Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:39 ||
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Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Eva Green aka Angelique Bouchard in "Dark Shadows (2012)" aka Susan in "Perfect Sense (2011)" aka Vesper Lynd in "Casino Royale (2006)" aka Isabelle in "The Dreamers (2003)" aka Serafina Pekkala in "The Golden Compass (2007)" aka Emilia/Sally in "Franklyn (2008)" aka Miss G in "Cracks (2009)" aka Rebecca in "Womb (2010)" (age 32)
KABUL, Afghanistan An Afghan soldier opened fire on a group of American troops, wounding five of them, Western and Afghan military officials said Wednesday.
The attack, which took place Tuesday in Wardak province in eastern Afghanistan, was the second incident of its kind in three days. On Sunday, an Afghan policeman shot and killed three British soldiers.
The phenomenon of green-on-blue shootings, in which members of the Afghan security forces turn their weapons on Western troops, has become a serious concern in recent months. At least 26 NATO troops have been killed this year in such attacks.
Afghan officials said the shooter, a new recruit to the army, fled after the shooting, and authorities launched a search. NATOs International Security Assistance Force said the incident was under investigation.
The attack took place at a checkpoint in Wardaks Sayedabad district, said Afghan army Gen. Abdul Raziq, whose area of command includes Wardak. In August of last year, the district was the scene of the biggest one-time loss of U.S. lives in the war, when 31 American troops, most of them elite Navy SEALs, died after an insurgent managed to shoot down their Chinook helicopter.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/05/2012 08:51 ||
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I've read several mentions that Afghan-on-Afghan violence is considerably worse than what this article calls green-on-blue, Afghan on Western. Has anyone seen solid numbers, for comparison purposes?
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Eighty-three people have been tossed in the slammer Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! in a massive security swoop launched after Sunday's twin attacks in Garissa churches.
Garissa district commissioner M.M. Kangi said a combined team of the Kenya Police, Administration Police, National Security Intelligence Service and the paramilitary General Service Unit was conducting an "intensified operation to step up intelligence gathering, flush out Al-Shabaab ... the successor to the Islamic Courts... sympathisers and foil other potential terrorist plans".
As the crackdown continued, the multinational nature of the operation to combat terrorism in the region became apparent.
The Israeli intelligence service cooperated with their Kenyan counterparts in unmasking Iranian suspects and foiling planned attacks in Nairobi and Mombasa.
According to multiple sources, Kenyan security agents tossed in the slammer Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! two Iranians and circulated their photographs to Israeli, American, British and French intelligence services.
Mossad, the Israeli security service, returned a positive identification of the two, who have been arraigned in court for possessing explosives.
In Garissa, the massive security operation is unprecedented.
An unofficial curfew is in force and the town is in a state of virtual lockdown at sunset. Hundreds of coppers are on patrol in the town.
Reacting to claims made by Radio Andalus
...What we in the English-speaking world might refer to as Radio Free Spain, were we so silly as to think that appropriate for a local African station...
-- Al-Shabaab's propaganda station in Kismayu -- that the bully boy group was behind the church massacre, Mr Kangi said Kenya had suspected this all along.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Libyans vote on Saturday for a constituent assembly, the first body elected since the ouster of dictator Muammar Qadaffy ... one of those little rainstorms from the Arab Spring... , tasked with steering the country through its critical transition.
"All fundamental questions have to be decided by this elected group of 200 people," Sami Zaptia, managing editor of Libya Herald, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"It is very important. You don't write a constitution every day," he added.
To be chosen is the General National Congress, which will appoint a new interim government and a panel to draft a new constitution for the oil-rich North African nation.
Once the assembly holds its first session, the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), which has run Libya since Qadaffy's ouster and death last year, must step down.
Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, head of a European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... observer mission, said the vote, which was postponed from June 19 for technical reasons, marks a historic opportunity.
"This election is the first opportunity for Libyans to choose their representatives in national polls after decades," he said.
"It marks a historic step for the country and its people. Given the vital role the General National Congress has in appointing the body to draft the constitution ... the election is crucial."
