[Garowe] As the latest strategy to defeat al-Shabaab ...... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... krazed killers, the government of Somalia has sent more recruits for further training abroad, with the country hoping to eliminate violent mostly peaceful krazed killer groups in the next 12 months by restoring order in most strategic parts of the country.
Hussein Sheikh Ali, the National Security Adviser, told Voice of America [VOA] that Mogadishu has dispatched 3,000 soldiers each to Uganda and Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... to improve their capacity and capability of handling the al-Shabaab and IS-Somalia Lions of Islam who are determined to ground the current administration under Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.
"We want to complete making 15,000 soldiers ready within 2023," Ali told VOA in the one-on-one interview in Washington where he met with U.S. officials to seek more support for Somalia, noting that more soldiers will be sent to Æthiopia and Egypt for similar training.
On Tuesday, a new report by the Heritage Institute of Policy Studies [HIPS] expressed concerns about Somalia's preparedness in the fight against violent mostly peaceful krazed killers, noting that December 2024 may not even be the convenient time for Somalia to let the 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... Transition Mission in Somalia [ATMIS] soldiers leave.
"This timetable is ambitious because the Somali security services are unlikely to be fully autonomous by then, nor is it likely that al-Shabaab will have been militarily defeated," the report said.
"The deadline and the fact the army is in a war while at the same time, they are being rebuilt ... we argue it's a tight deadline," said Afyare Elmi, executive director of HIPS and the report's co-author. "It will be difficult to meet."
Ali said the delay was requested because the troops Somalia is expecting to take over from ATMIS are in training abroad. He also said the government doesn't want to disrupt military operations against al-Shabaab in central Somalia, as the areas ATMIS troops would vacate will have to be taken over by Somali forces.
The new deployment of soldiers to Eritrea and Uganda comes at a time Somalia is receiving over 5,000 soldiers who have been undergoing training in Eritrea for the last three years. The soldiers are being repatriated to the country and some have even joined their colleagues on the battlefield to tackle al-Shabaab.
"There is no reason for ATMIS to stay or to continue to stay in Somalia," he added.
Ali also made a bold prediction that the government will defeat the krazed killer group by next summer. "Our ... primary goal is that in the summer of 2024, before June or July, there will be no al-Shabaab person occupying territory in Somalia. You can note that down," he said.
Al-Shabaab has, however, lost strategic towns across Somalia in the last six months, an indication that the national army with its partners is moving towards the right course. The country is financially drained but President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has called on members of the international community to help.
#1
Is it really for training or getting recruits to join with the promise of finally getting a decent meal?
And by the way, who is paying for it? "The country is financially drained but President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has called on members of the international community to help."
My sense is another gimmick to get some clueless morons in the West to pony up to fix an unfix-able problem, after all, the 2-state solution version of 3-card monte has worked for over 50 years!.
[AlAhram] Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church held earlier in the month their first-ever Christmas eve mass 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... for Coptic Egyptians and Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... ns residing in the country, according to the official publication of the church El-Keraza.
The mass was held at the end of a one-month visit by Archbishop Morcos of Shobra El-Kheima to Saudi Arabia, said El-Keraza in its most recent edition published on Friday.
The archbishop visited Riyadh, Jeddah and elsewhere in the eastern provinces, reported El-Keraza. He held masses under the auspices of the Saudi authorities that were attended by a large numbers of Copts as well as Eritreans.
The visit concluded with the holding of the Divine Liturgy on the evening of 6 January of the Gregorian calendar to celebrate Orthodox Christmas.
Coptic Orthodox Egyptians, who make up around 90 percent of all Christians in Egypt, celebrate Christmas on 7 January, while the minority of non-Orthodox Christians observe the holiday on 25 December.
Morcos' visit was his ninth annual visit to Saudi Arabia since 2015, which have traditionally lasted for an average of two weeks. In 2018, Morcos performed the first Christian mass held in Saudi Arabia at the invitation of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
According to El-Keraza magazine, the Coptic Orthodox Church expressed thanks to the Saudi ambassador in Cairo for facilitating Morcos’ visit, expressing gratitude to God for the visits that allow the Church to serve and maintain contact with its people abroad.
The Church also lauded Saudi Arabia for opening up to global societies in a solid, stable and contemporary manner that allows it to be an active and influential voice to all countries, the magazine said, adding that the country has seen a boom in progress, development and prosperity.
