[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A delegation of the High Peace Council and the Ulema Council of Afghanistan will visit Doha in the near future for the talks with the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... group leaders.
The officials of the two councils informed regarding the planned the trip to Doha as they were briefing the media regarding the ongoing efforts for the reconciliation process.
The officials said the joint delegation will hold talks with the Taliban group leaders regarding the circumstances surrounding the peace talks between the government and the Taliban group.
They did not disclose further information in this regard and it is yet not clear when the delegation will leave for Doha.
In the meantime, the High Peace council Secretariat Chief, Mohammad Akram Khpalwak called on the Taliban group to pursue their goals through peaceful ways rather adopting the current approach of war.
He said the religious scholars, political parties, tribal elders, civil society activists, elders, and women support the Afghan-led grinding of the peace processor.
Khpwalwak further added that the government of national unity, Ulema Council, and the High Peace Council will continue to their efforts for the Afghan-led grinding of the peace processor based on the promises made to the Afghan people.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Get a big, big tent with a lot of media coverage and refreshments.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Office of the President, ARG Palace, officials confirm that the First Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum ...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier... will return from The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... in the near future.
Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Office, Haroon Chakhansuri, on Saturday confirmed that the First Vice President will return to Kabul soon.
Without disclosing further information regarding the exact date of Gen. Dostum’s return, Chakhansuri said the First Vice President will return to his work after arriving to Kabul from Turkey.
The Chief of Staff of the Office of the First Vice President Enayatullah Babur Farahmand on Friday confirmed that Gen. Dostum will return based on an agreement reached following days of negotiations.
He said the negotiations between the First Vice President and the government representatives have concluded.
This comes as President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. on Sunday said that Gen. Dostum will likely return from Turkey in the near future.
However, today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday... he said the First Vice President of the country has legal cases and expressed hopes that the judicial institutions would take proper decisions in this regard.
Gen. Dostum left for Turkey over a year ago amid heightened tensions and controversies surrounding the kidnapping and sexual abuse of the former Jawzjan governor Ahmad Ishchi.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/22/2018 00:00 ||
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[Libya Observer] The member of the Presidential Council (PC) Mohammed al-Emmari said Friday that the international community should stop the "messing of Egyptians" with the Libyan soil.
Al-Emmari said on his Facebook that he refuses the Egyptian attempts to seize Libyan land, considering it a flagrant assault on the illusory sovereignty of Libya via filing a lawsuit at the Egyptian courts claiming that Jaghbub oasis belongs to Egypt.
"Some Libyan nationals are involved with the Egyptians in claiming that the Libyan land in Jaghbub oasis belongs to Egypt, as the latter is using media propaganda and politically-oriented courts for its aim." He added.
"Libyan media should deal with this serious threat with running cautionary coverage to scandalize those loyal to Egyptian authorities and win people’s support against this attempt to steal Libyan land." al-Emmari remarked.
High Council of State member Mousa Faraj told news hounds that they are verifying the truth behind the news published by Egyptian newspapers about a lawsuit in Egyptian courts demanding Jaghbub be seized by Egypt, whose media said administrative judiciary adjourned court session to announce a verdict for Jaghbub’s case (whether a land in Libya or in Egypt).
Egyptian media has been talking about expanding Egypt to include some Libyan land, claiming they are part of Egypt amid the current political division in the country, saying eastern region’s residents prefer being part of Egypt to staying in a united Libyan state.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
"Some Libyan nationals are involved with the Egyptians in claiming that the Libyan land in Jaghbub oasis belongs to Egypt, as the latter is using media propaganda and politically-oriented courts for its aim."
#2
This is crazy. The Jaghbub oasis is the home of the Sanussi Brotherhood, a Libyan Sufi movement that has spread into the African Sahil. Idris, the Last Libyan king was a Sanussi. Perhaps the Egyptian claim results from the claim of some Pharaoh?
[AlAhram] Germany has lifted economic sanctions on The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and relaxed its travel advice to the country, Berlin said Saturday, after Ankara ended its two-year state of emergency.
A 1.5 billion-euro ($1.7 billion) limit on export guarantees to Turkey would not be renewed this year, Germany's economy ministry told AFP, confirming an earlier report by the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The measure was imposed in July 2017 as a way to pressure Ankara after the detention of a German human right campaigner and five other activists, including the head of Amnesia Amnesty International in Turkey.
Opposition parties in Germany have accused the 1.5 billion-euro limit of being too timid, given that the value of export guarantees increased from 1.1 billion euros in 2016 to 1.46 billion euros the following year.
Germany's foreign ministry also removed a warning on its website about its nationals facing a high risk of arrest when visiting Turkey.
Turkey's state of emergency, which was imposed after a failed 2016 coup and saw the biggest purge of officials in the country's modern history, came to an end on Thursday.
