[Dhaka Tribune] The Taliban executed five people in a busy opium market in Afghanistan's southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province and left their bodies hanging overnight after accusing them of kidnapping a businessman, officials told Rooters.
"We're the only ones 'round here that gets ta kidnap. Got it?"
"They can't answer ya, O mighty emir. Ya done hanged 'em already!"
The bad boy group has stepped up its fight for control of the southern region since June, launching a string of attacks on government buildings, seizing territory and imposing its brand of Islamic justice.
Thursday's public hanging, in the largely Taliban-controlled Kajaki district, was the second group execution reported in Helmand since the offensive began. "Five kidnappers ... were hanged to death by an order from the Islamic Emirate's prosecution authorities," a Taliban front man, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said in a text message.
"We hanged them in order to teach others a lesson."
Mass public executions, common when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996, ceased after the movement was ousted in the US-led invasion in 2001. But the Taliban's reach in strategic provinces like Helmand has grown since US and allied troops stepped up the pace of their withdrawal, under plans to hand over security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
British troops closed their last outpost in Helmand in May.
Tribal elder Abdul Ahad Mahsomi told Rooters the five bodies were left hanging in the area's main opium market until Friday afternoon.
More than half of Afghanistan's opium is produced in Helmand and its main highway is an import route for drug smugglers. Around 90% of the world's heroin is produced in Afghanistan and last year's crop was the highest on record, according to the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
Helmand's police front man said he believed the hanged men were innocent and were executed to punish civilians for failing to support the Taliban against the government.
"As they (the Taliban) are defeated in the battlefield they want to take Dire Revenge" on local people and create fear," said Shah Mohammad Ashna.
After months of intense fighting in Helmand's Sangin district, an Afghan special force commander said on Thursday he had started talks with Taliban to end the bloodshed.
Taliban fighters also kidnapped 13 people who had been working to clear mines in central Ghazni province and were travelling to the capital Kabul late on Friday, officials said.
"We have already spoken to elders in the area to use their influence and speak to the Taliban to release them," Shafiq Nang Safi a front man for provincial governor said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
I think its a proxy war Afghanistan versus Pakistan at the moment.
Posted by: Paul D ||
08/17/2014 5:57 Comments ||
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#2
I think its a proxy war Afghanistan versus Pakistan at the moment.
Semi-proxy at best, surely, Paul D. ;-) Afghanistan is standing in only for itself in this one.
[Tolo News] At least 16 Taliban holy warriors including their top leader were killed in a joint Afghan cops operation in southern Zabul province on Friday, local officials said.
Nine other holy warriors were maimed in the operations.
The operation was launched in Meezan and Naw Bahar districts of the province to clear of krazed killers, in which 16 Taliban holy warriors including their top leader Mullah Abdul Ghafoor were killed, said Ghulaam Sakhil Rogh Lewanai, Zabul police chief.
He said the Afghan cops will soon launch another military operation in Chopan, Naw Bahar and Shajoy districts of the province to rid the area of krazed killers.
There were no civilian and Afghan casualties during the operations.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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[ARABNEWS] Heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual name-calling or slapsy... erupted on Saturday between rival militias in Libya's capital, hours after the new UN special envoy said he planned to visit Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... as early as next week to try to broker a cease-fire.
Gunfire and shelling with Grad rockets ...Soviet-developed 122-mm rockets, usually launched from trucks. Newer versions are reported to have a range of up to 30 km.... and artillery guns could be heard from the early morning near the airport and several residential parts of Tripoli.
Spanish diplomat Bernardino Leon, who is due to start his job officially on Sept. 1, aims to end fighting between brigades from Misrata and fighters allied to the western town of Zintan, whose rivalries erupted a month ago into the worst festivities since the 2011 uprising that ousted Muammar Qadaffy ...a proud Arab institution for 42 years, now among the dear departed, though not the dearest...
The battles, which involve brigades of former rebels who once fought Qadaffy together, have forced the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... and Western governments to evacuate their diplomats, fearing Libya is sliding into civil war.
Most of the fighting has raged over the international airport in Tripoli, which fighters from Zintan have controlled since sweeping into the capital during the 2011 war.
Libya's fragile government still has no national army and often put former rebels on the state payroll as semi-official security forces as a way to co-opt them into the new state.
But the heavily armed rival brigades are allied with competing political factions and are often more loyal to their region, city or local commanders than to the central government.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Apparently fighting over who'll be the honor guard.
[IsraelTimes] Chadian troops have rescued around 85 Nigerians kidnapped by 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 last weekend from fishing communities in Nigeria's extreme northeast, security and human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. sources said Saturday.
Nearly 100 young men and several women were snatched in a raid by bully boyz late on Sunday and ferried across the border into Chad, witnesses said.