Libya has not seen elections since the era of late monarch King Idris, whom Qadaffy deposed in a bloodless coup in 1969, making this vote a new experience for many in a country with a mostly young population.
More than 2.7 million people, or around 80 percent of the eligible electorate, has registered to take part in the landmark poll.
More than 4,000 people sought to run as candidates. But the electoral commission only approved 2,501 independents and 1,206 party candidates after an intensive vetting process designed to keep out former regime remnants.
And dozens of political associations, the majority of them listing democracy and a respect for Islamic law as core values, have emerged in the Mohammedan country where parties were long banned as a construct of the West.
A total of 120 seats are reserved for independents, with the remaining 80 open to political entities. But some parties are said also to be fielding individual candidates in the hope of bagging more seats.
"Some political parties have joined forces with independent candidates in order to beef up their possible representation in the national assembly," said Claudia Gazzini, Libya analyst at the International Crisis Group.
But the outcome of the vote, she said, is likely to reflect local interests more than fixed ideologies, since the majority of seats are going to independent candidates pandering to the sensibilities of small districts.
The country has been divided into 72 constituencies. In some, voters will cast a vote for both party and individual candidates; in others, they will only have a choice of one or the other.
There are 629 women running. They are well represented on party lists, which alternate male and female candidates, but make up only 3.4 percent of the individual candidates.
Out of the 142 political entities in the mix, it is impossible to predict which ones will fare well, although some have been more visible than others in the 18-day campaign that ends on Thursday.
"The problem is that there is no track record or history of what they have done in the past so Libyans have had to acquaint themselves with them from zero. The vast majority are quite confused," Zaptia pointed out.
Many people, lacking familiarity with the democratic process and not always knowing who stands exactly for what, will ultimately vote for whom they recognize and trust, he said.
From the parties, the coalition of ex-war time prime minister Mahmud Jibril is seen as a key contender among liberals, facing stiff competition from two Islamist parties -- Justice and Development and Al-Wattan.
The make-up of the congress has been a matter of heated debates in the run-up to the vote, with political factions such as the federalist movement in the east and other such voices in the south calling for more seats.
The NTC says the distribution of seats in the assembly was determined according to regional and demographic considerations, with 100 seats going to the west, 60 to the east and 40 to the south.
But parties in the east want an equal split of the assembly's seats and have threatened to boycott and sabotage the process if their demands are not met. They've targeted polling centers in recent days.
Once appointed, the panel has 120 days to draft the national charter, which will require a two-thirds plus one vote to pass in the assembly, before being put to voters in a national referendum.
Some of the key issues to be determined by the constitution are the form of governance, the weight of Islam in state and society, the role of women and the rights of minorities.
After the constitution is approved, the assembly will have 30 days to issue a new election law, with elections for a government to be held 180 days after that, according to the NTC's constitutional declaration
If these benchmarks are met, the new authorities will be in power for a period of roughly 12 months, a short window of opportunity to draft a constitution and tackle key issues such as disarming militias and reviving the judiciary.
"They are going to be there for a short period. If they can keep the nation together, it should go smoothly," said Zaptia.
At stake, Gazzini says, is the "peaceful transition of Libya."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Protesters from northern Mali demonstrated in the capital Wednesday against Islamists who have enforced strict sharia law, destroyed ancient shrines and trapped residents with landmines.
Some 2,000 people braved pouring rain to join the sit-in protest at Banako's Independence Square monument, chanting: "We want weapons to liberate the north."
"If the army doesn't want to go to war, then give us the means to liberate our territory!" said Oumar Maiga, leader of a northern citizens' collective.
Tuareg politician Nock Ag Attia said the tribes present in the north -- the Tuareg, Fulani, Songhai -- did not "share the foolishness" of the Tuareg rebels and al-Qaeda-linked Islamists.
The protest came as the international community mulled ways to help Mali's embattled interim government save its vast desert north, a territory larger than La Belle France or Texas, from the armed Islamists.
The presence of the rebel Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith), which is openly allied with Al-Qaeda's north African franchise, has sparked concern that the region may become a new haven for terrorism.
