now, maintenance and operations costs is manageable at lower barrel prices.
#4
Besides what Nero White commented on in new fracking conditions this time around, we have a President that encourages this type of enterprise and development. With this one-two punch, OPEC gets up against the ropes, having to dig into their financial assets to maintain the status quo for their rubes.
It is very good news. And as far as the ME oil ticks going back to Bedouins again, that will be difficult because their aquifer left over from the Pleistocene and many springs and oases have dried up from the lowered water table.
It's a good day today, folks.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/18/2017 16:56 Comments ||
Top||
#5
If the world is a better place to live in 20 years, a large part of the credit will have to go to fracking.
#7
I haven't read recent stuff on fracking and earthquakes, but the early stuff was pretty good - and fracking of the rock - pumping a slurry of liquid and proppant at high pressure to generate and propagate a fracture from a well out into the reservoir rock - creates 'earthquakes' far too small to feel, or even detect without very sensitive instruments. However, if the induced fracture intersects an existing fault that is close to the stress needed for it to slip, the pulse of pressure from the frac could trigger a quake, one that would probably have occurred naturally in a geologically short time. I am not aware of any evidence of such actually having happened, but I admit I am not current. There are a class of similar earthquakes that have been documented, though it was not the frac pulse but the far larger volumes of produced water being pumped into disposal wells that triggered them. The disposal wells may be handling water from fracked wells (documented case near FW airport), or any other wells (seem likely in several recent OK quakes), or even industrial process waste water.
#1
"The president said the US must be paid more for providing defense"
This is not how NATO works, and U.S. troops are not paid mercenaries.
I agree that Germany will have to do more (and it will) but that's not the way to go about it.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/18/2017 17:34 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Respectfully EC, the US provides things that Germany simply can't, even in a 10 year time frame. Heavy lift capability for one, logistical supply for another, even heavy armor divisions. Germany, like much of the rest of the EU, has emasculated their militariy over the past 30 years. With a declining birth rate and an increasing demand for social services by an aging population, how do you turn that around?
#5
I can both sympathize with Germany but also be annoyed that they made their damn bed. The problems are of a long time in the making and won't be quickly turned around.
I'm afraid that this is a time when everyone has to throw all the cards on the table and start a fresh game. There's no going back and trying to fix the root causes. It's time to cut the cords to the past and figure out how to move on from where we are.
Figuring out, and agreeing, to a direction and goal maybe impossible which will mean a whole new alignment of alliances.
#6
Why should America risk nuclear immolation over first world countries that succor on military welfare? By the 80s the combined GDP and population of Western Europe exceed the US. If you are unwilling to commit to defend yourselves, its time to take your place in history. America failed to learned the lessons of the Byzantines who exhausted their resources trying to reconstruction the old Roman Empire.
#7
I have a son in the Bundeswehr who served in Afghanistan. This is commitment, too, not just the token 2% for NATO (which actually should be spent on Germany's own military).
The 2% are a formulated goal, but no legal obligation.
U.S. troops are (mostly) no longer in Germany to defend Germany, but because it's the best place to be for a lot of reasons.
If Germany wanted it could leave NATO, and get off scot-free if U.S. troops relocate to Poland. Quite a cynical approach, of course.
There's a lot of posturing right now. I guess we'll just sit that one out.
Btw German defense minister is actually pushing for more military spending.
I'm wary of Russia but no, Russian tanks breaking through the Fulda Gap won't happen.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/18/2017 18:25 Comments ||
Top||
#8
The 2% goal actually is a thing of the past. NATO members should rather strive for efficiency. Much money and manpower is lost by maintaining separate national armies.
I'm rather thinking of smart, lean, tech-driven, highly efficient professional units. Future conflicts will not look like those that were wargamed in the 1980s
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/18/2017 18:37 Comments ||
Top||
#9
EC - good on your son and his service!
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2017 19:17 Comments ||
Top||
#10
We've prechambered the hell out of the Fulda Gap and there is nothing going to come through there without serious casualties. Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd plus a couple of coils of detcord can make the gap unpassable...without using any tactical nukes either.
[AlAhram] A senior figure in Bulgaria's Turkish community lashed out Friday at President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... , in a further escalation of a spat ahead of elections in the EU country and a referendum in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... In a rare outburst, Ahmed Dogan, the long-serving former leader of the main party representing the Turkish minority, said that the Turkish referendum on creating an executive presidency was "madness".
"On April 16 neighbouring Turkey will hold a referendum to turn Kemal (Ataturk's) Republic of Turkey into a sultanate," the 62-year-old said in a statement.
Bulgaria is home to a 700,000-strong ethnic Turkish minority, a legacy of the Ottoman empire.
Turkey, its neighbour, is home to more than 200,000 ethnic Turks with Bulgarian passports who left Bulgaria during the communist era.
