[KhaamaPress] Officials held a formal ceremony to make the graduation of more the 500 newly trained soldiers in northern province of Balk, said the Ministry of Defense in a statement Sunday.
"More than 500 newly trained soldiers graduated in Balkh prov. Today," said the MoD in a tweet. Their graduation ceremony was held in Shahin 209 corps.
According to the statement, forces will be deployed in different locations, mostly in north Afghanistan, in the frontline.
"These forces pledged to protect the Afghans with all their power," the tweet added. "These soldiers will be deployed to the battlefield to fight gunnies and defend AFG."
On Friday, at least 89 commando forces have received certificate of accomplishment after finishing their training under the Afghan National Army Commando Corps in Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province.
"85 commando forces graduated from commando school in Helmand province, today," said the MoD in a tweet. "They have received advanced military training and are now fully ready to fight gunnies and defend Afghanistan.
[AnNahar] When Libyan dictator Muammar Qadaffy ...The late megalomaniac dictator of Libya, admired everywhere for his garish costumes, funny hats, harem of cutie bodyguards, and incoherent ravings. As far as is known, he is the only person who's ever declared jihad on Switzerland... was toppled, people took Dire Revenge on those they saw as his supporters -- including the entire town of Tawergha, whose 40,000 residents were forced to flee.
Now, almost a decade after militia forces rampaged through the town, torching homes, destroying buildings and leaving farms in ruins, the people of Tawergha are coming home.
Continued on Page 49
[AnNahar] Hopes that soldiers behind Mali's coup would swiftly restore civilian rule and tackle jihadism and ethnic violence are fading fast as the army expands its role.
Many in the large Sahel country hailed the August 18 putsch as the precursor of a "new Mali" -- a nation that would emerge stronger and more stable, its institutions better placed to confront the country's many ills.
Young army officers toppled president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita after weeks of protests sparked largely by his failures to roll back a jihadist insurgency and root out perceived corruption.
Continued on Page 49
#SaudiArabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan congratulates #Yemen on forming a new government, adding that the deal "will help in achieving peace and stability and in fulfilling the aspirations of the Yemeni people for a political solution."https://t.co/7DQwbuCRtl
[AnNahar] Germany and Finland said Sunday they had repatriated 23 of their nationals, women and kiddies, from Syria, some of whom were under criminal investigation for allegedly belonging to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
"I am very relieved that we were able to repatriate another 12 children and three mothers from camps in northeastern Syria yesterday," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement.
Maas said the repatriations were "humanitarian cases, primarily orphans and children who were ill -— cases in which a repatriation was deemed particularly necessary and urgent."
He added that it is not legally possible to repatriate children without their mothers.
For its part, the Finnish foreign ministry said that it had brought home six children and two adult mothers.
"Under the constitution, Finnish public authorities are obligated to safeguard the basic rights of the Finnish children interned in the camps insofar as this is possible," it said.
"The basic rights of the children interned in the al-Hol camps can be safeguarded only by repatriating them to Finland."
According to Helsinki, more than 9,000 foreign women and kiddies, two-thirds of them children, are still being held in the al-Hol and Roj camps in northeastern Syria, housing suspected Islamic State family members and sympathizers.
Many European nations have resisted repatriating their nationals from the camps, because of the security risks, it said.
According to German media reports, the three repatriated German women are aged between 21 and 38 and the children are aged between two and 12.
The group resided in a refugee camp under Kurdish control.
The three women were "wives of jihadists" of the Islamic State group and "are in very poor health," a front man for the Kurdish administration's foreign relations office, Kamal Akif, told AFP.
One of the German women was detained on arrival in Frankfurt, a statement by the anti-terrorist prosecutors' office said.
As well as allegedly belonging to the Islamic State group, the woman, identified as Leonora M. and aged 21, is suspected of using a young Yazidi woman as a slave.
Her husband was a member of the Islamic State group's "secret services", the prosecutor said.
[AnNahar] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...Qatar's satrapy in Asia Minor... has carried out naval exercises in the eastern Mediterranean, the defense ministry said Sunday, against a backdrop of tensions with its neighbors over energy exploration in the region.
The defense ministry said on its Twitter account that "elements of our navy command" conducted the exercises, without specifying the location other than "eastern Mediterranean."
However it posted photos showing a naval vessel firing a cannon.
Turkey is at loggerheads with EU members Greece and Cyprus over energy resources in disputed waters in the eastern Mediterranean.
The exercises follow an announcement by the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... on December 10 of plans to impose sanctions on Turkey over its "illegal and aggressive" actions in the zone.
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[The Hill] The Department of Justice plans to announce criminal charges against a suspect in the 1988 Lockerbie, Scotland bombing on Monday, CNN reported Sunday evening.
Before officially leaving his position, Attorney General William Barr intends to announce charges against former Libyan intelligence officer Abu Agila Mohammad Masud for his involvement with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, three officials briefed on the matter told CNN.
Barr, who served as the attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush, will reveal the charges on the 32nd anniversary of the attack of the flight over Scotland that resulted in 270 people dead, most of whom were Americans.
Officials think Masud is in Libya. They told CNN that the U.S. is discussing his potential extradition with Libya and talking to Scotland officials about obtaining evidence for the case. Prosecutors are expected to file the charges in D.C.
The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment.
When Barr was the attorney general for Bush, he announced the charges against two other men associated with Libyan intelligence in the attack. The U.S. alleged that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah put explosives in a cassette and radio player inside a suitcase on the plane.
#Iraq devalues its currency by about 20 percent against the dollar as the cash-strapped government faces an economic crisis brought about by low oil prices and crude-production cuts.https://t.co/8RICKvZ61W
#2
The dollar buys less and less here. Wait until the Biden Green Raw New Deal kicks in and Biden gets rid of our energy independence, the dollar won't be worth a plug nickel.
[Guardian] For the past four years, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has fought a war in Syria, supported Iraqi forces and stage-managed the politics of its homeland, all the while trying to avoid facing off with Israel. Yet its exhausted leaders fear the last gasps of Donald Trump’s presidency could deliver threats that eclipse everything else.
In the organisation’s heartland, Hezbollah members are watching the clock — and the skies. Israeli jets have been streaking overhead for more than a month, and over the past few weeks the frequency of flights has sharply increased, as has security in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the nerve centre of the region’s most powerful militant group.
Leaders and senior members fear that Trump, his outgoing secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and Israel intend to use the weeks before Joe Biden’s inauguration to act decisively against Iran and Hezbollah before the new president takes a widely anticipated softer stance.
"They’ve got their window and they want to finish what they started, said one mid-ranking Hezbollah group. "But don’t worry, the Sayyid [the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah] is safe."
Senior official in the Israeli General Staff in an interview with the Saudi website @Elaph: (Hassan) Nasrallah is a treasure for Israel. If he falls ill - I would send him a doctor. https://t.co/DxeYhXAdXz
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.
...The late megalomaniac dictator of Libya, admired everywhere for his garish costumes, funny hats, harem of cutie 
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...Qatar's satrapy in Asia Minor...