Mali is being ruled by a 12-month interim government set up after a March 22 coup and which has proved powerless to deal with the partition of the country since the Islamists and Tuareg rebels captured key northern cities.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will hold a mini-summit in Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and may be in the process of being chased out now... Saturday to discuss the formation of a unity government that could request military intervention from its neighbors.
Mali's interim president Dioncounda Traore, who has not returned to his country since being attacked in his office in May, will travel from La Belle France to attend the summit, Burkinabe Foreign Minister Djibrill Bassole told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The 70-year-old Traore was attacked by a mob opposed to him taking over from the junta inside his office on May 21.
Mali has continued its descent into chaos since then and is de facto split in two, with Islamist groups linked to al-Qaeda controlling the north.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Wednesday denounced an "accumulation of horrors" in rebel-held northern Mali, saying women were raped, men beheaded and ancient treasures destroyed.
He repeated earlier comments that he was "confident" the U.N. Security Council would soon pass a resolution authorizing the force to assist Mali win back its territory.
"The aim is firstly to re-establish constitutional order in the south and to ensure and affirm Mali's integrity," Fabius said. Following that, the goal would be "to regain lost territory."
The former colonial power's Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said La Belle France is determined to prevent the setting up of "international terror bases that threaten the peace and prosperity of the whole region and our security too."
ECOWAS says it has 3,300 troops ready to deploy in Mali.
The ramped up diplomatic efforts came after Islamists in the fabled city of Timbuktu set about wrecking U.N. world heritage-listed ancient shrines, which they consider idolatrous.
Ansar Dine has already enforced strict sharia law in Timbuktu in recent months, as well as in other key cities, and at the weekend began their rampage against the tombs they consider "haram", or forbidden.
They smashed seven tombs of ancient Moslem saints as well as the "sacred door" to a 15th century mosque.
And in the key northern city of Gao, Ansar Dine's al-Qaeda allies have planted landmines around the city to prevent a counter-offensive by the Tuareg fighters they violently expelled last week.
The Tuareg -- descendants of those who founded Timbuktu in the 5th century -- spearheaded the initial takeover of the north as part of a decades-old rebellion to reclaim what they consider to be their homeland.
However, a good lie finds more believers than a bad truth... the previously unknown Ansar Dine, who had been fighting on their flanks, swiftly took the upper hand and pushed the Tuareg rebels from all positions of power, most recently in bloody festivities in Gao.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Hmm, we intervened in Afghanistan to reverse an Islamist coup d'etat, we intervened in Libya to create one, and we'll never go into Mali to stop one.
Posted by: American Delight ||
07/05/2012 6:18 Comments ||
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[Al Ahram] Nigeria's capital was on alert Wednesday after an kaboom went off outside a popular shopping centre, in the latest attack likely to be blamed on Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Islamists.
The first kaboom happened at roughly 9:00 pm at a shopping plaza in the city's Wuse II district, front man for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Yushau A. Shuaib, said in a statement.
Rescue workers then rushed to the scene and cordoned off the area, where a unwent kaboom! bomb was later discovered, an official said.
"When we were trying to find out what is happening, the anti-bomb squad discovered another one. They just detonated it," the head of NEMA's Abuja office, Ishaya Chonoko, told journalists at the scene.
"The good thing is that there was no report of human casualty," he added.
The area was swarming with rescue workers overnight, as security forces kept journalists hundreds of metres (yards) away.
When the cordon had been cleared early Wednesday, an AFP news hound saw that the windows of shops adjacent to the Banex Plaza shopping mall had been shattered, but the main centre had not evidently been affected.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] A Yemeni police chief in the capital narrowly escaped an liquidation attempt on Wednesday as explosives planted in his car blew up just minutes after he exited the vehicle, he told AFP.
Saleh al-Mustafa, police chief for Sanaa's western Mathbah neighbourhood, said he suspects Al-Qaeda faceless myrmidons were behind the attack.
"Thank God I wasn't there (in the car) or I would have been a victim just like our colleague," said Mustafa, referring to the liquidation of intelligence officer Mohammed al-Qudami who was killed by a car boom on Monday.
