[Politico] The U.S. is in talks with countries that border Afghanistan about housing "over the horizon" counterterrorism operations that would allow the U.S. military to more easily surveil and strike targets in the Taliban-controlled nation, according to senators who attended a classified hearing with Pentagon leaders this week. Those sites could include bases run by Russia in those countries, they said.
After testifying publicly before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, a trio of the military's top officials briefed lawmakers behind closed doors about the discussions, which are taking place with the governments of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and others, the senators said.
The disclosure to lawmakers on Tuesday came just hours after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that the U.S. has asked Russia for "clarification" about an offer from President Vladimir Putin to host the U.S. counterterrorism operations on Russian military bases in central Asia.
During the classified session, senators were told that that option is being seriously considered, the lawmakers added. Gen. Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie, the U.S. Central Command chief, went into detail about specific types of aircraft and launching points that could be used to strike terrorist targets in Afghanistan.
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also described to senators the nature of his conversations with his Russian counterpart, Valery Gerasimov, the senators added. The Wall Street Journal first reported that Milley raised the issue with Gerasimov, but the further details of the talks have not been previously reported.
"It's their territory. But I think, realistically, Russia has influence there," Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said of the neighboring countries. "And so [Russia] may not have a veto, but they certainly have an influence. So you have to talk to them."
Representatives for the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Continued on Page 47
#3
"We're excited about our new basing in Xinjiang province as well"
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/02/2021 7:23 Comments ||
Top||
#4
What is the speed and time in the air for America's most efficient drone? Wont that determine over the horizon capability and where drones will be based?
#6
Lets stop f***ing around where we have NO economic interest. Afghanistan has thrown us out of a place we should never have been in... "When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains.
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains.
And go to your g-d like a soldier."
#7
So, they're trying to rent bases, and at the same time get Vlad to bend from sanctions. He's gotta be laughing his ass off.
Then again, Putin may go for it. First, you've got the mordita aspect. Then, you've got all the info and photos the GRU "base managers" will come up with. And also, you've always got stuff that 'just falls off the truck'.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
10/02/2021 11:55 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Something tells me Vlad can't wait to turn on NewsMax and enjoy the humor.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
Text is from a speech by Anatoly Koshkin delivered September 30th at a conference on Russian military history in Moskva
[REGNUM] In Western historiography, and often in the writings of Russian "overthrowers of the historical concepts of the totalitarian period," it is common to say that the success of the counteroffensive near Moscow "the Stalinist regime owes Japan." Which, allegedly, honestly fulfilling the obligations under the Soviet-Japanese pact of neutrality, made it possible at a critical moment to transfer the Siberian and Far Eastern divisions to the Soviet-German front, which ensured the victory.
This version is widespread in Japan itself. The Japanese authors of the book Milestones on the Way to the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Japan and Russia, published in Russian, write: "... Having transferred his troops from the Far East and from Siberia to the west, I. Stalin was able to fight the German army with full dedication, and Japan, for its part, was able to send the elite troops of the Kwantung Army to the south."
...a sleekly well fed gentleman of forty who may or may not be the heir to the Russian throne, but who definitely is a Prussian prince...
a descendant of the House of Romanovs, and his wife, Italian citizen Rebecca Bettarini, wed in St. Petersburg’s Saint Isaac’s Cathedral Friday.
According to the Russian Imperial House, this is the first wedding of a House representative to take place in Russia in over 100 years. Romanov and Bettarini — who converted to Orthodox Christianity and was christened Viktoria Romanovna in July 2020, officially registered their marriage in a Moscow registry office in late September. before that she was just "Becky"
The ceremony was attended by several hundred guests from several countries, including Duke Michael of Wuerttemberg, Duke of Anjour Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, the last king of Bulgaria Simeon Borisov von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Joachim Louis Napoleon Murat, Prince Philipp and Princess Isabelle of Lichtenstein, and others.
Georgy Mikhailovich Romanov is a son and an heir of the Russian Imperial House head Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, the only child of Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov and Duchess Leonida Georgiyevna Bagration of Mukhrani.
