The Washington Post reported Saturday the senior commander for U.S. special forces in Afghanistan has suspended training for all new Afghan recruits until all Afghan troops can be re-investigated for ties to the insurgency. The re-vetting process for the Afghan troops working with the special forces comes as NATO officials labor to stop the wave of attacks on NATO service members by their Afghan colleagues.
The report says many guidelines for background checks were not followed by Afghans and Americans because they did not want to hinder the growth of the Afghan army and police.
#1
NATO officials to acknowledge what the Post says is a painful truth that the killings might have been prevented if existing security measures had been applied correctly.
Further "painful truth" and self-blame to soon be placed on the lack of lack of proper, curlturally adaptive systems and software. We all know evil actions don't incriminate, they mitigate, and are simply caused [insert sarcasm]... not committed. Just as poverty is blamed for high crime levels on the south side of Chicago, failure to conduct thorough background checks has now been identified as the cause for Green on Blue murders of brave ISAF soldiers in Afghanistan. Once again we refuse to acknowledge the slamse gevaar (the Muslim threat).
Excuse me fly I throw the bullshi* flag down and stomp on it!
#2
Yes. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received from an older guy was "Don't play the other guy's game." The cast of America's military efforts since shortly after WW II has been "It's (the other guy's game) the only game in town! Also, it's insensitivepolitically incorrect counterproductive to play to win..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/02/2012 8:08 Comments ||
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#3
Here's another piece of advice: you can't build a civilization on sand.
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/02/2012 10:47 Comments ||
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#4
these guys are only pawns, they will work for whichever mob pay them the most.
You have to look at the bigger picture. Karzi has to hold an election for a new president in 2014, after NATO has pulled out. The probability the country will have descended into chaos and mayhem by then is very strong, so Karzi might just call elections in 2013 while NATO are around to give him legitimacy.
So the country will be divided between Karzi's surrogate, the ISI surrogate the Taliban and the powerful drug lords
As the Chinese say, "may you live in interesting times"
#6
Everyone out issue plates and beer cups big ones party on deck of Aircraft Carriers and watch glow from mega ton bomb and rock the night away! Pork roast pigs many of them might as well use all the engines from bombers for something!
#7
I'm afraid not, Knuckles, although I don't know why I bother because it looks like you're a troll. But, anyway, my guess is we'll leave Afghanistan with a whimper and not a bang. Then, after we do leave and the Afghans finally get down to settling this thing on their own, they won't have any megatons. I'd be surprised if any of those barbarians can deal with anything more than a donkey can carry for them.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/02/2012 17:51 Comments ||
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KABUL: Two suicide attackers, one driving a fuel tanker, blew themselves up near a US base in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, killing at least 12 people, officials said. The attack occurred around dawn in the town of Sayed Abad in Wardak province, about 70 kilometers (40 miles) from Kabul.
The US-led NATO coalition said that no American or coalition troops were killed in the blasts. It confirmed that a number of troops were wounded, but did not say how many, in accordance with coalition policy.
Shahidullah Shadid, a spokesman for the Wardak provincial governor, said one suicide bomber detonated a vest rigged with explosives outside a compound housing the district governor's office as well as local police and Afghan army headquarters. A second bomber driving a fuel tanker detonated his bomb on a road separating the compound from the base.
Shadid said the dead included eight civilians and four Afghan police.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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(Sh. M. Network)-Witnesses say at least three Æthiopian soldiers have been killed in a huge blast detonated inside a military base in central Somalia.
Initial reports suggested the attack was used a remote-controlled landmine kaboom that tore through an armoured personnel carrier with dozens of Æthiopian troops.
No group or individual has claimed the responsibility for the attack so far.
The army responded the attack by firing indiscriminately on nearby crowds following the incident. No deaths or injures reported.
Saturday's attack was the latest in series of coordinated roadside and car kabooms in Somalia against the foreign forces helping TFG war on Al Qaeda-linked bad boy group of Al shabab.
Despite the attack, the town appeared far calmer on Saturday, according to local residents.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
(Sh. M. Network)-Unidentified assailants have thrown a hand grenade on Somali army base in Somalia's central town of Beledweyne, the capital city of Hiiraan region, reports.
The attacks took place in the early hours on Saturday at army base located east of the town, where dozens of TFG forces are locating, and causing unconfirmed casualties on the troops.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
(Sh. M. Network) --Warships have shelled the Somali port of shelled the Al-Shabaab ... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban... -controlled port city ofKismayo, hours after the bully boyz put on show the bodies of four soldiers, two Kenyans and two Somali soldiers killed in combat in their stronghold, residents said.
