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Today: 49 articles and 201 comments as of 0:06.
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IS executes its Legal Judge in Hawija for attempting to secede
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 2: WoT Background
2 09:43 USN, Ret. [2] 
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4 13:37 Skidmark [4] 
6 12:37 newc [2] 
3 10:20 newc [5] 
7 20:24 trailing wife [7] 
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2 12:57 Frank G on the Road [10] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 3: Non-WoT
13 21:46 Zenobia Floger6220 [6]
5 21:10 Glenmore [8]
4 23:41 Seeking cure for ignorance [13]
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5 17:53 Whiskey Mike [3]
7 23:42 Zebulon Phomble3856 [5]
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1 11:06 Procopius2k [2]
7 20:11 DarthVader [5]
4 21:25 Zenobia Floger6220 [5]
2 06:47 g(r)omgoru [2]
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1 21:10 Zenobia Floger6220 [7]
4 13:34 Skidmark [8]
Page 4: Opinion
4 20:10 DarthVader [7]
26 18:56 swksvolFF [10]
8 17:42 rjschwarz [7]
18 18:46 Anomalous Sources [7]
24 19:32 Zenobia Floger6220 [7]
6 19:25 swksvolFF [7]
33 22:32 Pappy [7]
Afghanistan
US denies Afghan claim of civilian deaths in Nangarhar
[DAWN] The United States on Saturday vehemently denied claims by Afghan officials that it had killed several civilians in an air strike in volatile eastern Afghanistan.

Afghan officials had said 11 civilians, including women and kiddies, were killed when a private vehicle was struck in Haska Mina district of Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
province, a hotbed of 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....
activity, on Thursday.

But United States Forces in Afghanistan said in a statement the air strike "killed a number of Death Eaters".

"The snuffies were observed loading weapons in to a vehicle and were under surveillance until the vehicle was destroyed by an air strike," said Bob Purtiman, a front man for American operations in Afghanistan.

Posted by: Fred || 08/13/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under: Taliban

#1  "None of your bastards are civil!" sorta thing?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/13/2017 3:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Loading weapons - a family-friendly activity.
Posted by: Pappy || 08/13/2017 8:26 Comments || Top||

#3  ...Seems to me that over the last, oh, eight months or so, we've been a lot less willing to take the heat when 'civilians' get hit over in the Af.

Wonder why?

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 08/13/2017 8:55 Comments || Top||

#4  "Love means never having to say you're sorry"
Posted by: Skidmark || 08/13/2017 13:37 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Derna officials: The city is dying
[Libya Observer] Derna Local Council (DLC) has issued a distress call to local and international organizations to intervene and lift the siege imposed by Dignity Operation militia groups on the city.

In a statement on Wednesday, the DLC said the city, which has a population of more than 130.000, is dying due to the siege, describing it as genocide.

"We call on Libyan authorities, international organizations, the UN, the Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
, the AU and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to lift the siege and send basic supplies immediately through the city’s port," read the statement.

"Humanitarian conditions have become catastrophic; no medicines, no food, no fuel and no oxygen," the statement added.

The DLC also warned that garbage is piling up in the streets of the city due to fuel shortages, which threatens an environmental disaster.

Meanwhile,
...back at the barn, Bossy's udder had begun to ache...
local media reports said four bakeries had closed down due to fuel shortages caused by Dignity Operation siege, adding that life in the city is going from bad to worse.
Posted by: Fred || 08/13/2017 00:17 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  ...Derna has a long, loooong history - going back a few hundred years - of thinking and acting independently of whatever authority claims it, as well as being a rabidly Muslim city.

If they're paying for their actions...well, tough.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 08/13/2017 8:53 Comments || Top||

#2  first read as "Dems say city is dying," and i wondered which one.
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 08/13/2017 9:43 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudi Arabia and UAE 'tried to host' Taliban first
[Al Jazeera] A former Afghan fighter turned mediator says Soddy 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. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) tried to host the Taliban
...Arabic for students...
before the gang set up an office in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates...
Abdulla Anas, a former friend of the late al-Qaeda chief the late Osama bin Laden
... who was laid out deader than a mackerel, right next to the mackerel...
, told the Middle East Eye on Friday that he was "bewildered" by Saudi Arabia's claim that Qatar supported terrorism by allowing the Taliban to open an office in Doha.

That initiative was first established in Saudi Arabia, Anas said.

"There were also some rounds in the Emirates. So if Qatar is accused of hosting terrorists, someone hosted the same 'terrorists' before this," he said.

Posted by: Fred || 08/13/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia


Europe
Masoud's list: From IS victim to terrorist hunter
[DW] Masoud Aqil was an 'Islamic State' prisoner in Syria. After fleeing to Germany, the Kurdish journalist realized that IS Lions of Islam were also in Europe and he began to track them.
Six minute video of the interview at the link.
His fingers fly across the keyboard, and his hard drive is full of information on possible 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) terrorists. Masoud Aqil is looking for screenshots he took off Facebook profiles after a suspected IS supporter wrote very openly to him about his radical views after arriving in Europe.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/13/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


India-Pakistan
Islamabad High Court suggests making blasphemy law tougher to check its misuse
[DAWN] The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has suggested that parliament make the blasphemy law tougher by fixing the same punishment for any person misusing it or falsely accusing someone of blasphemy.