"Of course, this (type of attack) bears the hallmark of Al-Qaeda," he said, adding that the faceless myrmidons were "targeting security officials across the board."
According to Mustafa, Al-Qaeda faceless myrmidons "have a presence" in Sanaa's Mathbah neighbourhood and security forces have "been trailing them ... but they targeted us before we were able to capture them."
On Monday, Qudami was killed when a bomb strapped under the driver's seat of his car went kaboom!.
He died in hospital from wounds sustained in the blast which according to a security official took place "just a few metres from President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi's house" in the capital.
No group has grabbed credit for either bombing, but the defence ministry late Tuesday announced it had made an arrest for Qudami's liquidation.
In a statement on their 26 September website, the ministry said the suspect was cooled for a few years Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! after being found wearing "black glasses mounted with a video camera that filmed the liquidation of the officer."
Last month, Yemeni troops recaptured a string of Al-Qaeda strongholds across the troubled south and east of the country where the faceless myrmidons had seized control last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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[Yemen Post] Yemen's Air Force carried several Arclight airstrikes targeting suspected Al-Qaeda positions and forces of Evil in Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... province on Wednesday, weeks after the army drive forces of Evil out of this province, local security sources said.
"Four Arclight airstrikes were carried out on suspected places and hideouts to where Al-Qaeda members sought shelter after the offensive which killed hundreds of them including big shots in the past few months," the sources said.
"About twenty forces of Evil were killed and injured amid the ongoing hunt to clear 'every single cut-thoat of Al-Qaeda' from Abyan and nearby provinces," they continued.
In the past few months, the army with direct support from the US and tribal fighters launched an offensive driving Al-Qaeda forces of Evil out of their strongholds, seized last year, including the capital Zinjibar and killing hundreds.
On Tuesday, Arclight airstrikes targeted forces of Evil and their cars in nearby province of Shabwa, where the forces continued to pursue the cut-thoats, who fled Abyan, killing many of them and regaining control of their key stronghold of Azzan.
Separately, the defense ministry said three soldiers and five civilians including two children were killed in a kaboom in the Amain district in the Lawder town of Abyan on Wednesday.
The bomb was believed to be one of the remnants of the war between the army and Al-Qaeda.
Dozens of civilians have been killed in landmine kabooms in the past few weeks when many displaced families started to return to their homes and villages.
The authorities, however, have warned the families not to rush coming back to Zinjibar until all landmines, which were planted by cut-thoats, are completely removed. More recently, the authorities sought help from the GCC countries to remove landmines to return the situation to normal in Abyan, saying the return of the displaced is a top priority.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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[Yemen Post] The defense ministry on Tuesday said the security authorities have nabbed Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! 14 Al-Qaeda suspects including 9 foreigners while planning to carry out terrorist attacks in Yemen.
The nabbed Stick 'em up, Greasy Thumb! , including four Egyptians, two Jordanians, a Somali, a Tunisian and two Caucasians, had planned to attack senior military and civil leaders as well as foreign interests in the country, it said.
"They were working under three terrorist cells and the largest was part of the gunnies who fought the army over the past few months in the south," it added. The ministry, however, did not give names or details about the arrest places and measures.
When the army launched a US-backed offensive against Al-Qaeda thugs, who seized key towns and declared them as Islamic emirates in the south last year, international reports and observers argued the latest developments have already been in favor of militancy in Yemen.
The army said foreigners were among those who were killed, injured and nabbed You have the right to remain silent... during the offensive.
The army drove Al-Qaeda gunnies out of their strongholds in Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... and Shabwa and has killed hundreds including big shots.
With support from the US and tribal fighters, the national forces are pursuing gunnies who beat feet from Abyan in nearby provinces, with many so far reported dead and nabbed You have the right to remain silent... in the past few weeks.
Last month, the authorities nabbed You have the right to remain silent... more than a dozen terrorist cells including the one behind the deadly suicide kaboom attack targeting a military parade rehearsal in the capital Sanaa in May.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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So nice that they are acting on their principles. No doubt the result will be exactly what those principles deserve.
