[Ynet] A suicide boom-mobileing in Kabul aimed at a senior government official killed one civilian and maimed three others on Saturday but did not harm its apparent target, Afghan security officials said.
Kabul police front man Hashmat Stanikzai said a jacket wallah detonated his explosives-laden vehicle alongside the armored car of Mohammed Masoom Stanikzai, a bigwig in the High Peace Council, a government body tasked with peace talks with the Taliban insurgency. The two men are not related.
[BOSTON.CBSLOCAL] A Marine from New Hampshire has been killed in Afghanistan. Lance Cpl. Brandon Garabrant, 19, was one of three U.S. service members killed by a roadside kaboom Friday morning.
"The entire State of New Hampshire is devastated by the tragic loss of Lance Corporal Brandon Garabrant, who was bravely serving his nation in Afghanistan," Governor Maggie Hassan said in a statement. "Our service men and women courageously sacrifice every day to protect their fellow citizens and defend the enduring value of freedom that is our very core, and in doing so, Lance Corporal Garabrant made the ultimate sacrifice."
Garabrant graduated from ConVal Regional High School in Peterborough last year. He had requested to wear his uniform during graduation, but the school did not allow it.
The school has released a statement reacting to Garabrant's death.
"On behalf of the entire ConVal community I extend my deepest sympathy to Brandon's family and friends," Principal Brian Pickering said. "We are all shocked and deeply saddened by his passing and we are incredibly grateful for his service to our country."
Garabrant was also a volunteer firefighter in Temple, New Hampshire.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
"On behalf of the entire ConVal community I extend my deepest sympathy to Brandon's family and friends," Principal Brian Pickering said. "We are all shocked and deeply saddened by his passing and we are incredibly grateful for his service to our country."
Classical - "we meant well" excuse - CYAWP. We honor the living because they're not around to receive the respect we pay them when they pass. He wanted to show that he was willing to give the last full measure of devotion, to which the usual twits found fundamentally repugnant to their views and thus the censoring.
A Taliban attack killed three American soldiers and a military dog in southern Afghanistan on Friday. A NATO statement said, "Three ISAF service members and one ISAF canine died following an improvised explosive device attack in southern Afghanistan today."
US defense officials confirmed they were Americans.
The attack occurred in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province. The provincial governor's spokesman Omar Zawak said, "The bomb was carried on a motorbike and detonated close to an ISAF patrol."
The Taliban claimed responsibility through a text message sent to media organizations.
According to news reports from Waajid, a fierce confrontation allegedly erupted last night on the outskirts of the town between armed fighters from the Al-Shabaab terrorist group and Somali National Army soldiers.
The battle was initiated after the terrorist insurgents stormed strategic military bases where SNA soldiers were stationed on the outskirts of Waajid. Residents near the town reported to Shabelle that the conflict went on for at least a few hours and that they heard extreme exchange of gunfire and mortar shellings. Locals report that fatalities were caused although they cannot confirm to the extent of how many casualties and losses.
In the Bakool region recently, there has been increased fighting between governments SNA soldiers against fighters of the Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist cell, Al-Shabaab.
A string of towns and districts in Bakool has already been liberated in a joint military offensive by African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali National Army
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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The Award winning journalist, Yusuf Ahmed Abukar (Yusuf Keynan) was killed in Hamarweyn district on Saturday morning, when a bomb believed to have been attached to his car exploded around 7:40am, according to Mustafa Yasin, the owner of Mustaqbal radio who spoke with NUSOJ.
"I am currently standing on his body and the situation is tense." Mustafa Yasin said.
Yusuf Ahmed worked for Mustaqbal radio, a privately owned radio based in Mogadishu and Ergo radio, a humanitarian radio based in Nairobi. Yusuf was among the winners of 2013 Somali Media Awards organized by NUSOJ and the United Nations.
No Group claimed responsibility and its not yet known the motive behind his killing.
"We condemn the murder of our colleague and call for prompt investigations into the case.' Mohamed Ibrahim, NUSOJ Secretary General said, "I send my sincere condolences to the families, Friends and colleagues of late Yusuf."
"We demand the killers be brought to justice." Mr. Ibrahim added.
Yusuf becomes second journalist and media worker killed in 2014.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] Gunmen have attacked the port of the restive eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday, firing wildly with small arms into the area for hours, a security official in Libya said.
He said security forces and citizens blocked the city's surrounding roads after the Saturday attack, which left six people wounded.
The official added that the attack is believed to be a reprisal by Islamist militiamen targeted by the forces of renegade Libyan Gen. Khalifa Hifter.