However the country's opposition has accused the government of moving to permanently formalise some of the measure's harshest aspects.
On Friday, Turkey and the Netherlands ended months of enmity and agreed to restore diplomatic ties after two Ottoman Turkish ministers were barred from a Rotterdam rally.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/22/2018 00:39 ||
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#1
Totalitarianism.
Theocracy.
Hatred for Western Civilization.
These three terms provide an accurate description of both Erdogan's and Merkel's political origin.
[FOX] A federal judge ruled against stripping away the U.S. citizenship of a convicted terrorist tied to a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, citing a lack of evidence to prove that the status had been granted based on misrepresentations.
Iyman Faris, 49, was sentenced in 2003 for aiding and abetting al-Qaida by scoping out the iconic New York bridge as a part of a plot to cut through the cables supporting the structure. He had met with Osam bin Laden in Afghanistan and worked with 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Faris is set to be released on Dec. 23, 2020, but a court filing last year in a U.S. District Court argued that Faris lied on immigration papers and that his terrorist affiliations demonstrated a lack of commitment to the Constitution.
Originally born in Pakistan, Faris became a citizen in 1999. He worked as a truck driver in Ohio and was married to an American woman.
Federal Judge Staci Yanle ruled this month in favor of Faris, saying that there was not enough evidence to prove that any misrepresentations influenced the decision to grant him citizenship.
"American citizenship is precious, and the government carries a heavy burden of proof when attempting to divest a naturalized citizen of his or her citizenship," she wrote on July 11. Staci Yandle is openly gay. She is the first openly gay judge in the 7th Circuit, which covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.[5] She also is the first African-American District Judge ever to sit on the federal bench in the Southern District of Illinois.
#4
but a court filing last year in a U.S. District Court argued that Faris lied on immigration papers and that his terrorist affiliations demonstrated a lack of commitment to the Constitution.
So this is a Trump administration effort, both previous presidents having had no problem with such a man having acquired citizenship under false pretenses. I’m sure this is another one that will be appealed all the way to the increasingly conservative Supreme Court. Given that PFLP member Rasmea Odeh was stripped of the American citizenship she obtained under false pretences before she was deported last year for lying about terror convictions in Israel when she entered America and on her citizenship application, there is a direct precedent for doing the same to this gentleman.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The government can’t strip a terrorist of his US citizenship, a federal judge ruled this month in a decision siding with a Pakistain-born man serving the last few years of a 20-year prison sentence for his guilty plea to plotting to destroy New York’s Brooklyn Bridge.
The case involves Iyman Faris, who was sentenced in 2003 for aiding and abetting al-Qaeda by scoping out the bridge as part of a plot to cut through cables that support it. His case was among the first and highest-profile terrorism cases after the September 11 attacks.
Faris met with the late Osama bin Laden ... who was laid out deader than a mackerel, right next to the mackerel... in Afghanistan and worked with September 11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, although some critics questioned how realistic the plot was, given post-September 11 security in New York.
A court filing last year in US District Court in southern Illinois argued that Faris lied on immigration papers before becoming a naturalized US citizen in 1999 and that his terrorist affiliations demonstrated a lack of commitment to the US Constitution.
The government can appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court, so that's ok.
"The US government is dedicated to ... preventing the exploitation of our nation’s immigration system by those who would do harm to our country," Chad Readler, acting assistant attorney of the Department of Justice’s civil division, said in a statement at the time.
The government filed in Illinois because Faris was imprisoned there then. He has since been moved to federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Faris, who’s 49, was known as Mohammad Rauf before becoming a US citizen, worked as a truck driver in Columbus and was married to an American woman for a while. He is scheduled for release Dec. 23, 2020, according to the US Bureau of Prisons.
Federal Judge Staci Yanle said this month there’s not enough evidence to prove Faris’ misrepresentations influenced the decision to grant him citizenship.
"American citizenship is precious, and the government carries a heavy burden of proof when attempting to divest a naturalized citizen of his or her citizenship," she wrote on July 11. The Department of Justice declined to comment.
One of many objections raised by Faris’ attorney is that the government’s action violated the terms of his 2003 plea agreement, which never included the possibility of denaturalization or deportation.
"We look forward to defending this case," reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... defense attorney Thomas Durkin said. "It’s a wrongheaded decision by the government to proceed in this fashion."
This article starring:
Iyman Faris
Posted by: Fred ||
07/22/2018 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] India today finds itself in the center of a tug of war. If the United States, a strategic partner, is pushing it to drastically reduce its oil imports from Iran; then Iran, an old ally, is asserting its strategic value in terms of not just oil but also the Chabahar port.
This week saw first the visit of the Iranian Foreign Minister to India, quickly followed by the visit of a delegation from the United States. It is learnt that both visits had one common agenda and that was to discuss India’s import of oil from Iran.