Moreover, the church credited the king and the crown prince for such modernisation and openness, adding that the crown prince represents the generation of globalised young people actively heading towards the "horizons of the developed world."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/03/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
Holy smoke!!! When I worked in Saudi in the mid-90s, this was unimaginable.
And in Riyadh! Jeddah was always a bit more open to the world, at least by Saudi standards, but Riyadh was the bulwark of Islam, more Islam, and nothing but Islam.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/03/2023 11:06 Comments ||
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[An Nahar] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund... on Thursday slammed a group of Western countries that temporarily closed down their consulates in Istanbul over security concerns, accusing them of waging "psychological warfare" and attempting to wreck Turkey's tourism industry.
Germany, the Netherlands and Britannia were among countries that shut down their consulates in the city of around 16 million people this week. The German Embassy cited the risk of possible retaliatory attacks following Koran-burning incidents in some European countries. The United States and other countries issued travel warnings urging citizens to exercise vigilance.
Ottoman Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the consulate closures and travel warnings were part of a Western plot to prevent a rebound in Turkey's tourism sector following the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic.
"On a day when we declared our aim of (attracting) 60 million tourists, at a time when 51.5 million tourists arrived and we obtained $46 billion in tourism revenue, they were on the verge of starting a new psychological warfare (against) Turkey," said Soylu, who is known for his anti-Western rhetoric.
The minister said Turkey had conducted as many as 60 operations against 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 so far this year and detained 95 people. Last year, close to 2,000 IS suspects were detained in more than 1,000 operations against the group, he said.
Earlier this week, the Interior Ministry said Ottoman Turkish authorities had detained a number of suspects following a warning from a "friendly country," but hadn't found any weapons, ammunition or sign of a planned act of violence.
In November, a bombing on Istanbul's bustling Istiklal Avenue, located in the heart of the city and near a number of foreign consulates, killed six people and maimed several others. Ottoman Turkish authorities blamed the attack on Kurdish murderous Moslems.
Last weekend, Turkey's foreign ministry issued a travel warning for European countries due to anti-Ottoman Turkish demonstrations and what it described as Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... . The warning followed demonstrations the week before outside the Ottoman Turkish Embassy in Sweden, where an anti-Islam activist muppet burned the Koran and pro-Kurdish groups protested against Turkey.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/03/2023 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The Biden administration, the guys that caused the debacle in Afghanistan ...knaves, footpads, and adjusters employed by the Biden Crime Family. They leave a trail of havoc everywhere they turn their attention, be it the nation's borders, the Keystone XL Pipeline, or epidemics, sometimes on purpose, most times through sheer arrogant ineptitude. They learnt this stuff in college, you know... on Thursday transferred a detainee from its Guantanamo Bay prison facility in Cuba to Belize and is preparing to transfer at least two more in the coming weeks. All three are Pak citizens.
Majid Khan left Guantanamo early Thursday and arrived in Belize several hours later. He is the first detainee to be resettled by the Biden administration and one of the few to be sent to a location in the Western Hemisphere.
The other two expected to be released soon are Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani and Mohammad Ahmad Ghulam Rabbani.
Possibly they are in the Rantburg archives under slight different spelling or a different configuration of their names.
"I have been given a second chance in life and I intend to make the most of it," said Khan in a statement issued through his legal team. "I promise all of you, especially the people of Belize, that I will be a productive, law-abiding member of society."
Hopefully he really did have a change of heart instead of spewing taqiyya like squid ink before returning to old habits.
The only known legal US resident at Guantanamo, Khan was born 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... . He was granted asylum in the US in 1998, while attending high school near Baltimore but remained a Pak citizen.
He returned to Pakistain in 2002 and, according to a US Defence Department detainee assessment, joined Al Qaeda and became a direct subordinate to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), Al Qaeda’s senior operational planner and the principal architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Khan was arrested 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... in March 2003 and taken to a CIA black site where he was subjected to sleep deprivation, an ice water bath, and forced rectal feeding and rehydration. The chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein ...Dem Senator-for-Life from Caliphornica. She has been a politician since about the time she was weaned. Feinstein was the author of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, and tried it a second time in 2012. Feinstein has chaired the Select Committee on Intelligence since 2009. At age 89.53632, Feinstein is the oldest currently serving United States Senator... , called the treatment torture. In September 2006, then-President George W. Bush announced that Khan was one of 14 "high value detainees" being transferred from CIA detention facilities to Guantanamo Bay to face the military tribunal system.