[World Bulletin] A warplane affiliated with forces loyal to Libyan general Khalifa Haftar struck two vessels carrying arms and ammunition off the coast of Darnah in the country's east, a Haftar aide said Friday.
"A warplane serving the [pro-Haftar] National Army hit two vessels bringing arms and ammunition to extremist groups in Benghazi," Saqr al-Garoushi, who commands Haftar's air force, told Anadolu Agency.
According to al-Garoushi, the airstrike came after the two vessels ignored instructions not to leave Ras al-Hilal seaport, located some 30km from Darnah.
"We will issue orders to close the Ras al-Hilal and Soussa ports in order to cut the extremists' supply lines from the east," he said.
"Anyone who dares approach the port will be hit from the sky," he said, accusing the Islamist Ansar al-Sharia militia of obtaining weapons from the Al-Qaeda network. Hopefully, someone is walking that network backwards.
Last month, Haftar declared war on armed militias based in eastern Libya, vowing to "purge" the country of "extremists."
The Libyan government, for its part, has called the former general's campaign a "coup." I call it doing the right thing in the face of badly splintered leadership.
After serving as army chief-of-staff under late strongman Muammar Gaddafi, Haftar spent nearly two decades in the United States in exile before returning to Libya in 2011 to join the uprising against Gaddafi. In February, the general prompted fears of a military coup when he appeared on television - in military uniform - to demand the dissolution of Libya's elected parliament and interim government.
[ABC.NET.AU] An Egyptian court has confirmed death sentences for the leader of the outlawed Moslem Brüderbund and 182 of his supporters, in a mass trial of Islamists who face a fierce crackdown under the new president.
The court's decision came two months after it referred the case against Mohammed Badie and 683 others to the state's highest religious authority, the Mufti — the first step towards imposing a death sentence.
Badie and the other defendants were charged in connection with violence that erupted in the southern town of Minya following the ousting of the Brotherhood's president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... last July. One police officer was killed in the violence.
The court had initially sentenced 683 people to death, but on Saturday it commuted death sentences of four defendants, including two women, to life in prison and acquitted 496 others, prosecutor Abdel Rahim Abdel Malik said.
There was no immediate reaction on the ruling from the Brotherhood, whose members are either in jail or on the run. Which is why there was no immediate reaction...
The decision comes just two weeks after former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sissi took office as president after winning an election in May.
Mr Sisi led the overthrow of Morsi, which was followed by protests by Morsi's supporters and a crackdown by security forces in which hundreds of Islamist protesters were killed and thousands incarcerated Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
The preliminary sentences fired up the rubes among Western governments and rights groups, with the United States and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... both saying they were appalled by the rulings.
Rights group Amnesia Amnesty International strongly criticised the court's decision, accusing the judiciary of losing "any semblance of impartiality".
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Git her done!
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/22/2014 11:02 Comments ||
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[CNN] Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... bully boyz are suspected of raids on two villages in northeast Nigeria ... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border... where 10 people were killed Saturday, residents and community leaders said.
"We have picked up 10 corpses with bullet wounds," said Enoch Mark, a Christian priest in nearby Chibok, where more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped and remain missing.
Mark said military jets dropped bombs on the attackers.
According to witness accounts, there could be more bodies, but Mark said people were waiting for "things to calm down" in the villages of Tsaha and Kwaranglum before venturing into the area.
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06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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North Korea may have reduced its number of political prisoners and closed one of its prison camps, South Korea's state-run think tank revealed on June 17.
According to the report by the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners are estimated to be detained in five North Korean political prisons.
The estimate is based on a series of interviews with North Korean defectors and analysis of satellite images of North Korea.
However, the report said the drop in the estimated number of political prisoners and prison camps does not reflect any improvement or changes in the North's policies toward political prisoners. Did they die of starvation?
"It is difficult to say that the reduction in the number and the size of prison camps was the result of any changes in the North Korean authorities' stance or policy toward political prisons," the report said.
The report went on to state that regardless of specific numbers, the important factor to remember is that the North Korean government still maintains the political prisoner camps, which reduce the level of hostility and threats the government faces from society.
In October 2009, the South Korean government said that North Korea maintained between 150,000 and 200,000 political prisoners in six political prisons while the National Human Rights Commission of Korea's estimated in the same year that Pyongyang held around 200,000 political prisoners.
The report pointed out the closure of the political prison camp in Hoeryong and a high death rate caused by poor working and living conditions may have contributed to the reduction in the number of prisoners.
However, the figure produced by KIUN is contradictory to that of other reports by foreign organizations.