In a detailed order issued on Friday, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui also ordered a complete ban on the social networking site Facebook in case the website management does not conform to Pak laws.

The court on March 31, 2017, had issued a short order on a petition seeking elimination of blasphemous content from social media.

In the 116-page detailed judgment, Justice Siddiqui discussed in detail the common criticism of the blasphemy law.

He said due to the misuse of the law critics even demanded abolishing it, adding it was better to stop exploitation of the law rather than abolishing it.

"Admittedly, not a single convict whether Moslem or non-Moslem has ever been executed for blasphemy in Pakistain," the judgment added.

It also explained how people due to their personal enmity managed to drag their rivals into blasphemy cases endangering the life of not only the accused person but all his family members and relatives.

However,
facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable...
under the existing law, the false accuser can only face proceedings under Section 182 of the Pakistain Penal Code (PPC), it added.

Section 182 of the PPC entails the maximum punishment of six months or a fine up to Rs1,000 only.

According to the judgment, this is a very minor punishment for such a serious offence of accusing someone of blasphemy.
Posted by: Fred || 08/13/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Iraq
Muqtada al-Sadr: Riyadh serves as regional ‘father figure’
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of The Sadrist Movement in Iraq, stated that visions were aligned during his meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah last month.

Al-Sadr said that Riyadh serves as a “father figure” in its efforts to bring peace to the region.

In an interview with the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on August 11, 2017, al-Sadr said that the two parties discussed several files of concern to the region, including Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Jerusalem, Iran-Saudi relations, as well as Baghdad’s ties to Riyadh.
Posted by: Fred || 08/13/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia

#1  The check must have cleared.
Posted by: phil_b || 08/13/2017 4:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Mucky is still around? Son of a gun, I thought he'd gone down long ago.
Posted by: AlanC || 08/13/2017 7:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Mookie is straddling lanes.
Posted by: newc || 08/13/2017 10:16 Comments || Top||

#4  They offered to pay his dentist bills?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/13/2017 10:20 Comments || Top||

#5  #4 They offered to pay his dentist bills?

Not with the price of oil as low as it is. That's crazy talk
Posted by: Frank G on the Road || 08/13/2017 11:05 Comments || Top||

#6  Sadr heads to UAE after official invitation: office
Making the rounds
Posted by: newc || 08/13/2017 12:37 Comments || Top||


Iraq’s Kurds stick to independence vote despite US call to delay it
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iraq’s Kurds are sticking to a plan to hold an independence referendum on Sept. 25, despite a US request to postpone it, a high-ranking Kurdish official told Rooters on Saturday.

The United States and other Western nations are worried that the vote could ignite a fresh conflict with Baghdad and turn into another regional flashpoint. The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
, Iran and Syria, which together with Iraq have sizeable Kurdish populations, all oppose an independent Kurdistan.

"The date is standing, Sept. 25, no change," said Hoshyar Zebari, a close adviser to Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani
... hereditary head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, maybe a little too close to the Medes and the Persians for most people's tastes...
, after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked Barzani to postpone the referendum.

Tillerson made the request in a phone call with Barzani on Thursday, Zebari said.

"On the issue of the postponement of the referendum, the President (Barzani) stated that the people of the Kurdistan Region would expect guarantees and alternatives for their future," said a statement issued on Friday by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) presidency, after Tillerson’s call.

The US State Department said in June it was concerned that the referendum will distract from "more urgent priorities" such as the defeat of ISIS holy warriors.


ISIS’s self-proclaimed "caliphate" effectively collapsed last month, when US-backed Iraqi forces completed the takeover of the holy warriors’ capital in Iraq, djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, after a nine-month campaign in which Kurdish Peshmerga fighters took part.

The hardline Sunni bandidos forces of Evil remain however in control of territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria. The United States has pledged to maintain its backing to allied forces in both countries until the holy warriors’ total defeat.

The Kurds have been seeking an independent state since at least the end of World War One, when colonial powers divided up the Middle East, but their territory ended up split between modern-day Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Barzani, whose father led struggles against Baghdad in the 1960s and 1970s, told Rooters in July the Kurds would take responsibility for the expected ’yes’ outcome of the referendum, and pursue its implementation through dialogue with Baghdad and regional powers to avoid conflict." We have to rectify the history of mistreatment of our people and those who are saying that independence is not good, our question to them is, ’if it’s not good for us, why is it good for you?’," he said in an interview in the KRG capital, Erbil.

Posted by: Fred || 08/13/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq

#1  The US State Department said in June it was concerned that the referendum will distract from "more urgent priorities" such as the defeat of ISIS holy warriors.

Translation: Do you have to do this now? It's just gonna get the Turks all spun up again.
Posted by: SteveS || 08/13/2017 2:47 Comments || Top||

#2  "Fuck the Kurds" was USDS policy as long as I can remember.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/13/2017 3:48 Comments || Top||

#3  The Kurds are owed self determination or at the least Autonomous State.
Posted by: newc || 08/13/2017 10:20 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
300 Israelis desert military service in occupied lands
[Iran Press TV] A report has revealed that hundreds of Israeli soldiers have abandoned their duties without permission, and are intent not to return in a show of disapproval of the military conscription policies of the Israeli regime.