[Saudi Gazette] A Swedish immigration official says a former Egyptian terror suspect who had once been handed over to the CIA and brought to Egypt has been granted permanent residency in the Scandinavian country.
Acting Migration Board General Director Mikael Ribbenvik says the decision to grant Ahmed Agiza residency was made Wednesday.
Agiza and fellow Egyptian Muhammed Alzery were handed over to U.S. agents at Bromma Airport in Stockholm and taken to Egypt in 2001. Their capture was part of a much-criticized program during the Bush administration, which flew alleged faceless myrmidons to countries that allowed harsh interrogation techniques.
Alzery was released in 2003 while Agiza was freed last year. Agiza is currently in Egypt and has been informed of the decision.
This article starring:
Ahmed Agiza
Muhammed Alzery
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Random and targeted armed attacks on Tuesday claimed the lives of four more people, including a policeman and two senior Pakistain People's Party workers, mostly in the city's district west as peace remains a distant dream for Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... ites amid unrelenting violence, said officials and party sources.
While police Sherlocks in each case believed that the victim's political and professional association cost them their lives, the deadly attacks sparked fear in densely-populated neighbourhoods where daily life came to a complete standstill with closure of shops and public transport remaining off the road.
Among the few volatile areas, Orangi Town again emerged as a hotspot where two people, including a senior PPP worker, were killed in a morning attack followed by firing incidents in the area.
Armed men riding a cycle of violence pulled up at a bakery in Sector 14 near Disco Morr and opened fire on the PPP worker, who had come there to buy breakfast, and the salesman. The attackers fled, leaving the two people dead.
"The dear departed were later identified as 37-year-old Shaheen Ahmad aka Shaheen Bihari and 55-year-old Mohammad Haroon," said an official at the Pakistain Bazaar cop shoppe.
He said it seemed that PPP worker Shaheen was the real target of attackers and bakery worker Haroon fell prey to intense firing.
The killings followed by random gunfire sparked panic and fear in the commercial area, as traders pulled down shutters and traffic on roads gradually turned thin. Sector 10, 11, 11 ½, 13, 14 and 16 wore a deserted look. While passing through the area, an auto-rickshaw driver sustained gunshot wounds in Sector 14-A near Fauji Hotel.
"He most probably came under fire that triggered after PPP worker's killing," said the official, adding that he was admitted to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where his condition was said to be critical. The victim remains unidentified.
As the PPP leaders and workers were gathering outside Shaheen Ahmad's home to offer their condolences, another senior party worker was killed in a targeted attack in the neighbouring Site Town.
"Armed men attacked 39-year-old Shakil Awan minutes after he left home in Qaimkhani Colony in Baldia Town," said an official at the Mochko cop shoppe. "He sustained three gunshot wounds and was struck down in his prime. He was a resident of the same area and most probably going to Orangi Town to offer condolences on fellow worker's killing."
A large number of PPP activists then gathered in Orangi and Baldia towns, chanting slogans against 'frequent' killings of party workers.
Father of five, Mr Awan was district west PPP youth wing president and Shaheen Ahmad was active party worker of Orangi Town's PS-94 constituency under the PPP's organizational structure. He was married and father of three.Rana Gulzar Taj, an area leader of the PPP who escaped an attack on his life in April, described the fresh incidents as "part of a conspiracy against the party to weaken its roots in one of its strongholds".
"At a time when the PPP leadership both at the province and national level is making efforts to establish peace in Bloody Karachi, myrmidons are targeting PPP workers just to provoke the ruling party and exploit the volatile situation," he said.
A young man was rubbed out in Muscati Muhallah of Orangi Town on Tuesday evening, police said.
They said that armed riders targeted 22-year-old Aman Baloch in the Faqeer Colony area within the remit of the Mominabad cop shoppe.
"The victim was a resident of Orangi Town and had come here to see a friend. The motive for murder is not yet clear," said an official at the Mominabad cop shoppe.
In another armed attack said to be linked with the recent killings of coppers, a head constable was bumped off in Nazimabad No 2.