For example, the Washington-based U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) said in its recent report, "North Korea's Hidden Gulag: Interpreting Reports of Changes in the Prison Camps," that two camps had been shut down in 2012, but that 130,000 individuals were still being held in penal labor colonies across the country. Perhaps some of these aren't political?
Similarly, based on satellite images, the human rights group Amnesty International said in December of last year that there has been an expansion of existing prison camps in North Korea.
By analyzing the images, Amnesty International found new housing blocks, an expansion of production facilities, and continued tight security in a comprehensive assessments of camps 15 and 16 - known as kwanliso.
"The gruesome reality of North Korea's continued investment in this vast network of repression has been exposed. We urge the authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those prisoners of conscience held in political prison camps and close the camps immediately," said Rajiv Narayan, Amnesty International's East Asia Researcher. I don't think they are listening.
The cruelty of North Korea's prison camps has been considered as one of the most severe transgressions of the North Korean regime.
According to the KIUN report, most of North Korean prisoners are sent to the camps for trying to cross the border into China or for having family members who are suspected of being hostile towards the regime.
People in the camps are routinely beaten to death with wooden bats because the guards want to save bullets. Prisoners are forced to work all day, and only allocated one or two corn and rice balls for lunch. Consequently, most prisoners suffer from severe malnutrition and are not given proper medical treatment.
The estimated number of prison camps in North Korea varies depending on the reports, but the latest report by KIUN claims there may currently be five prison camps existing throughout North Korea.
North Korean prison camps have survived twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and much longer than the Nazi concentration camps.
#2
Prison populations in decline, caloric intake of survivors is reportedly on the rise. Enhanced gov't nutrition programs, or Donner Pass correlation? Obviously more study is required.
#7
"I can't rhyme!" chirped a worried ship-bird,
Bemused by crap limericks he'd heard.
Sang the foo: "Who needs rhyming
When you've got perfect timing
And can kill 'em with one zany word?"
#8
Dogged by the growl of your appetite?
Canines craving green stuff to bite tonight?
From the field, not the park,
It's the other Nork bark!
Try some with Reunite by candlelight!
#9
Juche: "Keep a bunch in your pocket!
Chew fiercely and tighten a sprocket!
Its sharp rabbit-food bite
Will keep you full of fight
As you polish up Dear Leader's rocket!"
[The Hindu] At least 13 people were killed in fresh violence to hit China's Xinjiang region on Saturday morning, in what officials described as a brazen attack on a cop shoppe in the troubled Mohammedan-majority western frontier.
The government said around a dozen men drove a truck into the local public security bureau, or police office, and detonated explosives, in Yecheng, a town north of the old Silk Road city of Kashgar near the western border.
Authorities said 13 "mobsters" were killed and three coppers injured in the attack. It was unclear if others were tossed into the calaboose over the violence.
Yecheng was the site of a similar attack in 2012, when police said a group of nine men had attacked passersby on a pedestrian street with knives, killing at least 15 people.
That attack was blamed by the government on an Islamist krazed killer group.
Saturday's attack follows a series of incidents that have rocked Xinjiang in recent months, marking a significant escalation in violence in the unrest-hit western region.
The government has said that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a terror group pushing for independence in Xinjiang, has been behind some of the attacks, including a knife and kaboom on the railway station in Urumqi, the regional capital, in April that left at least three people killed and injured 79.
The violence has also, for the first time, spread beyond Xinjiang. In March, at least 29 people were killed and more than a 100 injured as a group of apparently trained attackers, armed with long knives, assaulted people at a railway station in Kunming, in southwestern Yunnan province.
The attacks have prompted a "strike hard" campaign by the government, which has pledged a year-long drive to root out krazed killer groups.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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Caption on photo: Those staying behind to resist are militants or their supporters who are being chased and eliminated, a source told Dawn com. Don't kill the cantankerous old men and women who refused to leave.
PESHAWAR: About 30 suspected terrorists were killed in targeted strikes by jet aircraft in Khyber Agency and North Waziristan early Saturday, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a press release.
At 2 AM, aircraft destroyed two hideouts close to the Pak- Afghan border in Khyber Agency killing 10 suspected terrorists. At 5 AM, three hideouts were destroyed in Hassu Khel in North Waziristan, killing 20 terrorists.
All strikes were made in areas where there is no civil population, the statement said.
Over 300 suspected militants have reportedly been killed in the Zarb-i-Azb operation launched a week ago.
[DAWN] Rangers personnel conducted an operation in Sultanabad area of Manghopir in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... on Thursday, allegedly killing a key commander and the local vice-emir of the proscribed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), DawnNews reported.
Rangers personnel had cordoned off the area sealing all entry and exit points of the locality while conducting the search operation.