The raid on Doron Baga, a fishing village on the shores of Lake Chad, left 28 people dead and scores of homes burned, according to residents.
"We received communication from our Chadian counterparts of the interception of a convoy of buses carrying 85 Nigerians believed to have been kidnapped by Boko Haram Death Eaters from Baga," a security bigshot in Maiduguri told AFP.
Boko Haram, which wants to create an Islamic state in mainly Moslem northern Nigeria, has been accused of kidnapping hundreds of people in the northeast to use as conscripts, wives and slaves.
"The convoy being led by six Boko Haram gunnies was stopped on the Chadian part of the border along Lake Chad for routine checks and the huge number of people in the convoy raised suspicion," he said.
The suspects have given conflicting information on the hostages they were accompanying and their destination, added the source, who asked not to be named.
An official of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in Maiduguri said 65 men and 22 women had been rescued in the operation, but said more than 30 are still suspected to be held by the bully boys.
The turbans sped off in motorboats when they sighted the convoy being interrogated by soldiers, said the official, on condition of anonymity.
The rescued villagers are being kept in jug by Chadian authorities, and it was not clear when they will be brought back to Nigeria.
Boko Haram, which wants to create an Islamic state in mainly Moslem northern Nigeria, has been accused of kidnapping hundreds of people in the northeast to use as conscripts, wives and slaves.
The April 14 abduction of the schoolgirls from the remote Borno town of Chibok drew unprecedented international attention to the conflict and offers of help from Western powers.
Forced conscription by Boko Haram is also becoming an increasing problem in neighbouring Cameroon ...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there... , where authorities say hundreds of young men and boys have been press-ganged by turbans near their strongholds in the north of the country.
More than 2,000 people have been killed and nearly 650,000 displaced this year by Boko Haram, the deadliest toll since its insurgency began in 2009.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Suspected ex-rebels from the Central African Republic's Seleka ...a 'mainly' Moslem rebel force in the Central African Republic that overthrew the govt, imposed a regime of rapine and looting on the country's non-Moslem population, and was then tossed by France. They still exist, getting funding and weapons from somewhere or other, licking their wounds, complaining about the oppression of Moslems, and occasionally raping and looting someone... movement massacred at least 34 people in several northern villages over the past three days, an officer in the African peacekeeping force MISCA told Agence La Belle France Presse on Saturday.
"Armed men identified by inhabitants as ex-Seleka and armed (ethnic) Fulanis" carried out the killings in the M'bres region from Wednesday through Friday, the officer said on condition of anonymity.
He said fleeing residents spoke of the attackers "firing on their victims at pointblank range and chasing them into the bush. Some of the victims died by hanging, others were beaten or tortured to death".
One resident who fled, Achille Ketegaza, confirmed that account to AFP, saying: "The attackers arrived by foot and on cycle of violences. They fired pointblank at anybody they encountered.
"They said they were going to 'clean' eight villages between M'bres, Ndele and Bakala before September 15," when a U.N. force is to be deployed to the country, Ketegaza said, pleading for help from MISCA and French forces in the country.
The attacks are the latest breach of an extremely fragile ceasefire signed in late July in the Congo capital Brazzaville that sought to curb the ethnic and religious violence that has ravaged the Central African Republic over the past 18 months.
Transitional President Catherine Samba Panza last week appointed a new interim prime minister, Mahamat Kamoun, to lead a new broad-based government with the task of ending the chaos and overseeing a democratic transition in the deeply poor landlocked nation.
But Seleka, an alliance of mostly Moslem groups which controls parts of the north, has said it will not participate in the new government.
Riven by factions and rivalries, columns of armed Seleka vehicles continue to scour the vast forests and savannahs of the region. Some of these groups -- particularly those containing Chadian and Sudanese mercenaries -- are accused of brutal attacks on civilians, especially along the edge of their zone of control.
Seleka members have been present for several months in the M'bres region. In June, nine villages reported summary executions, robberies and torture at the hands of their militias.
The group triggered the cycle of violence in March 2013 when it seized power. Its leader, Michel Djotodia, was president for nine months before having to step down under strong international pressure after many Seleka fighters refused to disband and carried out atrocities against civilians.
A mostly Christian militia called the "anti-balaka" (anti-machete) rose to counter the rogue Seleka fighters, but they also committed serious crimes against civilians.
Some 2,000 French peacekeeping troops were deployed alongside an 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... military force of around 6,000 men from December last year.
Several incidents have threatened to derail the ceasefire signed on July 23. The most violent took place in the northern town of Batanfago, where French forces repelled a Seleka attack, leaving around 60 rebels dead.
Around 80 percent of the population is Christian, while 15 percent practice Islam, according to a U.S. State Department survey in 2010.