The legitimacy of Maria Vladimirovna’s title of Grand Duchess is challenged by the other line of descendants of House Romanov, who trace their bloodline to Emperor Nicholas I’s grandson, Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich.
See? And if the Romanovs are ever again asked to reign, they can meet at a certain field at dawn with their seconds to settle the thing.
#2
I had originally thought the story about the guy mauled to death by pit bulls in medias res of a home invasion was the Feel Good Story of the Day.
But as a man who cheerfully self describes as a hater of all things communist, the fact that a Romanov got married at St Isaac's in St Petersburg in 2021, well, that makes everything better.
Rantburg posted a feature story on slavery in the Caucusus September 9th. You can read it here.
[KavkazUzel] Vladislav Platonenko, who managed to escape from labor slavery in Buinaksk, returned to the Pskov region and intends to complain to the police about torture at a brick factory. The police in Dagestan promised to help with checking the plant where Platonenko worked, the Alternative anti-slavery movement reported.
As "Caucasian Knot" wrote, on September 19 the "Alternative" movement published the story of Vladislav Platonenko, a native of the Pskov region, who was in labor slavery for a year at a brick factory in Buinaksk.
Platonenko came to Moscow to look for work, but at the station he was offered a job in Dagestan. Finding himself undocumented in labor slavery, Vladislav was beaten and abused, after which he developed memory problems. The man managed to escape together with a resident of Ryazan. In Ryazan, Platonenko turned to the police, but he was advised to go home and make documents. Arriving in Moscow, he lived on the street for four days until he was given the contacts of "Alternative", activists said, announcing an inspection of the brick factory, which Platonenko told about.
Vladislav Platonenko told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent today that he returned home and now lives in the Pskov region with his mother and is applying for a new passport.
"In Ryazan, I turned to the police, but they said: make a passport at the place of registration. Now documents are being processed in the Pskov region, the passport will be ready within a month. Health is better, memory is restored. I will receive documents, restore my health, I will think about work," said Platonenko.
He clarified that during his stay at the brick factory in Buinaksk he was not paid, he was only given food. According to him, about 20 forced laborers worked at this plant, besides him.
"As soon as I get a passport, I will write a statement to the police about torture. In Ryazan, the police told me earlier that they could not accept the application without a passport," Vladislav Platonenko explained.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan promised to provide "Alternative" assistance in checking the plant where Vladislav Platonenko worked, the head of the "Alternative" movement Oleg Melnikov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, having found it difficult to specify the timing of the check.
Since Vladislav had clear signs of bodily torture, the activists "decided to try to open a criminal case," he explained. "Fortunately, there are few such factories left in Dagestan, the problem is more in Kalmykia and the Stavropol Territory," said Oleg Melnikov.
We will remind, on September 4 it became known that a criminal case of a 30-year-old owner of a livestock camp in Kalmykia, accused of illegal imprisonment of a person , was transferred to the court . According to investigators, the accused kept the employee by force, took away his passport and phone, and did not pay his salary. When the victim tried to escape, he was caught up and severely beaten, after which he was thrown into the steppe.
From 2019 to September 2021, two criminal cases were considered in the courts of Kalmykia under the article on illegal imprisonment, the press service of the Supreme Court of Kalmykia told the "Caucasian Knot" on September 16.
Only those who declare themselves a forced laborer can help to get out of labor slavery, Oleg Melnikov told the "Caucasian Knot" in January 2020 after the release of three people in Dagestan. There are criminal articles for slave labor, but they practically do not work, the lawyer Abusupyan Gaitayev confirmed then.
In Dagestan, most of the reported cases of forced labor are related to factories producing building materials. Slaves in Dagestan are a cheap labor force that is lured to the Caucasus mainly by fraudulent means. In fact, they are goods that can be bought and sold, says the "Caucasian Knot" statement "
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Lead paragraph rewritten in English. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] A man was detained by the Russian FSB with bomb making materials on his person according to Russian language media.
As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, the FSB announced today the arrest in Cherkessk of a 20-year-old resident of the neighboring republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. Components and tools for making an improvised explosive device were seized from him.
According to the ministry, the detainee was preparing a terrorist attack in the city against law enforcement officers and acted on the instructions of the militants of the international terrorist organization "Islamic State."