Although the official Rangers spokesperson declined to give confirmation of the identities of those killed during the operation, security sources said that the vice-emir of the TTP's Karachi chapter identified as Abid 'chotu' was killed during the Rangers' operation in Sultanabad area of Karachi's Manghopir area.
The other TTP commander killed during the operation was identified as Fakhruddin Mehsud, according to the sources.
Prior to the operation two Rangers personnel were maimed in a hand-grenade attack in the locality. They were later shifted to a hospital for medical treatment.
Following the attack, the operation was conducted with the assistance of air support.
Meanwhile, ...back at the game, the Babe headed for second base. He almost made it. Then Sheila slapped him.... Director General of Sindh Rangers Maj-Gen Rizwan Akhtar also reached the spot to supervise the operation.
Security personnel also recovered an explosive-laden cycle of violence which was taken into custody by the Bomb Disposal Squad.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] Political sources in Iraq have claimed that Russian President Valdimir Putin spoke Friday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party. Maliki imposed order on Basra wen the Shiites were going nuts, but has proven incapable of dealing with al-Qaeda's Sunni insurgency. Reelected to his third term in 2014... , and promised him Russia would send Badhdad an emergency shipment of military aid to assist the government in its fight against the Islamist insurgency led by the ISIS.
"The shipment is expected to arrive in upcoming days and will include military helicopters, armed-personnel carriers, munitions and light and heavy arms," the source was quoted as saying by the anti-Hezbollah Lebanese paper Al-Mustaqbal ... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... .
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#9
Iff true, AFAIC it'll the Bammer once again being a good OWG Globalist + SSSSSHHHHHH .... PCCCCCCCC helping not One but Two OWG Co-Superpowers expand their MilPol or Geopol spheres.
[NY Times] All factions in the city have started mobilizing, preparing, as they call it, "for war." But, almost everybody here says, the war is against the "terrorists" — the jihadists of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria who have seized broad stretches of northern territory — and not against Sunnis.
This reluctance to lump together the Sunnis of ISIS with the Sunnis of Iraq could suggest that some Shiites, the majority sect in the country, are heeding the call of Ayatollah Sistani and other holy mans to embrace a national identity instead of a religious one, despite months of fierce sectarian battles across Iraq that preceded the ISIS invasion two weeks ago. Several ayatollahs have issued fatwas against anyone feeding the fire of sectarianism.
On Friday, a front man for Ayatollah Sistani warned that if ISIS was not "fought and expelled from Iraq, everyone will regret it tomorrow, when regret has no meaning."
That day, as the sun was setting, Najaf and the adjacent city of Kufa were bustling with activity to heed that call. In neighborhoods, on soccer pitches and in parades on the main highway that splits the city in half, cheerful Iraqis brandished machine guns, denouncing the "terrorists."
Sheikh Foad al-Torfa, a round-bellied man of God, trained on a dusty field in Kufa in military fatigues, a white turban the only reminder of his life as a Shiite Moslemholy man.
All around him groups of black-clad men marched in formation. "Who are you fighting for?" a self-appointed drill sergeant shouted. "For Iraq, for Iraq," the men thundered in reply.
"When I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt proud, and powerful," said Mr. Torfa, wiping sweat from his forehead. An Iraqi Army belt was strapped around his waist, and every now and then he touched the pistol hanging from it.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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[Telegraph] 21 Jun 2014 | Mapping the changing flashpoints and Isis victories and defeats in Iraq as the jihadist offensive continues
As the Isis offensive on Baghdad rages on, take a look at our daily updated Iraq crisis map to see where the latest frontline fighting is taking place.
The earliest map is dated 17. June. A site worth bookmarking for the duration, I think.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Thanks for finding this, trailing wife.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in bonnie Scotland ||
06/22/2014 2:45 Comments ||
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#3
The map shows no gains in Kurdish control since the crisis began. It does not even indicate that Kirkuk is now under the Peshmerga. This is not a good map.
If the maps thus far posted are inadequate, Geographer, it would be lovely if you would find us a better open source one. I happened across this in my internet wanderings, but freely admit this is not a subject on which I can claim any expertise whatsoever.
[Telegraph] Isis and Death Eater allies who helped seize djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... clash in Kirkuk province, killing 17
Sunni bully boyz who fought together to capture swathes of Iraqi territory have turned their weapons on each other during festivities in Kirkuk province that cost 17 lives, according to reports.
The fighting erupted on Friday evening between Isis and the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandiyah Order (JRTN) in Hawija, in Kirkuk province, sources told AFP.