Witnesses said the warships at the coast of Kismayo started shelling the port, around 6:00 pm local time.Militants blamed Kenyan forces for the attack.
Getting information -- especially in Kismayo, the last remaining Al-Shabaab stronghold -- has been difficult for journalists.
Kenya Defense Force ships routinely patrol the area, but this is the first time that they have engaged in combat in Kismayo.
The causalities could not be immediately verified whether there are deaths or injures following the sea attacks on Kismayo town, 500 Km south of Mogadishu.
Kenyan's Army and air force spokesmen could not be immediately reached for comment.
For the past couple of months, Kismayo has come under fire targeting Al-Shabaab from air and sea. But Somali government troops and African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... forces have yet to launch a full-scale assault on the city to free it from Al-Shabaab control, as it has done with other strategic areas in south and central Somalia.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[An Nahar] Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked Shebab Islamic fascistion Saturday put on show the bodies of four "enemy" soldiers killed in combat in their stronghold of Kismayo, in southern Somalia, witnesses told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"We saw the bodies of four men in uniform put on show in Kismayo by the Shebab," a local man in the port town, Hassan Abdi Mohamud, told AFP by telephone.
"Two of the dead were Somalis fighting for the transition federal government and the other two were Kenyan soldiers," he claimed.
The bodies had been brought back from Afmadow, some 120 kilometers from Kismayo, where the Shebab launched an offensive on Friday, after being forced out of the town last May by the advance of the Kenyan army.
Witness Mohamed Abdi Mohadmu said, "The bodies were brought to Kismayo during the night and inhabitants were called out to come and see them."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[An Nahar] Security forces in Algeria have killed 10 gun-hung tough guys presumed to be members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in separate operations, press reports on Saturday cited the Defense Ministry as saying.
They said nine AQIM members including a chief named as Boubeker Zemmouri, 29, were killed by soldiers in a special operation at Jebel Djerrah in the Beni Amrane area of corpse-littered Boumerdes province, 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Algiers.
Another bad turban was reported killed in a village in the same area in the operations which took place on Wednesday and Thursday, security sources quoted in the Liberte, Le Soir d'Algerie and El-Watan dailies said.
The official APS news agency said security forces also recovered Kalashnikov-type assault rifles, three semi-automatic rifles, two shotguns, ammunition and other equipment, including two solar panels.
The newspapers reported that the nine were members of a bad turban group called El-Arkam, one of the most active in central Algeria.
Le Soir d'Algerie said the group had launched dozens of suicide kabooms between 2007 and 2008.
APS quoted a Defense Ministry statement as saying the operation showed the army's "willingness and ability to anticipate the movements of terrorist groups and destroy them."
On August 20, official media in Algeria reported the arrests of three armed Islamists, including a senior AQIM member thought to be close to its leader, in the south of the country.
Necib Tayeb, also known as Abderrahmane Abou Ishak Essoufi, one of the oldest members of Al-Qaeda's north African branch, headed its so-called "judicial committee" and had been wanted since 1995, APS said at the time.
It cited well-informed sources as saying the operation by Algerian special forces had dealt a "fatal blow" to AQIM, given Tayeb's close links to AQIM chief Abdelmalik Droukdel. ... aka Abdel Wadoud, was a regional leader of the GSPC for several years before becoming the group's supremo in 2004 following the death of then-leader Nabil Sahraoui. Under Abdel Wadoud's leadership the GSPC has sought to develop itself from a largely domestic entity into a larger player on the international terror stage. In September 2006 it was announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al-Qaeda and in January 2007 the group officially changed its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb....
An Algiers court in June sentenced Droukdel to death in absentia for a series of murders and bombings.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Islamic gunnies on Saturday seized the town of Douentza on the frontier of the northern territory they control, and the government-held south, residents told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Moussa Dicko, a teacher in the town which lies 170km from Mopti, which is under army control, said the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) fighters had entered the town on Saturday morning.
"This morning between 7:00am (local and GMT) and 8:00 am people from MUJAO arrived on nine 4x4 vehicles. They disarmed people from Ganda Iso" a local militia which was holding the town.
"They took all the weapons and then chased them away," said Dicko, adding that the jihadists had met officials in the town to explain that the self-defense group -- which had promised to work with them -- were "traitors".
"As I speak they have taken the different entrances and exits to the town."
Farmer Almadhi Cisse confirmed the information.
"This morning when I woke up I saw MUJAO vehicles heading towards the barracks. A while later I heard all the people from Ganda Iso had been disarmed. No one was killed. Now they are at the eastern and western entrances to the town."