Definitely a terrorist, all right.
In a video of the FSB Public Relations Center, published today on the TASS YouTube channel, people in civilian clothes inspect the clothes of a man lying on the ground in handcuffs. This is followed by shots of the seizure of the contents of the backpack - camouflage clothing is taken out of it. Video is in Russian and is in untranslatable format. Demonstrated is a five-liter plastic water tank wrapped with tape. The tape is cut with a knife, revealing that it is holding many metal bolts and nuts on the bottle. White powder is poured from the bottle itself.
Also removed the diagram, made by hand on a notebook sheet. The diagram shows the building of the Prosecutor's Office on Krasnoarmeyskaya Street near the intersection with Soyuzny Lane. According to the service "Yandex. Maps", in this place in Cherkessk is the building of the prosecutor's office of Karachay-Cherkessia.
When the detainee is already sitting on the ground, filming a mobile phone, he is asked about his age. The young man replies that he is 20. "What did you do here?" - asks the security officer. The young man moves his lips, but his answer is not heard. To the question: "Do you understand what he was detained for?" he nods in the affirmative.
[AlJazeera] The arrest comes after Saakashvili returned from eight years in exile and a day before key municipal elections in Georgia.
Georgia has arrested former President Mikheil Saakashvili after his return to the country following eight years in exile, as the ex-leader sought to mobilise supporters ahead of national municipal elections seen as critical to the country’s political makeup.
Local media showed a video of smiling Saakashvili being escorted into the Rustavi penitentiary institution on Friday evening.
"I want to inform the public that the third president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, is arrested. He was transferred to a penitentiary institution," Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili told a news conference on Friday.
The announcement came about 18 hours after Saakashvili, who was convicted in absentia and has lived in Ukraine in recent years, posted on Facebook that he had returned to the country. Georgian officials earlier in the day had denied he was in Georgia.
In the posts, Saakashvili called Saturday’s elections “crucial” for Georgia and had called for a rally in Tbilisi on Sunday, promising to join it.
Saakashvili was convicted in absentia on abuse of office charges in 2018 and sentenced to six years in prison. He denies any wrongdoing and says the case is politically motivated.
President Salome Zourabichvili said she would not pardon Saakashvili, the TASS news agency reported on Friday.
Al Jazeera’s Robin Forestier-Walker, reporting from the Georgian capital Tbilisi, said Saakashvili’s return to Georgia was “momentous” and something the former leader had talked about for many years.
“Now it seems he has put all his cards on the table and he’s hoping that somehow this return will have an impact on Georgian politics – which is very fractious at the moment,” he said.
Forestier-Walker said Georgian politics had become increasingly polarised and bitter, and centred around political personalities rather than issues.
"The real issues that are facing this country – a stricken economy, and terrible COVID infection rates – these sorts of things have been underplayed. We have now this mercurial figure from the past re-emerging on the scene trying to shake things up."
Forestier-Walker said the big issue now is whether his return on the eve of these municipal elections is going to have an effect on the result.
"Because these elections are being seen as very important. They are municipal mayoral elections, but they are being seen by the opposition as a referendum on this government. And if the government fails to get enough support, it could be forced into calling early snap elections." Read the rest at the link
Dear friends! I'm very sorry, but according to the list of data published by FSB yesterday, which, if transferred to the foreign citizens, can be used against the security of Russia, almost every information about the Russian space activities is forbidden for publication. pic.twitter.com/yYoq02VE2I
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
Please note that Dagestan has retained the Soviet name for some of its governmental institutions.
[KavkazUzel] Tarki (Targu, Tarku) is located on the eastern slope of the Tarki-Tau mountain, 4 km from the center of Makhachkala. Urban-type settlement in Dagestan. Administratively subordinate to the Soviet district administration of the city of Makhachkala, but not included in the district. One of the oldest settlements in Dagestan, it was the capital of the Khazar Kaganate.
...the ones who converted en masse to Judaism, thereby giving an excuse to all those Jew-haters who insist that Judaism and Jews therefore have no real connection to the Holy Land?
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.