There were differing accounts as to what sparked the firefight, which is a potential sign of the fraying of the Sunni Death Eater alliance that has overrun vast stretches of territory north of Storied Baghdad in less than two weeks.
One security official said JRTN fighters had refused an Isis demand to give up their weapons and pledge allegiance to the jihadist force.
Witnesses, however, told AFP the two sides clashed over who would take over multiple fuel tankers in the area.
Analysts have noted that while the Sunni Death Eaters, who are led by Isis but also include a litany of other groups including loyalists of now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein, have formed a wide alliance, it is unclear if the broader grouping can hold together given their disparate ideologies.
Isis espouses an bad boy interpretation of Islam and wants to establish an Islamic state, whereas other gangs have political differences with the regime in Storied Baghdad, suggesting the alliance could eventually break down.
Reports of the festivities emerged as Shia volunteers gathered in Storied Baghdad's Sadr City in a show of force against the Isis-led Sunni jihadists insurgency.
Thousands of fighters loyal to powerful Shia holy manMoqtada Tater al-Sadr ... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah... paraded with weapons in the Sadr City district, vowing to fight the offensive which was launched on June 9.
Around 50,000 joined the rally, with some seen wielding machine guns and improvised bombs known as EFPs (Explosively Formed Projectiles).
Rank upon rank of fighters, dressed mostly in camouflage but some wearing black, bore Kalashnikov assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, light machineguns and rocket launchers.
Some of the unit leaders carried Iraqi flags, while others held signs with messages including "We sacrifice for you, O Iraq," "No, no to terrorism," and "No, no to America".
Similar parades were held in large southern cities including Basra, Najaf and Kut, all in the Shia heartland.
Iraqi security officials said Sunni bully boyz had seized a Syrian border crossing on Saturday after killing some 30 Iraqi troops in a day of festivities.
The officials said Saturday that Isis and allied bully boyz seized the crossing near the border town of Qaim, about 200 miles west of Storied Baghdad, after battling Iraqi troops throughout the previous day.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.
The capture of the Qaim border crossing deals a further blow to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party. Maliki imposed order on Basra wen the Shiites were going nuts, but has proven incapable of dealing with al-Qaeda's Sunni insurgency. Reelected to his third term in 2014... 's government, which has struggled to push back against Islamic Death Eaters and allied bully boyz who have seized large swaths of the country, including the second largest city Mosul, and who have vowed to march on Storied Baghdad.
Sunni bully boyz have carved out a large swath of territory astride the Iraqi-Syrian border and seized Iraq's second largest city Mosul earlier this month.
Militants have long traveled back and forth across the mostly non-existent border, but the control of crossings allows them to more easily move weapons and heavy equipment to different battlefields.
President Obama is sending up to 300 US military advisers to Iraq and has threatened air strikes as Sunni Islamists have gained control of the north of the country and made a push toward Storied Baghdad. Growing mistrust between Shia and Sunni Moslems has heightened tensions in the country, where the United States fought a war from 2003 to 2011, the president said.
Iraq's prime minister Maliki faces mounting pressure to form an inclusive government or step aside, after a top Shiite holy man also strongly hinted he is in part to blame for the worst crisis since US troops withdrew from the country at the end of 2011.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most respected voice for Iraq's Shiite majority, on Friday joined calls for al-Maliki to reach out to the Kurdish and Sunni minorities.
Al-Sistani normally stays above the political fray, and his comments, delivered through a representative, could ultimately seal al-Maliki's fate.
Calling for a dialogue between the political coalitions that won seats in the April 30 parliamentary election, al-Sistani said it was imperative that they form "an effective government that enjoys broad national support, avoids past mistakes and opens new horizons toward a better future for all Iraqis."
Al-Sistani is deeply revered by Iraq's majority Shiites, and his critical words could force al-Maliki, who emerged from relative obscurity in 2006 to lead the country, to step down.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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This is the kind of thing the BBC do very well. Lots of maps, photos and video at the link. Text mostly stripped of stuff we already know.
[BBC] Thousands of Shia militia loyal to the powerful holy manMoqtada Tater al-Sadr ... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah... have paraded through the streets of Storied Baghdad, raising sectarian tensions amid continued fighting in areas of Iraq.
Militants seized a border post on the Iraq-Syria frontier, security sources said on Saturday, smashing a line drawn by colonial powers almost a century ago and potentially creating a caliphate from the Mediterranean Sea to Iran.
The militants, led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), first moved into the nearby town of Al Qaim on Friday, pushing out security forces, the sources said. Once border guards heard that Al Qaim had fallen, they left their posts and militants moved in, the sources said.