Around a third of them are expected to vote in Bulgaria's election on March 26.
Sofia has accused Ankara in recent weeks of meddling in its election, summoning Turkey's ambassador and recalling its own envoy from Turkey for consultations.
You could properly accuse Turkey of meddling in Bulgarian elections for the last several centuries, except that Bulgaria hasn't had elections that long...
Turkey's envoy openly backed Dost, a new party that split from Dogan's Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) in 2016, which is the third biggest in parliament.
Ognyan Gerdzhikov, Bulgaria's interim prime minister, on Friday acknowledged there was a problem.
"There is a certain amount of tension linked to one of the political parties that receives backing from the Turkish side but we are taking measures to stop that," Gerdzhikov said.
It is still unclear how many votes Dost, which unlike the MRF openly backs Erdogan, will garner on March 26 but experts believe it will fail to pass the four-percent threshold to enter parliament.
A wider row is meanwhile raging between Turkey and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... ahead of the referendum, with a number of countries preventing Turkish ministers from attending referendum rallies.
An angry response by Ankara has seen German and Dutch politicians called "Nazis" and Turkey threaten to scupper a 2016 deal with the EU preventing migrants colonists entering the bloc.
This could be a major problem for Bulgaria, the EU's poorest country, since it shares a 270-kilometre (165-mile) border with Turkey.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/18/2017 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Rima Khalaf quits after Sec.-Gen. rejects document accusing Jewish state of ’racially dominating’ the Paleostinians; Israeli envoy: Her departure was ’long overdue’.
The head of a Leb-based United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... agency that promotes development in Arab countries resigned Friday, after the body she led was ordered by the UN secretary-general to remove from its website a controversial report that charged Israel has established an "apartheid regime" guilty of "racial domination" over the Palestinians. They'll all be ordering 'Apartheid for Dummies' manuals from Amazon before this Palestinian unpleasantness is finished.
Rima Khalaf, a Jordanian who served as executive secretary of the Beirut-based Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), announced her resignation at a hastily arranged presser in the Lebanese capital.
She said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s insistence that the document be removed from the agency’s website led her to quit.
"The secretary general asked me yesterday morning to withdraw (the report). I asked him to rethink his decision, he insisted, so I submitted my resignation from the UN," Khalaf said.
"We expected of course that Israel and its allies would put huge pressure on the secretary general of the UN so that he would disavow the report, and that they would ask him to withdraw it," Khalaf, who had also served as an under-secretary-general to Guterres, added.
The report was no longer available on ESCWA’s website as of Friday afternoon.
Guterres accepted Khalaf’s resignation. Spokesman Stephane Dujarric explained to media in New York that "The secretary-general cannot accept that an under-secretary-general or any other senior UN official that reports to him would authorize the publication under the UN name, under the UN logo, without consulting the competent departments and even himself," according to Rooters.
The document, published earlier this week by ESCWA, which comprises 18 Arab countries, drew swift and vociferous criticism from US and Israeli officials. "The United States is outraged by the report," US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley ...first woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley is the youngest current governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems... said in a statement. She went on to demand the report be withdrawn.
Its authors concluded that "Israel has established an apartheid regime that systematically institutionalizes racial oppression and domination of the Paleostinian people as a whole."
Khalaf has long been criticized by Israeli officials for her perceived anti-Israel positions.
UN chief Guterres distanced himself from the report on Wednesday, and then requested its removal from ESCWA’s website.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon welcomed the developments, saying Guterres’s move was "an important step in stopping discrimination against Israel."
In a statement, Danon said "Anti-Israel activists do not belong in the UN. It is time to put an end to practice in which UN officials use their position to advance their anti-Israel agenda."
He added that "Over the years Khalaf has worked to harm Israel and advocate for the BDS movement. Her removal from the UN is long overdue."
US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley, who had demanded the report’s withdrawal Wednesday, said in a statement: "When someone issues a false and defamatory report in the name of the US, it is appropriate that the person resign. UN agencies must do a better job of eliminating false and biased work, and I applaud the secretary-general’s decision to distance his good office from it."
The report was compiled by Richard Falk, a Princeton professor emeritus with a long track record of vehemently anti-Israel rhetoric who previously was the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Paleostine, and by Virginia Tilley, an American political scientist who authored the book "The One-State Solution" in 2005.
Haley described Falk as "a man who has repeatedly made biased and deeply offensive comments about Israel and espoused ridiculous conspiracy theories."
#1
"The secretary-general cannot accept that an under-secretary-general or any other senior UN official that reports to him would authorize the publication under the UN name, under the UN logo, without consulting the competent departments and even himself"
Nothing personal, Khalaf baby - it's just business. And the business needs money. If you'd put this little report of yours up, say, last year at this time, it'd been no problem. Surely you understand....