President Trump pulled out of the Iran Nuclear deal in May this year and brought back the economic sanctions against the country, which has placed allies like India in a tricky situation.
The US has told India and other countries to cut oil imports from Iran to “zero” by November 4 or face sanctions. The first set of US sanctions will kick in from August 6. Iran is India’s third-largest oil supplier after Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/22/2018 00:00 ||
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[PRESSTV] UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called on Israel to avoid further inflaming the situation in the Gazoo Strip.
"Israel must exercise restraint"
(as usual)
"Israel must exercise restraint to avoid further inflaming the situation," said Guterres on Saturday.
"I am gravely concerned over the dangerous escalation of violence in Gazoo and southern Israel," he added.
While voicing concerns over the escalation of violence, Guterres also urged Paleostinian factions to avoid what he referred to as provocations.
"It is imperative that all sides urgently step back from the brink of another devastating conflict," he said.
He went on to call on all parties to cooperate with the UN to find a peaceful solution to the crisis, and avoid aggravating the "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gazoo.
Guterres' call came shortly after Israeli artillery units targeted a position of the Paleostinian Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, resistance movement in the Gazoo Strip only hours after it was announced that the Tel Aviv regime had reached a truce with Paleostinian factions in the besieged coastal enclave.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Here in ME we've a saying "every dog will get whats coming to it one day", Tony.
[AnNahar] Hundreds of rebels and their families evacuated from southern Syria after a deal was struck with the regime arrived Saturday in the country's northwest, an AFP correspondent said.
The evacuations from Quneitra province, which borders the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, came after a Russia-brokered agreement was reached earlier this week to see rebels hand over the territory to the Syrian regime.
Around 50 buses transporting fighters and their families reached the Morek transit route in the north of Hama province, which links regime and rebel-held territories, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the first convoy to reach Morek transported around 2,800 people.
They were to be transferred to other buses run by local NGOs, before travelling further north to temporary camps in rebel-held areas in Idlib and Aleppo provinces, the Britannia-based monitor said.
"More than half of the evacuees are women and kiddies," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
"A second wave of departures is expected from Quneitra," he added.
Near the parked buses in Morek, a woman and five children waited by a cluster of small suitcases, the eldest among them carrying bottles of water and a blanket.
Men with light weapons slung on their backs shared a bite to eat and some water as they stood around waiting. Several wearing scarves wrapped around their faces.
The evacuations follow a deadly regime offensive on Quneitra, a thin, crescent-shaped province that lies along the buffer zone with the Israel-occupied Golan to the west.
The rebel surrender negotiated by Russia, a vital regime ally, also saw fighters hand over heavy and medium weapons and return government institutions to the area.
Syrian forces launched their southern offensive on June 19, targeting the province of Daraa before turning their attention to neighbouring Quneitra.
With a mix of military power and negotiated surrenders, Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... 's troops this month captured more than 90 percent of Daraa, where protests against him first erupted in 2011.
Regime forces backed by Russia have continued their campaign in Daraa, aiming to retake areas still controlled by 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.... group.
On Friday 11 children were among 26 civilians killed in air strikes which hit several towns in the area, the Observatory said.
Regime bombardment on the IS-held area continued on Saturday, with festivities between both sides killing 13 regime fighters including eight in a boom-mobileing, it said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/22/2018 01:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
50 buses transporting fighters and their families
#2
Consolidated it, rather. Now half of them have already been defeated once elsewhere, while twice as many are using the same amount of resources. And in the meantime, the rest of the country can get back to living as they were formerly accustomed, under the heel of the current Assad and his Alawites.
#3
Consolidated it, rather. Now half of them have already been defeated once elsewhere, while twice as many are using the same amount of resources. And in the meantime, the rest of the country can get back to living as they were formerly accustomed, under the heel of the current Assad and his Alawites.
[IsraelTimes] Jonathan Leibovits says training from his days in Givati Brigade helped prepare him for battle to capture key city of Manbij from jihadists
An American Jew who served in the Israel Defense Forces described fighting in Syria against 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.... group as "the craziest time of my life" in an interview aired Saturday on Israeli television.
Jonathan Leibovits, who was born in Israel but grew up in Los Angeles, said he decided to volunteer to fight against the jihadist group following the the 2015 terror attack in San Bernardino that left 14 dead.
"There was an attack in San Bernadino, which is only about half an hour away from where my family lives," Leibovits told Channel 10 news. "So it is kind of personal level me, you know, they’re coming to my home."
"I am very capable. I know what I’m doing, so I’m going to their home," he added.
In 2016, Leibovitz traveled to Iraq, where he hid for several days in a safe house before being smuggled across the border into Syria.
During the six months he fought alongside the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), Leibovits said he did not attempt to hide his American or Jewish identity.