Sameer Al Shwiali, media adviser to the commander of Iraq’s anti-terrorist squad, told Reuters that the Iraqi army was still in control of Al Qaim.
Al Qaim and its neighbouring Syrian counterpart Albukamal are on a strategic supply route. A three-year civil war in Syria has left most of eastern Syria in the hands of militants, including the Albukamal Qaim crossing. The Albukamal gate is run by Al Qaeda’s official Syria branch, the Nusra Front, which has clashed with ISIL but has also agreed to localised truces when it suits both sides.
The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, Rami Abdulrahman, said ISIL has pushed the Nusra Front out from many areas of eastern Syria in the past few days and their capture of Al Qaim will allow them to quickly move to the Syrian side.
ISIL already controls territory around the Abukamal gate, effectively pinching the Nusra Front between its forces in Syria and those in neighbouring Iraq, said Abdulrahman, who tracks the violence.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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Armed tribesmen and not militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have seized two cities in Anbar, Al Arabiya News Channel reported the governor of the Sunni-majority province as saying on Saturday, Alarabiya reported.
While ISIS militants - coupled with local Sunni rebels - started their surprise offensive by seizing Iraq's second biggest city of Mosul on June 10, Anbar governor said armed tribesmen were the ones who claimed control over Rawa and Ana in Anbar.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Rawa, Hussein AIi al-Aujail, told the Associated Press that Sunni militants captured the town Saturday. The local army and police force pulled out when the militants took control, Aujail said. He said militants ransacked government offices in the town, along the Euphrates River some 275 kilometers northwest of Baghdad.
The news comes after the al-Qaeda breakaway ISIS, along with allied militants, seized Qaim and its crossing, about 320 kilometers west of Baghdad, after killing some 30 Iraqi troops in daylong clashes Friday. Police and army officials said people were now crossing back and forth freely.
Chief military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi acknowledged Qaim's fall, telling journalists that troops aided by local tribesmen sought to clear the city of "terrorists."
While Sunni militants have controlled the city of Fallujah in Anbar and parts of the provincial capital of Ramadi since January, militants' seizing these towns appears to be a new offensive in the western province.
Militants led by ISIS have seized a vast swathe of territory in northern Iraq since overrunning Mosul. The vast Anbar province stretches from the western edges of Baghdad all the way to Jordan and Syria to the northwest. The fighting in Anbar has greatly disrupted use of the highway linking Baghdad to the Jordanian border, a key artery for goods and passengers.
The militants have also attempted to fully control Iraq's biggest oil refinery. As a result of the fighting with Iraqi forces, the Baiji refinery in the Sunni province of Salaheddin has been shut down and the supply route to Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region cut off.
On Saturday, sources told Al Arabiya News Channel that a mortar attack has targeted one of the oil tanks in the refinery.
Despite coming under heavy attack from ISIS in recent days, Iraqi government forces still control the Baiji refinery.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
3,000 bad guys and a million volunteers to fight them?
Why are the baddies still on charge?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/22/2014 6:42 Comments ||
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#2
Why are the baddies still on charge?
I remember trying to wrangle a number of smallish children, half not my own and therefore not familiar with our way of doing things, to the swimming pool, Bobby. How much longer must it take to get a million amateurs (ranging up to semi-pro, to be sure) all marching in the same direction with a bare minimum of kit?
#3
Herding cats. Without a log tail either. The locals have a big problem with log(istics). It's not in their blood or culture. What little there is often is corrupted by the usual suspects.
#4
Could be the start of a general Sunni tribal revolt - basically taking their own cities to prevent ISIS from doing so - and also to keep out the Shia militias and Shia dominated Iraqi Army and Police units (which usually turn tail and run anyways).
If this can actually be encouraged, then the Sunni tribes can be turned against the ISIS, the Shia kept out, and the partition of Iraq becomes a reality, albeit 8 years too late.
A 15-year-old boy was killed and two other people were injured in the Golan Heights Sunday in a cross-border attack from inside Syria that targeted a civilian vehicle carrying out routine maintenance work for the Defense Ministry.
IDF tanks immediately returned fire across the border in response to what an army source said appeared to be a deliberate attack on the truck.
One of those injured in the attack was in serious condition, while the other suffered light injuries. The teenage boy killed in the attack is believed to have accompanied his father to work.
Following the attack, an army source said it found what appeared to be a hole in the frontier fence. Army sources said they did not yet know whether the attack took the form of a shell, or another type of weapon.
#1
Update: According to Ynet, the lad's age was corrected to 13. He and his father are Arab-Israelis -- it sounds like quite a few Arab-Israelis work as contractors for the Defense Ministry. Israeli tanks sent a couple of artillery rounds into the nearest Syrian army post, though it was claimed that the jihadis dunnit, a charge they loudly denied.