Officials said 45-year-old Gulzar Ahmad Alvi was going to a bus stop to get a bus to his workplace as a matter of his routine when he was targeted.
"Two men riding a motorbike fired at him and sped away," said DSP Shahid Abbas, the area's sub-divisional police officer.
"The victim was posted in the security zone of the city police and going to his office situated near Hasan Square," he said.
The officer added that head constable Alvi was a resident of a Gulbahar locality. He said the killing could be linked to his being a policeman.
Fifty personnel and officers of the Sindh police are reported to have bit the dust during the first six months of the current year.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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Baghdad: A car bombing at a market in central Iraq killed eight people on Wednesday and three others were assassinated in Baghdad, the latest in a spike in nationwide unrest ahead of Shiite rituals.
The violence struck a day after a series of attacks across Iraq killed 38 amid preparations for ceremonies on Friday to commemorate the birth of a key figure in Shiite Islam.
In Wednesdays deadliest attack, a car bombing in the town of Zubaidiyah at 9:15 a.m. (0615 GMT) killed eight people and wounded 22 others, a security official and a medic at a hospital in nearby Aziziyah said. The medical official said a child was among the dead, and women and children were among the wounded.
In Baghdad, a series of morning assassinations with silenced pistols left three people dead two police officers and a parliament official. In one shooting, a policewoman was killed by gunshots to the head in the east of the capital, an interior ministry official and a medic at Al-Kindi hospital said.
In west Baghdad, an off-duty police first lieutenant, who was wearing civilian clothes, was killed, the interior ministry official and a doctor at Yarmuk hospital said. And an employee working at Iraqs parliament was gunned down in the north of the capital, the interior ministry official and a medic at Medical City hospital said.
A spate of violence across Iraq on Tuesday killed 38 people, including 26 who died when a truck packed with explosives detonated in a market in the central city of Diwaniyah.
The unrest comes just days before the culmination of Shiite commemorations to mark the birth of a central figure known as the 12th imam, with pilgrims who visit the shrine city of Karbala frequent targets of Sunni insurgents.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] The bodies of the two pilots of a Turkish jet that was downed by Syria on June 22 have been recovered at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean sea, Turkish military announced Wesnesday. "The bodies (of the two pilots) have been recovered in seabed and work is underway to bring them to surface," the general staff said on a statement posted on its website.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
A US Salvage ship (EV Nautilus)located the bodies.
Several Turkish officials were in the control room so Turkey claimed credit.
Posted by: lord garth ||
07/05/2012 7:26 Comments ||
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#2
OK, because I was really wondering if it was a modified-to-drone looking for their reason.
#3
Salvage ship or deep-sea oil field robot sub diverted/borrowed/side-contracted from the Israeli gas field work? It's not far away and they have to have such available there.
A Syrian general and a number of soldiers defected and crossed into Turkey on Wednesday, the 15th such high-ranking officer to flee the conflict-wracked nation, a Turkish diplomat said.
A total of 66 people fled into Turkey from Syria on Wednesday, including the general and two colonels as well as soldiers and their families, the diplomat told Agence La Belle France Presse on condition of anonymity.
Turkey has become home to dozens of soldiers who have crossed the border. Defectors have formed the Free Syrian Army in opposition to the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes...
Around 35,000 displaced Syrians have sought refuge in Turkey since the start of a bloody uprising in March 2011.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Syrian troops pounded several districts of the central city of Homs on Wednesday and clashed with rebels as at least 48 people were killed in violence across the country, activists and a watchdog said.
Regime forces killed 12 people in Daraa, nine in the countryside around Damascus ...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat... , eight in Idlib, seven 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... , five in Deir Ezzor, three in Homs, two in Damscus, one in Latakia and one in Hama, the opposition Local Coordination Committees reported.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime troops rained shells on the besieged, rebel-held district of Khaldiyeh in Homs, killing two civilians and wounding seven others.
It said living conditions in Khaldiyeh were deteriorating.