The Hebrew-language news website Walla reported on Saturday that 300 Israeli troops had left or remained absent from their units over the past week.

The report added that Israeli military officials have leveled charges against 60 soldiers, who have been dropped from their unit rolls and listed as deserters.

The report came as the Israeli military announced earlier this year that suicide was the main cause of death among Israeli soldiers, and that 15 troopers - all of them male - had taken their own lives last year.

The army added that four soldiers were killed in the course of military operations, nine in on-base accidents, seven in off-duty car accidents and six died from illness or other medical reasons.

Another 43 soldiers were seriously hurt during the course of 2016.

Most of the soldiers injured or killed were conscripted troops. A smaller portion were career soldiers, and a handful were reservists who were in service at the time of their deaths, the Israeli army said.

Posted by: Fred || 08/13/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In your dreams Ahmad
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/13/2017 3:44 Comments || Top||

#2  I assumed they were the religious objectors who don't want to do military service for obscure theological reasons.
Posted by: phil_b || 08/13/2017 4:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Assume instead that the numbers are exaggerated by two orders of magnitude.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/13/2017 4:45 Comments || Top||

#4  Occupied lands? I supposed they are talking about the so-called Palestinian territory since Muzzies lay claim to this land. I used to have a pooch who peed on fire hydrants and laid claim to fire hydrants.
Posted by: JohnQC || 08/13/2017 9:31 Comments || Top||

#5  There's a Muslim version of the Onion? Who Knew?
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 08/13/2017 10:31 Comments || Top||

#6  "The Hebrew-language news website Walla
Meshuganah, reported..."

Fixed...
Posted by: Mercutio || 08/13/2017 13:42 Comments || Top||

#7  :-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/13/2017 20:24 Comments || Top||


Mohammad Dahlan’s plan to take over Gaza—and Ramallah
[Ynet] Ten years after leaving Gazoo, the former head of the Paleostinian Preventive Security Force may return to the strip a leader, as part of a move being devised by Egypt, Soddy Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, the US and Israel. The plan, an Israeli expert says, is Dahlan’s dress rehearsal, as he strives to conquer the Muqata’a and take Abbas’s seat.

It’s incredible to see how the events around the terror attack at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound actually improve the chances of implementing "the plan of the century"--a complex, ambitious plan taking shape behind the scenes, which focuses on the highly controversial figure of Mohammad Dahlan (Abu Fadi).

The leaders involved in the plan include Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and his intelligence chief Khaled Fawzy, as well as the Saudi king and crown prince, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf and his deputy, the king of Bahrain, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and US President Donald Trump
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/13/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under: Hamas

#1  Dahlan has lots of enemies who have guns

all the maneuvers discussed in the article don't seem to grapple with that problem
Posted by: lord garth || 08/13/2017 1:13 Comments || Top||

#2  WKRP in syndication. Herb Tarlick lives!
Posted by: Frank G on the Road || 08/13/2017 12:57 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
22[untagged]
5Islamic State
3Taliban
3Govt of Pakistan
2Govt of Saudi Arabia
2Commies
2Houthis
1Govt of Iran Proxies
1Arab Spring
1Govt of Syria
1Hamas
1Hizb-i-Islami-Hekmatyar
1Thai Insurgency
1al-Shabaab (AQ)
1Moslem Colonists
1Abu Sayyaf (ISIS)
1Govt of Iraq

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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2017-08-13
  IS executes its Legal Judge in Hawija for attempting to secede
Sat 2017-08-12
  30 Taliban insurgents killed as suicide vests explodes in Farah gathering
Fri 2017-08-11
  Theft and kidnapping ravages north Aleppo as Erdogan’s Syrian caliphate experiment fails
Thu 2017-08-10
  Gang convicted of sex offences against vulnerable girls in England
Wed 2017-08-09
  Police hunt BMW driver who mowed down six French soldiers in Paris
Tue 2017-08-08
  Kurdish authorities arrest 1700 Islamic State militants among displaced civilians
Mon 2017-08-07
  Taliban kill 30 villagers in Afghanistan's Sari Pul province
Sun 2017-08-06
  Governor of Galgaduud region shot dead in Somali capital
Sat 2017-08-05
  US confirms airstrike killed al-Shabab commander in Somalia
Fri 2017-08-04
  Al Qaeda frees South African hostage after six years
Thu 2017-08-03
  Police Make Arrest in 2003 Case of Grooming Gang Victim Believed Ground Up and Sold as Kebab Meat
Wed 2017-08-02
  Gang who called themselves 'Musketeers' guilty of plotting UK bomb attack
Tue 2017-08-01
  IS claims attack on Iraq embassy in Kabul
Mon 2017-07-31
  Besieged IS mufti blows himself up in northern Baghdad
Sun 2017-07-30
  Four arrested in plot to bomb plane over Sydney


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