[Ynet] IDF forces locked away Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! 10 Paleostinians overnight Friday in the West Bank, raiding some 15 charities related to Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,.
According to the IDF, 146 homes were searched and in 21 cases money was confiscated.
Inch by inch,
Row by row,
I'm gonna make that garden grow...
[IsraelTimes] Loud kabooms echoed across Gazoo early Sunday morning, as Israeli planes bombed sites in the Paleostinian enclave, hours after at least two rockets were shot at Israel.
Bombings were reported in areas around Khan Yunis and Rafah, in the southern end of the strip, starting at about 3:30 a.m, according to Paleostinian sources. There was no immediate word on casualties or damage.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it had targeted three "terror sites" in the southern strip and one in the center.
It said direct strikes had been confirmed.
Paleostinians reported that sites belonging to Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... had been targeted.
The air strikes came a day after Gazook turbans fired several rockets at Israel, all which landed in open areas or failed to clear that Paleostinian enclave.
The last 10 days have seen an uptick in tit-for-tat Gazook rocket fire and Israeli strikes as tensions have ramped up in the wake of the kidnapping of three Israeli teens in the West Bank, followed by a massive Israeli operation to recover them and destroy the Islamist Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, movement.
On Thursday evening two rockets were fired into Israel, prompting the Israeli Air Force to strike five targets in the Gazoo Strip overnight, saying it attacked three concealed rocket launchers in the northern Gazoo Strip, a terror activity site in the central Gazoo Strip and a weapons storage facility in the southern Gazoo Strip.
The IDF regularly retaliates with air strikes in response to rocket attacks.
"We have repeatedly addressed the consequences facing those who seek to endanger the lives of innocent civilians," IDF front man Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said in a statement regarding Thursday's strikes. "We shall persist with our determination to combat terror elements and eliminate the pending threat to Israeli lives."
A Malaysian terrorist militant thought to have been killed in an air strike two years ago is alive and actively training new recruits. Zulkifli Abdhir, who once headed Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia and was a member of Jemaah Islamiyah's central command, is back on local most wanted lists. Intelligence agencies believe he is now an operative of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist militant group. Zulkifli is also high on the FBI's most wanted list.
Intelligence sources said the bomb expert who is also known by his alias, Marwan, is believed to be a top asset to the group, and had trained a significant number of bombers, including suicide bombers. They include the new cadre of Malaysian terrorists militants who are looking for combat experience before joining terrorist militant groups active in Syria and Iraq. The sources revealed that these terrorists militants were required to pay a significant amount in fees for training that would provide them with battle skills.
The Philippine military, following a February 2012 raid on Jolo Island, had said it was confident that Marwan, along with more than a dozen others, including the group's top figures, had been killed. However, security analysts had cast doubt over the raid's success, saying the conclusion was made based on field reports and that their identities were not confirmed.
This revelation came as the authorities are arresting up more and more militants bound for Syria, including several who had just returned from the Abu Sayyaf's two-month training program in the southern Philippines.
Posted by: ryuge ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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Abu Sayyaf terrorists militants beheaded one of their Filipino hostages who was injured during a clash with government soldiers in the southern Philippines. Troops pursuing the terrorists militants have recovered the headless body of Remegio Lingayan in the town of Indanan in Sulu province. Lingayan was kidnapped along with his brother-in-law on June 4 while working on a construction project in the area.
A military report said Lingayan was hit by bullets when soldiers and policemen tried to rescue him during the fighting. The terrorists militants could not provide medication to Lingayan so they decided to behead him. The fate of Gonzales is unknown.
Posted by: ryuge ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
"I'm getting better!"
"No you're not. You're not fooling anyone"
"I feel happy!"
"Gimme that machete"
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/22/2014 11:11 Comments ||
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[Ynet] Suicide bombing targeting Abbas Ibrahim kills 1 and wounds 37; Ibrahim: 'Terror has many faces, Israel is one of them'.
Lebanese security chief Abbas Ibrahim, who was the target of a failed liquidation attempt Friday, claims the Israeli Mossad was behind the attack.
The suicide kaboom left one person dead and maimed 37 in the country's Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border, an area where Lebanese Sunni Mohammedanfaceless myrmidons opposed to Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... have been targeting his key Lebanese ally — Hezbollah.
In an interview with Lebanese media, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, a Shiite who heads Leb's Directorate of General Security (DGS) and ironically is considered close to Hezbollah, made the claims, citing a document which had surfaced hours before the liquidation attempt, and indicated the attack was planned in Ein Al-Hilwa refugee camp, a Paleostinian camp known as a hotbed for bully boy actions.