In 2012, Khan pled guilty to terrorism-related charges and was sentenced to 10 years detention. That sentence ended March 1, 2022. Khan still has family in the US, but US federal law does not allow Guantanamo detainees to be resettled in the country.
Aliya Hussain, an advocacy program manager at the Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, who has worked on Khan’s case for more than a decade, said, "Today did not seem possible when we started. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the unwavering commitment of everyone who has represented Majid."
Update from Wikipedia at 8:30 a.m. ET on the name Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani: alternate names on Guantanamo Bay paperwork: Abdul Al-Rahim Ghulam Rabbani and Abu Rahim Moulana Gulam Rabbani, which are also not in the Rantburg archives. He was born in Mecca approximately 1969 to a Pakistani family that spent many years in Saudi Arabia, at some point joined Al Qaeda and trained in Afghanistan. He and his brother were captured and taken to the CIA black site called the salt pit, then turned over to GITMO in 2004. Under President Obama’s rules for GITMO, Mr. Rabbani was one of 71 prisoners deemed too innocent to charge but too dangerous to release, which makes no sense to me. Wikipedia on brother Mohammad Ahmad Ghulam Rabbani: Mohammad Ahmad Ghulam Rabbani was born in Medina in 1970, went home to Karachi in the 1990s, where he claims he worked as a driver and guide for visiting Arabs, and claims that this association was the reason the authorities handed him over to the Americans... or possibly it was a case of mistaken identity. That jihadism is often a family affair he could be suspected of does not seem to have occurred to him, and his file accuses him of the same things as he elder brother. He spent two years with his brother at various CIA black sites before being sent with him to GITMO in 2004.
#5
No need for Michelle Obama to face her husbands unfinished business. Biden will take out the night soil and remove the threat of rendition discussion for the dems and Klingons. (pardon the obvious redundant references).
[AlAhram] The United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... announced Wednesday that one of its rights experts will visit the Guantanamo Bay detention facility later this month, in a first such visit after two decades of requests.
Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the UN special rapporteur on protecting human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, will undertake a visit to the United States, starting on Monday.
"Between February 6 and 14, the independent expert will visit Washington and subsequently the detention facility at the US naval station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba," the UN said in a statement.
The expert, who is appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but is unpaid and does not speak for the United Nations, will issue a statement on her findings and recommendations following the visit.
In the following three months, Ni Aolain "will also carry out a series of interviews with individuals in the United States and abroad, on a voluntary basis, including victims and families of victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and former detainees in countries of resettlement/repatriation", the statement said.
In March 2022, Ni Aolain announced she had received a "preliminary invitation" from Washington to visit Guantanamo, explaining that the parameters for the trip were still under discussion.
The secretive US military prison once housed hundreds of suspected turbans captured by US forces during Washington's so-called "war on terror" following the September 11 attacks by al-Qaeda in 2001.
In October, the Pentagon said 35 detainees now remain at the facility, with 20 eligible for transfer and nine still facing charges in a military tribunal.
US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. The very model of probity, except maybe for abandoning Afghanistan... is under pressure to clear out uncharged prisoners at Guantanamo and move ahead with the trials of those accused of having direct ties to al-Qaeda.
[AlAhram] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reaffirmed Wednesday that Turkey won't allow Sweden to join the NATO military alliance as long as the Scandinavian country permits protests desecrating Islam's holy book to take place. Yippy needs to learn his place. He should be booted from NATO
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/03/2023 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] National security minister says licensing department to get double the personnel and work longer hours, and security officers will no longer need to be interviewed
[IsraelTimes] Returning from Khartoum, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen says his visit laid ’the foundations for a historic peace agreement with a strategic Arab and Moslem country’
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/03/2023 01:46 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Biden officials once again fear holiday season will lead to uptick in tensions, particularly in Jerusalem, with Sullivan and Blinken raising concerns during Jerusalem visits.
The #SDF announced the end of its anti-#ISIS security operation in #Raqqa and its countryside. It also disclosed the outcome of the campaign and thanked all parties who participated in it. @coalitionhttps://t.co/100l2NtZSh
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.
...... 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...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...knaves, footpads, and 
Shame to see it not being used for something, since we paid for it. 
...46th president of the U.S. The very model of probity, except maybe for abandoning Afghanistan...
[AlAhram] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reaffirmed Wednesday that Turkey won't allow Sweden to join the NATO military alliance as long as the Scandinavian country permits protests desecrating Islam's holy book to take place.