Douentza -- a strategic town on the route to the fabled city of Timbuktu -- was first captured in early April by separatist Tuareg rebels from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) in early April.
The Tuareg, who claim Azawad as their homeland, shortly afterwards declared independence of the northern triangle of the bow-tie shaped nation.
The west African country, which was considered one of the regions' most stable democracies, has plunged into crisis since the Tuareg kicked off their rebellion in January.
The desert nomads, boosted by the return of fighters from Libya, quickly overwhelmed Mali's army in the vast desert region which is larger than La Belle France, or Texas.
Frustrated by their rout and feeling abandoned by Bamako, angry soldiers overthrew President Amadou Toumani Toure's government on March 21.
The military overthrow sparked chaos which allowed the Tuareg to complete their takeover of the north, aided by armed jihadist groups allied to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in search of a state run under strict Islamic law.
Having piggy-backed on the Tuareg rebellion, the Islamists soon chased their erstwhile MNLA allies out of all key posts and have proceeded to enforce sharia law.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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[11130 views]
Top|| File under: Ansar Dine
For a map, click here. For a map of Zacatecas state, click here
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A total of three armed suspects were killed early Friday morning in Zacatecas state in a pursuit and gunfight, according to Mexican news sources.
A news report posted on the website of El Sol de Zacatecas news daily said that a Policia Federal (PF) road patrol in the area responded to the sounds of gunfire in Las Arboledas colony in Zacatecas municipality, which was apparently an exchange of gunfire between rival criminal groups.
Several armed suspects subsequently led the PF patrol in a chase that ended with three armed suspects dead and two PF agents wounded by gunfire. A third PF agent was hurt during the chase when a patrol vehicle crashed into a pole. None of the PF wounded were reported as serious.
After the end of the pursuit an additional four armed suspects were detained.
A separate report in El Sol de Zacatecas said that Mexican naval infantry road patrols are currently operating in southern Zacatecas and northern Jalisco states. The Zacatecas municipalities included in the marine area of operation are Concepcion del Oro, Jerez, and Fresnillo.
Last Wednesday, a marine road patrol detained two unidentified armed suspects following a shootout in Jerez municiality, near ejido Arroyo Seco de Arriba. The two detainees will be changed with operating a stolen vehicle and violations of the federal Firearms and Explosives law.
Marines seized five rifles, two fragmentation grenades, 117 weapons magazines, 2,393 rounds of ammunition and four vehicles.
The detainees are to be transferred to the Centro de Readaptacion Social (CERESO) in El Salto in Jalisco state.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
[Dawn] TAXILA: Wah Cantonment police on Friday preempted a major terrorist attack on the garrison city when they in a pre-dawn swoop enjugged Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! three Afghanis from a graveyard and seized huge kaboom.
Talking to Dawn here on Friday, the sub-divisional police officer, DSP Raja Taifoor Akhter, said that acting on a tip-off a police party raided a graveyard in Bodo village near Wah Cantonment and enjugged Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! Hijratullah, Najeebullah and Habibullah of Paktia province of Afghanistan.
He said the explosives included detonators, remote controls, bomber's vests, nuts, bolts, shrapnel, hand grenades and other bomb-making material.
The DSP said that during preliminary interrogation the cut-throats confessed to planning an attack on a mosque of garrison city during Friday prayers.
However, today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday... according to sources security in the area was on high alert for the past four days after intelligence that eight cut-throats had entered the city.
Sources said when police raided the graveyard two suspected cut-throats managed to escape. Over 79 employees of Pakistain Ordnance Factories (POF) were killed and over 120 injured in twin suicide kaboom in the city on August 21, 2008.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... An Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) of Rawalpindi on Friday gave the suspected cut-throats into police custody on a five-day physical remand.
The police produced them in the court of ATC judge Rana Masood.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
[Dawn] Gunmen rubbed out seven Shias in two separate incidents in Balochistan's ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... bustling provincial capital Quetta on Saturday, police said.
The incidents took place in the Hazarganji area of Quetta, the capital of the oil and gas rich province.
Senior local police official Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP that "four gunnies riding two cycle of violences intercepted a bus" and "pulled five Shia vegetable sellers off the vehicle and shot them dead".
He said in a second incident, two motorbike riders sprayed bullets at two Shias in Hazarganji area, on the outskirts of Quetta, killing both of them.
Another local police official Mukhtar Musakhel confirmed the incidents and casualties.
The dead bodies were shifted to the Bolan Medical College hospital.
All seven deceased belonged to Hazara community. Situation in the area became tense after the incident.
People of the Hazara community came out on roads and protested the killings. They blocked the Barwari road along with the Western bypass.