"Terror has many faces, and Israel is one of them," said Ibrahim
However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... he previously told Rooters that security officials had information that Sunni faceless myrmidons were aiming to assassinate him.
"But they were Mossad Sunni myrmidons," he added piously. "They're the very worst of all."
"We miraculously escaped," Ibrahim told Rooters, adding that many officials in Leb were being targeted by the reactivation of "terrorist sleeper cells".
"We were suspicious of the (bomber's) car when we were on our way and when the car stopped at the Dahr al-Baydar checkpoint, the kaboom went off," he said.
[NEWS.YAHOO] Sunni fighters have seized a border post on the Iraq-Syria frontier, security sources said, smashing a line drawn by colonial powers a century ago in a campaign to create an Islamic Caliphate from the Mediterranean Sea to Iran.
The bad boys, led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), first moved into the nearby town of al-Qaim on Friday, pushing out security forces, the sources said on Saturday.
Once border guards heard that al-Qaim had fallen, they left their posts and hard boyz moved in, the sources said.
Sameer al-Shwiali, media adviser to the commander of Iraq's anti-terrorist squad, told Rooters the Iraqi army was still in control of al-Qaim.
Al-Qaim and its neighboring Syrian counterpart Albukamal are on a strategic supply route. A three-year-old civil war in Syria has left most of eastern Syria in the hands of Sunni bad boys, now including the Albukamal-Qaim crossing.
The Albukamal gate is run by al Qaeda's official Syria branch, the Nusra Front, which has clashed with ISIL but has sometimes agreed to localized truces when it suits both sides.
The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, Rami Abdulrahman, said ISIL had pushed the Nusra Front out from many areas of eastern Syria in the past few days and their capture of al-Qaim will allow them to quickly move to the Syrian side.
ISIL already controls territory around the Albukamal gate, effectively pinching the Nusra Front between its forces in Syria and those in neighboring Iraq, said Abdulrahman, who tracks the violence.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
As per CNN this AM, the ISIS Boyz are repo getting closer to Syria + espec neutral JORDAN.
Pragmatically, since its only June 2014, wid the Globalist Bammer helping Globie-desired OWG CoSuperpowers deliberately unilaterally but SSSSSSHHHHHHHH PCorrectly-Deniably expand their spheres of influence vee US Allies + even agz US interests, THE SITUATIONAL FLUX IS SUCH THAT AMERS WILL LUCKY IFF THE US STILL HAS CONTROL OF HAWAII = EASTPAC BY THE TIME THE BAMMER LEAVES OFFICE COME JAN. 2017.
NOT THAT IT WILL HAPPEN, BUT AT THE RATE OBAMA IS GOING THE POTENTIAL IS THERE.
FYI the threat to America = Amerika, the OWG Mighty USSA = Weak USRoA, will NOT be reduced iff another covert or overt Anti-US US Globalist is elected to be POTUS - IFF THE US DOESN'T LOSE MOST OF THE PACIFIC + HAWAII BY THE END OF OBAMA'S PRSIDENCY, IT WILL THE NEXT ONE.
Good map in the linked article.
Syrian jets bombed terrorist rebel-held eastern areas close to the border with Iraq under the control of the vag-ISIL, killing and injuring dozens in stepped up raids reported the Reuters news agency. Green-on-green. Hard to argue...
Five raids killed at least 16 people and injured dozens more on Saturday when bombs hit residential areas in the town of Muhassan just over 100km from Iraq, a day after tribal elders in the town along the Euphrates River, pledged allegiance to vag-ISIL.
Vag-ISIL already controls almost 70 percent of the Deir al-Zor region, according to some terroristrebel sources. Although some towns have been seized after deadly festivities with rival groups, other tribal towns have been won over by vag-ISIL without a fight through a mixture of coercion and inducements (e.g. reduced redness and irritation).
Vag-ISIL's headquarters were the target of intensive raids by pencil-neckal-Assad's air forces last week.
Posted by: Squinty ||
06/22/2014 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
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.
[World Bulletin] A warplane affiliated with forces loyal to Libyan general Khalifa Haftar struck two vessels carrying arms and ammunition off the coast of Darnah in the country's east, a Haftar aide said Friday.
North Korea may have reduced its number of political prisoners and closed one of its prison camps, South Korea's state-run think tank revealed on June 17.
Caption on photo: Those staying behind to resist are militants or their supporters who are being chased and eliminated, a source told Dawn com.
Nouri al-Maliki
Moqtada 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