Other areas of Homs also saw fierce violence, as regime forces pounded the districts of Sultaniyeh and Jobar, where families trapped by the fighting "are like the living dead," an activist from the central city told Agence La Belle France Presse via Skype.
"Regime forces shell the Sultaniyeh and Jobar districts daily," said the activist, who identified himself as Abu Bakr.
"Life is down to a bare minimum," in the impoverished neighborhoods of Sultaniyeh and Jobar and the districts have been without electrical power for days, said Abu Bakr.
Most of the residents have fled but "families that remain here are like the living dead," he added.
"Usually you have four or five families huddling in a ground-floor apartment ready to flee when the shelling starts," he said.
Rebels and troops also clashed on Wednesday around the neighborhood of Baba Amr -- once a rebel held district which was reclaimed by the Syrian army in March after a month-long campaign of relentless shelling, Abu Bakr said.
"Free Syrian Army battalions are fighting regime troops every day around Baba Amr, trying to retake the district," he said.
Syrian troops and rebels also clashed at dawn at Jaramana, a suburb south of the capital, Damascus, the Britannia-based Observatory reported.
The fighting erupted near a branch of the feared air force intelligence service, the watchdog said.
Elsewhere, six non-combatants were killed in the northwestern province of Idlib, including four who were ambushed and killed by soldiers in the village of Maaret al-Numan, the site of frequent violence, the Observatory added.
Of those killed on Wednesday, four were rebels and the rest civilians, the Observatory said.
The latest deaths came a day after violence killed 69 people -- 36 civilians, 25 troops and eight rebels, the Observatory said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[An Nahar] Syria's Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... accused Turkey in an interview published Wednesday of giving logistical backing to Syrian "terrorists" and told Ankara to stop meddling in his country's affairs.
"Turkey's desire to interfere in Syria's internal affairs has put it in a position which unfortunately makes it a party to all the bloody activities" in Syria, he told the daily Cumhuriyet in an interview published Wednesday, the first part of which it published a day ago.
"Turkey has supplied all logistic support to the Death Eaters who have killed our people," said Assad, who has been waging a bloody crackdown since a popular uprising broke out in March last year.
More than 16,500 people, mostly civilians have been killed in the violence and Turkey, once a strong ally in the region, has severed ties with Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... and welcomed to its territory more than 35,000 Syrian refugees.
The uprising has increasingly turned into an armed conflict between the army and dissident soldiers who have notably joined the Free Syrian Army.
That force is being commanded from Turkey by Colonel Riad Assaad, who fled there with a large number of deserters.
Turkey has repeatedly denied that it allows attacks in Syria to be launched from its territory and insists it is not giving any support to the Free Syrian Army as alleged by Syria and reports in the foreign media.
The Syrian president further accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being motivated by "sectarian instincts."
Turkey, which shares a long border with Syria, is majority Sunni Moslem, like most Syrians, while the government in Damascus, the army and the ruling party are chiefly members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
In the first part of the interview with Cumhuriyet, Assad said he regretted that his country's defense forces shot down a Turkish fighter jet on June 22, but still insisted the plane was in Syrian airspace.
"I would have wished 100 percent that we had not attacked it," he said two weeks after the F-4 Phantom jet on a training mission was shot at and crashed into the Mediterranean off Syria.
But he said the plane was flying at low altitude and in an air corridor used in the past by the Israeli planes to attack Syria.
He also insisted the plane was in Syrian airspace, and not international airspace as maintained by Ankara.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2012 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.
Protesters from northern Mali demonstrated in the capital Wednesday against Islamists who have enforced strict sharia law, destroyed ancient shrines and trapped residents with landmines.
Nigeria's capital was on alert Wednesday after an 
The defense ministry on Tuesday said the security authorities have 
Random and targeted armed attacks on Tuesday claimed the lives of four more people, including a policeman and two senior Pakistain People's Party workers, mostly in the city's district west as peace remains a distant dream for 
cycle of violence
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[An Nahar] Syrian troops pounded several districts of the central city of Homs on Wednesday and clashed with rebels as at least 48 people were killed in violence across the country, activists and a watchdog said.