[AnNahar] The Military Court on Friday charged 18 people, most of them Syrians, with transferring more than $19 million from Leb to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... jihadist group, a judicial source said.
Fifteen Syrians, one Paleostinian and two others were accused of "belonging to ISIS (IS), creating a money smuggling network and transferring money out of Leb for IS' benefit," the source said.
The network had "transferred $19,300,000 to IS in Syria and Iraq from 2014 until now."
The suspects were referred to a military investigator for further questioning, the source added.
Lebanese security forces in early March raided currency exchange offices and money transfer companies on suspicion they had sent huge sums of money to IS.
The judicial source said the accused "rented currency exchange offices from Lebanese nationals at very attractive prices and began transferring money to IS in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , Iraq, and Syria."
"Each transfer was valued between $10,000 and $100,000... Most of the money would eventually reach IS' stronghold in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... in Iraq, or in Raqa, Aleppo, Palmyra, or Qalamun in Syria," he said.
While money to IS in Iraq was transferred directly, the wires to Syria always went through Turkey first.
Leb has been heavily impacted by the war in neighboring Syria since it erupted in March 2011.
Security forces have on several occasions incarcerated Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! suspected IS members, including in February when two men were detained on suspicion of planning an attack in central Beirut.
Leb's central bank imposes strict rules on financial institutions intended to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing, including caps on the amount that can be transferred overseas without additional supporting paperwork.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/18/2017 06:37 ||
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#1
Somebody forgot to pay their bribes, kickback, fees, taxes.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi strongly blasted the Riyadh government for continuing attacks on Yemeni civilians.
“Saudi Arabia has fueled the flames of regional insecurity by fueling the flame of war Yemen and supporting the terrorist groups in Syria,” Qassemi said on Friday.
The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman reiterated that Saudi Arabia should learn that its petrodollars cannot buy security for that country and paving the way for foreign interference (as Saudi Arabia is doing) in the region will only increase the insecurity in the Middle East.
In relevant remarks last week, the Iranian foreign ministry strongly deplored the Saudi air attacks on a busy market in al-Hudayda province in Yemen which killed and wounded several innocent civilians.
Qassemi expressed sympathy with family members of the victims, and extended Iran’s condolences to them.
“Intensified attacks against the residential areas and civilian targets and prevention of access to the international organizations and responsible institutions to carry out relief missions is violation of basic humanitarian principles and regulations,” he said.
Qassemi called on the UN and other international organizations to adopt necessary actions to protect the health and security of civilians, specially women and children.
The Saudi warplanes raided last Friday a popular market in Khawkha governorate in Yemen’s Hudayda province, claiming 16 lives and injuring 10 others, according to the initial tolls.
Four air raids on various areas in Yemen’s Nahm city were also launched by the Saudi warplanes.
Saudi Arabia launched its bombing campaign against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to restore power to fugitive President Mansour Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.
Hadi stepped down in January 2015 and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by Ansarullah revolutionaries.
Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.
The Monarchy’s attacks have so far claimed the lives of at least 13,100 civilians, mostly women and children.
SYRIA: The US said it carried out an air strike in Syria against an Al-Qaeda meeting but denied deliberately targeting a mosque where a monitor said on Friday 46 people were killed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said most of the dead in the Thursday evening raid on Al-Jineh, in the northern province of Aleppo, were civilians.
The US-led coalition has been bombing jihadist groups in war-torn Syria since 2014, with hundreds of civilians unintentionally killed in the country and in neighboring Iraq.
“We did not target a mosque, but the building that we did target — which was where the meeting took place — is about 50 feet (15 meters) from a mosque that is still standing,” said Col. John J. Thomas, spokesman for US Central Command.
According to a Centcom statement: “US forces conducted an air strike on an Al-Qaeda in Syria meeting location March 16 in Idlib, Syria, killing several terrorists.”
The Centcom spokesman later clarified that the precise location of the strike was unclear — but that it was the same one widely reported to have hit the village mosque in Al-Jineh, in Aleppo province.
“We are going to look into any allegations of civilian casualties in relation to this strike,” he added.
An AFP correspondent saw rescue workers in white helmets working under spotlights with picks and shovels late on Thursday to dig people out of the rubble.
Much of the mosque, identified by a black placard outside as a mosque, had been flattened.
The empty prayer hall was covered in debris, and rescue workers stepped through it carefully, deliberating how to break down a wall to search for more survivors.
Rescuers had earlier left the wreckage site but were forced to double back when they heard moaning coming from the rubble.
“More than 100 people were wounded,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said on Thursday, adding that many were still trapped under the collapsed mosque in the village of Al-Jineh, just over 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of Aleppo.
The village is held by Islamist groups, but the Observatory said no jihadist factions are present.
Abu Muhammed, a village resident, told AFP that he “heard powerful explosions when the mosque was hit. It was right after prayers at a time when there are usually religious lessons for men in it.