[ARABNEWS] Eleven people have been sentenced to prison terms ranging between four and 18 years for their involvement in anti-government activities, issuing religious rulings against the country's leaders, luring people to fight in combat zones abroad, training on weaponry and learning how to use explosives with the aim of launching suicide kabooms.
The Court of Appeals in Riyadh upheld the verdicts, which were issued by a special criminal court.
The sentences varied depending on the severity of the crime committed, the Saudi Press Agency reported Thursday.
Convicts will be banned from traveling outside the Kingdom for a period equal to their prison terms following their release, in addition to being liable to pay fines.
Charges also included forgery of travel documents and money-laundering, the report said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] QUETTA: Twelve bad boyz were potted and 11 security personnel injured in Thursday night's abortive attacks on the PAF's Samungli base and the army aviation's Khalid base.
Fearing arrest, some of the attackers blew themselves up when besieged by security forces. Others were killed in the hours-long shootout.
All of them are believed to be foreigners, most probably Uzbeks. Terrorists of same origin are believed to have been involved in this year's audacious attack on Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... airport and an assault on Karachi's Mehran naval base in 2011.
"We killed all murderous Moslems before they could enter the bases," the Commander of Southern Command, Lt Gen Mohammad Nasir Khan Janjua, told news hounds on Friday. Reporters were shown the bodies of murderous Moslems and arms and ammunition found on their bodies.
"No terrorist managed to enter the air bases. All installations are safe and intact," Lt-Gen Janjua said, adding that all attackers were foreigners, probably Uzbek.
He said the well-planned twin attacks were simultaneously launched between 9.30pm and 10pm to divide security forces.
Three murderous Moslems blew themselves up when security forces surrounded them. Their bodies were found near the first fence of the boundary of an air base.
Nine others were killed in the shootout which lasted several hours.
Quetta airport remained safe during the attacks and an ensuing search operation near Samungli air base. No plane was parked at the airport when murderous Moslems carried out the raids.
However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... fight operation resumed on Friday noon after security forces cleared Samungli and Khalid air bases and announced an end to the search operation.
Sources said the attackers had come in two vehicles and carried heavy weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, bombs and landmines.
A group of murderous Moslems entered the Khalid base area after cutting the fence and fired rockets.
At the same time, the other group launched an attack at Samungli airbase by lobbing rockets and grenades. They tried to enter the air base through a rainstorm drain, but security forces foiled the attempt.
The murderous Moslems fired rocket and hurled grenades during the fight with security forces.
Sources said security forces -- including police, Anti-Terrorist Force, Frontier Corps and Balochistan ...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... Constabulary -- rushed to the area, took positions and fired back at the attackers, using heavy weapons.
At Khalid air base, army troops pinned down the attackers inside the first fence wall. Two murderous Moslems blew themselves up and four others were killed by security forces.
The shootout and ensuing search operation continued till the morning.
The rockets fired by the murderous Moslems did not land in the air bases where fighter jets, helicopters and other planes were parked. "Rockets went kaboom! in the open area outside the bases," a police official said.
Sources said attackers also made a successful attempt to blow up a checkpost of Samungli airbase.
According to Lt Gen Janjua, security forces had been alert in view of intelligence that an assault was likely. "The information was provided by common people, which shows that masses are in the front line in the fight against terrorism," he said.
In reply to a question, he said according to evidences collected so far, 12 murderous Moslems were involved in the two attacks and all of them were killed. "Six bad boyz were potted in Samungli air base area and six others near Khalid air base," Lt Gen Janjua said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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#4
Funny how we started off with most of our ops support in OEF north side coming from bases in Uzbekistan. The sending their jihadi boys south for OJT?
[AnNahar] Suspected rebels rubbed out two paramilitary troopers in Indian Kashmire in the third holy warrior assault on government forces in a week in the restive Himalayan region, police said.
Gunmen attacked a vehicle carrying Border Security Force (BSF) troops near a military airport just south of Srinagar, the main city in Moslem-majority Indian Kashmire.
"Two BSF personnel got martyred (killed) and two were maimed in the attack," police inspector general Abdul Gani Mir told Agence La Belle France Presse, adding the gunnies fled immediately afterwards.
The assault marked the third attack by suspected forces of Evil on government forces in a week.
The first occurred last Monday, on the eve of a visit by India's new Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi to Ladakh in the north of the disputed territory which is also claimed by Pakistain.
Gunmen raked a paramilitary vehicle with fire, seriously injuring seven paramilitary border guards.
On Wednesday, the day after Modi's visit during which he addressed Indian troops stationed in the heavily militarized region, gunnies killed two Indian coppers and a civilian.
Since 1989, fighting between Indian forces and about a dozen rebel groups seeking independence or a merger of the territory with Pakistain has left tens of thousands, mostly civilians, dead.