Hazara Democratic Party showed its outrage and said that these kinds of incidents were leading the province towards anarchy. The party demanded that those involved in the incident should be nabbed Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! Balochistan Shia Conference has announced three days of mourning in the provinces and demanded the arrest of the people involved in the brutal killings.
Nobody has so far grabbed credit for the attacks.
Earlier on Thursday, unidentified gunniesrubbed out a Shia judge along with his driver and police bodyguard in Quetta in a suspected sectarian attack.
The incident took place when the session judge Zulfiqar Naqvi was travelling to his office.
Balochistan has been a flashpoint for sectarian violence between majority Sunnis and Shias, who make up around 20 per cent of the population.
Sectarian conflict has left thousands of people dead since the late 1980s, and the province also suffers Taliban attacks and a separatist insurgency.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi
[An Nahar] A group of ultra-Orthodox Jews hurled stones at Palestinian homes in the Shuafat refugee camp of annexed east Jerusalem on Saturday, injuring one person, police said. What's the Hebrew word for "intifada"?
"About 20 Jews of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, which adjoins Shuafat, threw stones at Palestinian homes, slightly injuring the head of a resident of the camp," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France Presse.
Three stonethrowers were arrested, she added.
"The Palestinians threw stones back in retaliation and slightly injured two Jews," Samri said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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A bomb explosion and ensuing fire at the largest shopping mall in Narathiwat province has raised concerns about a renewed attempt to undermine the local economy.
Damages were estimated at 60 million baht following a bomb attack at Super Department Store in Muang district's municipal area. It also caused 200 workers to lose their jobs. The bombing happened in an area authorities had declared a "safe zone".
The store and its branches in Thailand's three southernmost provinces have been the targets of 17 bomb and arson attacks since 2004 when terrorist insurgent violence broke out up the region. Waraporn Sirichai, deputy managing director of the store, said, "The entire family was on their knees when we got a phone call from our staff on Friday. We all screamed, 'Not again.'"
Ms Waraporn said she had examined the fire-gutted building and said the goods were almost completely destroyed. She called on the government to provide prompt compensation.
She said, "I really have no idea what kind of compensation will be offered. I want them to act fast. We have employees to take care of."
Pol Col Satanfah Wamasingh, investigating superintendent at Muang police station, said Friday's bombing is likely to be the work of the same group that plotted a coordinated series of bombings last year that killed seven people. He said that it was very likely that the attackers disguised themselves as customers and planted the bomb.
Thakoengsak Yoksiri, fire chief of Muang district, said the building was almost completely destroyed.
The blast topped off multiple terrorist insurgent activities in the restive South on Friday which were seen as a way to mark the 50th anniversary of Malaysia's independence and the anniversary of the founding of the Bersatu separatist movement.
National Security Council secretary Wichean Potephosree insisted that intelligence operations had not failed. Authorities had learned that terrorist insurgent acts would happen, but did not know what form they would take.
He said security operations in the safety zones were better integrated but were constrained by a shortage of personnel. Pol Gen Wichean said the NSC is still pursuing its policy of holding peace talks but that the process has been "stalled from time to time".
[Kabar] Two coppers were killed and four others maimed after members of the leftist New People's Army (NPA) attacked coppers on traffic duty in the southern Philippines on Thursday morning (August 30th), local media reported.
Town police Chief Joyce Birrey said members of the HPG were conducting traffic inspections when the suspects, who were clad in army uniforms, arrived in a stolen truck and opened fire.
The dead were Highway Patrol Group (HPG) officers. Another policeman was injured, along with three civilians.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Commies
Al-Qaida recently published a harsh attack on Hezbollah, in which it calls on Shi'ites to leave the renounce the organization "if they do not wish to be the target of Al-Qaida attacks."
In a recording broadcasted on Al-Qaida websites, the commander of the Abdullah Azzam Shaheed Brigade they claim 6k fights but probably have only a few hundred
in Syria, Majd al-Majd, stated that "the claim that of the Shiite leaders that Israel and the United States are responsible for the murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri and for sparking the rebellion in Syria are baseless. The ones behind the murder were the leaders of Hezbollah, the keepers of the border with Israel." one reason for this aggressive stance is below
The Al-Qaida branch in Syria is competing with another jihadist organization headed by Jordanian Salafi preacher Muhammad Al-Shalabi, also known as "Abu Sayyaf." In an interview with Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq, Abu Sayyef said that he oversees hundreds of fighters from Jordan, Iraq, Libya and other Arab states, some of which are "fighters from Al-Qaida who went to battle in Iraq," and that his organization "received the recognition of Al-Qaida." His organization claimed responsibility for several impressive bombings in Syria, while Al-Majd claimed his organization was responsible for those same bombings.