"They do have a hit out on every foreign fighter that joins the YPG. I think it starts out at 100,000 or something like that and then goes up to 200,000, 500,000," he said. "I would bring out a little Hebrew here and there and they’d be like ’Israel?’... and I would be like ’uh-huh.’"
"To be honest I wasn’t in Syria to spread Israeli politics. I wasn’t there to spread an American agenda. I wasn’t there for those reasons. I was there purely because it was the right thing to do ‐ to help as much I can all the innocent children, women and elderly that are being killed on a daily basis," Leibovits added.
"They [YPG] asked me what my previous training was and I told them I served in the IDF, so they said OK."
Leibovits said the most harrowing experience in Syria was recusing two Yadizi girls he and another volunteer fighter discovered in a cage inside the home of a jihadst.
"We go in... and there is a cage where you would could keep a Siberian husky or something... and there are a couple of girls in there under the age of 12," he said. "I think that is the only time over there that I cried except for when I lost friends. That a human being would do that to someone ‐ it broke my heart."
Leibovits said the girls were so traumatized they initially didn’t want to leave the cage.
"They didn’t know who we were. I’m a white guy and there’s a French guy next to me... That instance really showed me how bad some people in this world really have it."
’Craziest days of my life’
Leibovits, who moved to Israel in 2012 to join the IDF, told Channel 10 the training he received while serving in the Givati Brigade was invaluable in the YPG’s battles to re-take the Syrian city of Manbij from IS fighters.
"It is all urban fighting, you know, building to building, so [the training] definitely helped a lot."
"It was just a meat grinder," he said of the fighting for the key northern city. "It was the craziest 76 days of my life."
Leibovits was injured in the fighting for Manbij, and said he still has pieces of shrapnel in his head, shoulder and chest.
But wasn’t until his friend was killed that Leibovits decided it was time to return home to Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,.
"It was time for us to go home," he said. "We all needed a little rest mentally, and physically just couldn’t move."
"It was the craziest time of my life... it really changed me," he added.
Leibovits said the first six months back at home were "really rough," and though his time in Syria still haunts him, he does not regret volunteering to fight against jihadists.
"If I could go back and do it again I would it all over again in a heartbeat," he said. I know that what I did there and the people I helped, you know that is something for a lifetime."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/22/2018 00:15 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has supported a suggestion by President Hassan Rouhani who hinted earlier this month that Tehran may block regional oil exports if its own sales are stopped following the US' withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Rouhani's apparent warning on July 3 that Iran may disrupt oil shipments from neighbouring countries came in reaction to looming US sanctions and efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... to force all countries to halt purchases of Iranian oil.
Even though Rouhani did not mention the Strait of Hormuz, his comments were nonetheless seen as a threat to the narrow strategic passageway located between Iran and Oman, through which at least 18.5m barrels of oil moved every day in 2016, according to a US energy department report.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Right from satans asshole, there it is.
Take him seriously.
#4
Iran has made this threat numerous times in the past.
The Gulf of Hormuz is pretty narrow (30mi at its most constricted) and it would be possible for Iran to temporarily shut it down by flooding the Gulf with small rocket capable attack ships. However, these ships would be wiped out within days, maybe hours of an attack. Furthermore, Iran has valuable assets on the shore of the Gulf that would be easy targets, so easy that the Saudi AF could hit them assuming a bit of air cover from the US.
Posted by: lord garth ||
07/22/2018 17:19 Comments ||
Top||
#5
The Iranian Navy would have hours, not days
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/22/2018 17:29 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Of course, if we sunk enough of their navy all on top of another, it would become a navigation hazard. :)
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/22/2018 17:34 Comments ||
Top||
[ALMASDARNEWS] Residents of Raqqa, a former stronghold of the so-called 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.... (IS; formerly ISIS/ISIS) in northern Syria, spoke about how the conflict had impacted their city, footage filmed on Thursday shows.
Many residents recalled times before the conflict where services such as water and electricity weren’t so scarce.
One woman said, "There is no electricity in the town, there is no water. We are working and we can’t decide whether to eat or to buy electricity and water."
Another Raqqa resident expressed her wish for the government to re-establish itself in the region, and to provide civil services again.
"I wish that reconciliation would take place, and the country would be better than before; the water and electricity [would return]. When the government is back, reconciliation will happen and this country would be back as it was," she stated.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/22/2018 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.
...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier...
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
[FOX] A federal judge ruled against stripping away the U.S. citizenship of a convicted terrorist tied to a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, citing a lack of evidence to prove that the status had been granted based on misrepresentations.
[AnNahar] Hundreds of rebels and their families evacuated from southern Syria after a deal was struck with the regime arrived Saturday in the country's northwest, an AFP correspondent said. 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