“I saw 15 bodies and lots of body parts in the debris when I arrived. We couldn’t even recognize some of the bodies,” he added.
More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict with anti-government protests six years ago.
A cease-fire between government forces and non-jihadist rebel groups was brokered by rebel backer Turkey and regime ally Russia in December, but violence has continued.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information, says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used.
But the skies over Aleppo province are busy, with Syrian regime and Russian warplanes as well as US-led coalition aircraft carrying out strikes.
Russia began a military intervention in Syria in September 2015, and in the past has dismissed allegations of civilian deaths in its strikes.
The US-led coalition fighting the Daesh group said earlier this month that its raids in Iraq and Syria had unintentionally killed at least 220 civilians since 2014.
#8
If you are targeting religious nut cases isn't it reasonable to consider religious sites they congregate at targets?
We're at war with ISLAM. Some day we will say it openly. When that day comes, if our "leadership" really wants to win the gloves will come off and we'll target mosques.
The commander of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) said on Friday that a US-backed assault to drive ISIS from its de-facto capital Raqqa would begin at the start of April and the YPG would be taking part, despite fierce opposition from neighboring Turkey.
A spokesman for the US Pentagon, Navy Captain Jeff Davis, said no decision had been made yet on the Raqqa offensive, which is part of a two pronged attempt to dismantle the caliphate declared by ISIS in parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014.
US-backed forces, including the YPG, are closing in on Raqqa city.
In the meantime, President Donald Trump said he wants to accelerate efforts to crush the hardline militants, who are under siege by US-backed Iraqi forces in the much larger city of Mosul.
The comments by YPG commander Sipan Hemo to Reuters were the first indication of a date of an attack.
H“Regarding the decision to liberate Raqqa and storm it, the matter is decided and at the start of the month of April the military operation will begin,” Hemo said.
“We believe that liberating Raqqa will not take more than a number weeks,” he added.
Ankara has been pressing the United States to drop its military alliance with the Syrian Kurdish group, which it views as part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has been fighting an insurgency for three decades in Turkey.
The role of the YPG is a major point of contention between the United States and its NATO ally Turkey, which wants Washington to draw instead on Syrian Arab rebel groups backed by Ankara for the final assault on Raqqa.
Hemo said YPG forces would storm Raqqa alongside Arab fighters in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). “Of the total force for storming Raqqa, 25 percent are YPG, who are set apart in their combat experience and high-level command skills directing battles in cities,” he said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told broadcaster Haberturk in an interview late on Thursday that parts of the US military favored incorporating the YPG into the assault force because of its earlier successes on the ground.
“But we also see that there are different stances within the US administration. Right now, they do not have a clear stance on this. They are going through a transition period,” he said, adding: “The talks are ongoing.”
The Pentagon has said that Arab fighters account for about 75 percent of the SDF alliance fighting to isolate Raqqa.
Source: Reuters & Agencies
Posted by: badanov ||
03/18/2017 00:00 ||
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[5 views]
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#1
The YPG should pay close attention to the hard lessons being learned by the IA in Mosul...as should we. Car bombs used as guided missiles, localized counter attacks, all directed by IS ops guys using sUAS video...and they even drop mortar sized bombs with weaponized versions of those.
[AnNahar] Rebel factions, including al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate the Fateh al-Sham ...formerly al-Nusra, the current false nose and mustache of al-Qaeda in the Levant... Front, issued rare denials of any involvement in twin suicide kabooms that killed 32 people in Damascus on Wednesday.
The Tahrir al-Sham alliance, which is dominated by Fateh al-Sham, said it "denies any link to the Damascus kabooms".
"Our goals are confined to security branches and military barracks of the criminal regime and its allies," it said in a statement published on Telegram late Wednesday.
Fateh al-Sham had earlier grabbed credit for twin bombings which killed 74 people on Saturday, most of them Iraqi pilgrims who had travelled to the Syrian capital to visit Shiite shrines.
It also grabbed credit for bombings that killed 42 people in Syria's third city Homs last month.
Wednesday's attacks targeted a Damascus courthouse, where 32 people were killed and 100 maimed, and a restaurant in the west of the capital, where 25 people were maimed.
There has been no claim of responsibility.
The bombings drew condemnation from Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... which described them as "criminal terrorist blasts."
It accused the government of provocation, an allegation also levelled by another Islamist rebel group, Jaish al-Islam ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful... (Army of Islam), which said the attacks had been "staged".
"The regime of (Bashar al-) Assad achieved two central goals: tarnishing the revolution with the stain of terrorism... and creating sectarian tensions within a united people," the group said.
The attacks came as 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... prepares to convene a new round of peace negotiations between the government and the opposition in Geneva next Thursday.
Rebel delegates stayed away from parallel talks which wrapped up in the Kazakh capital Astana on Wednesday.
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.
...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...