Since when when does Al-Q "publish" attacks rather than launch indiscriminate killing? I guess since there's no innocents to target, it's quite the conundrum.
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/02/2012 10:44 Comments ||
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#7
Would you like some parmesan with that, #1 grom? ;-p
Posted by: Barbara ||
09/02/2012 13:52 Comments ||
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#9
One of Al Qaeda's 'stated' claims was to do away with the old regimes. Then they decided to go play with the thousand pound gorilla, getting the worst of the match up. Now they're aiming for a far smaller target to get cred back it looks like. Go pop the sidekick. Yep, that's a plan. /sarc off
BEIRUT: Rebels seized an air defense facility and attacked a military airport in eastern Syria yesterday, a monitoring group said, hitting back at an air force on which President Bashar Assad is increasingly relying to crush his opponents. The attacks in eastern oil-producing Deir Al-Zor province follow rebel strikes against military airports in the Aleppo and Idlib areas, close to the border with Turkey.
Rebels in Deir Al-Zor overran an air defense building early yesterday, taking at least 16 captives and seizing an unknown number of anti-aircraft rockets, said Rami Abdulrahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Video posted on the Internet by activists showed the officers and soldiers captured by the rebel fighters, and Al Arabiya television broadcast footage of what it said were rockets and ammunition seized in the raid.
Abdulrahman said rebels also attacked the Hamdan military airbase at Albu Kamal, close to Syrias eastern border with Iraq, but did not succeed in breaking into it.
The attacks come three days after rebels attacked the Taftanaz air base in Idlib province, where they said several helicopters were damaged. The insurgents also said they have shot down a fighter jet and a helicopter last week.
Bombardments of northern towns such as Azaz and Anadan, of which Assad lost control weeks ago, have led to thousands of residents fleeing to safety in Turkey.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] At least 117 people were killed in countrywide on Saturday as Syrian helicopter gunships deployed from a nearby airbase kept rebel fighters pinned down in the town of Taftanaz of Idlib province on the border with Turkey.
According to the Syrian Coordination Committees among the killed were women and kiddies. 44 were reported in Damascus ...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy... and its Suburbs, among them 4 discovered in Daraya and 6 in Jobar; 19 in Deir al-Zour; 15 in Homs; 14 in Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... ; 10 in Idlib; 9 in Daraa, 1 in Damascus Suburbs; 5 in Hama; and 1 in Lattakia.
Rebels captured the main air defense building in Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding "preliminary reports" suggested they seized ground-to-air missiles.
In their assault in Albu Kamal, rebels also captured 16 air defense personnel and attacked nearby Hamdan air base, the Observatory said.
The seizure was a "major coup" for the rebels, the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence La Belle France Presse, adding it sparked retaliatory shelling in the town of some 60,000 that killed at least five civilians.
In Idlib province, a major battleground on the Turkish border, rebels attacked an army roadblock in Harem district early Saturday, killing or wounding nine soldiers, the Observatory said.
State media reported a "terrorist" group had killed five members of a family in the central Marjeh district of Syria's second city Aleppo, a key battleground in the more than 17-month-long conflict.
In the central province of Hama, rebels killed at least four soldiers in a roadblock attack, the Observatory said.
It also said 18 unidentified bodies were found in the Damascus area on Saturday, most with their hands tied and some bearing signs of torture.
The official SANA news agency reported that 225 prisoners "implicated in recent events but without blood on their hands," were freed in Damascus province on Saturday.
Artillery fire hit at least two houses in the morning, a rebel commander in Taftanaz who gave his name as Abu Omar told AFP, without reporting casualties, He said most of the town has been deserted for weeks.
Mi-17 and Mi-24 helicopters overflew Taftanaz throughout the day, as rebels in the small town took shelter inside houses, an AFP correspondent said.
Taftanaz is located two kilometers from a major military airbase from where helicopters take off round the clock to pound rebel-held towns in the area.
On Wednesday, a group of rebels attacked the airbase but failed to take control of the site.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
I wonder if daddy Assad, if he's watching from some place, doesn't start to think that the boy isn't a total loss after all.
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.
Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked Shebab 
[An Nahar] Security forces in Algeria have killed 10 
[An Nahar] Islamic 
Gunmen 
cycle of violence
Two 
At least 117 people were killed in countrywide on Saturday as Syrian helicopter gunships deployed from a nearby airbase kept rebel fighters pinned down in the town of Taftanaz of Idlib province on the border with Turkey.