Modi, in his speech in Ladakh accused Pakistain of "waging a proxy war of terrorism" by dispatching forces of Evil to fight against India. Pakistain regularly denies such allegations.
Kashmire is divided between Indian and Pakistain by a de-facto border known as the Line of Control or LoC and controlled separately by the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals.
The nations have fought three wars, two over Kashmire, since 1947 when the subcontinent was partitioned at independence from Britannia.
The insurgency and long-running rivalry with Pakistain has made Indian Kashmire one of the world's tensest regions. There are an estimated half a million troops deployed in Indian Kashmire.
Violence has fallen in the region since 2004 when the two countries began a grinding of the peace processor, but there are sporadic rebel attacks on government forces while the region's residents often accuse government forces of human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... abuses.
[Iran Press TV] The US military confirms it has conducted Arclight airstrikes against ISIL in northern Iraq near Erbil and around the djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... dam to help Peshmerga Kurdish forces to retake the dam from krazed killers.
The ISIL terrorist group, which is operating in Iraq and Syria, captured Iraq's largest dam earlier this month, raising concerns that the turbans could attempt to flood cities and cut off vital water and electricity supplies.
"The nine air strikes conducted thus far destroyed or damaged four armored personnel carriers, seven armed vehicles, two Humvees and an armored vehicle," the US Central Command said in a statement issued on Saturday.
CENTCOM "conducted these strikes under authority to support humanitarian efforts in Iraq, as well as to protect US personnel and facilities," it added. "All aircraft exited the strike areas safely."
On August 7, US President Barack Obama Republicans can come along for the ride, but they've got to sit in the back... authorized the use of force against ISIL and later promised to continue Arclight airstrikes for as long as "necessary" to prevent the advance of ISIL in northern Iraq.
Obama said that Arclight airstrikes could go on for months to protect both US personnel and the Izadi religious minority who were trapped by the turbans on the mountain in northern Iraq.
On Saturday, Obama said US Arclight airstrikes broke the siege of Izadi Kurds by ISIL murderous Moslems in northern Iraq.
Thousands of Izadis were trapped on Mount Sinjar without food and water after fleeing the advance of ISIL. They were at risk of dying from dehydration and starvation atop the mountain as turbans had vowed to kill them if they descended.
In an interview with Press TV on August 12, American antiwar activist Joe Iosbaker said the US invokes the doctrine of humanitarian intervention to advance its corporate interests.
"The US has used the claim that this is a humanitarian mission to save religious minorities, including Christians. The B.O. regime has no impulse to save religious minorities in Syria from the same fate however. How could this be that the border between Iraq and Syria is some kind of demarcation point for the US government's humanitarian actions?" Iosbaker stated.
"Of course, humanitarian intervention is just one of the ruses used by the spin doctors in the White House to justifying their actions," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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#3
Amazing that I agree with Obama - in Syria pretty much all the fighting parties are bad, and there's no practical way to intervene on behalf of the poor, persecuted religious minorities - sucks to be them.
In Iraq however, we can provide help to the Kurds, which can be of some benefit to their poor, persecuted minorities - still sucks to be them, but not quite as much.
[DAWN] Jihadists carried out a "massacre" in the northern Iraqi village of Kocho, killing dozens of people, most of them members of the Yazidi religious minority, officials said on Saturday.
Jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) group are carrying out attacks against minorities in Iraq's Nineveh province, prompting tens of thousands of people to flee.
"We have information from multiple sources, in the region and through intelligence, that (on Friday) afternoon, a convoy of (IS) gunnies entered this village," senior Iraqi official Hoshyar Zebari told AFP.
"They took their Dire Revenge™ on its inhabitants, who happened to be mostly Yazidis who did not flee their homes," Zebari said, referring to a religious community regarded as heretics by jihadists.
"They committed a massacre against the people," he said. "Around 80 of them have been killed."
Harim Kamal Agha, a bigwig of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party in Dohuk province, which borders Nineveh, put the corpse count at 81 and said the holy warriors had taken women to prisons they control.
And Mohsen Tawwal, a Yazidi fighter, told AFP by telephone that he saw a large number of bodies in the village.
"We made it into a part of Kocho village, where residents were under siege, but we were too late," he said.
"There were corpses everywhere. We only managed to get two people out alive. The rest had all been killed."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] A roadside kabooming Saturday killed the engineer tasked with repairing a key bridge on the main highway north of Baghdad, which jihadists destroyed last month, army and medical sources said.
"Three people were killed and 11 others maimed by a roadside kaboomkaboom targeting their bus," a senior army officer told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"All of them were technicians from the roads and bridges department in Samarra," he said.
They were repairing a bridge just south of Samarra, whose destruction cut a vital supply line for the army, crippling operations farther north.
"Among the killed was the engineer supervising the repairs," a medical source said.
The July 29 attack on the bridge left the army and allied Shiite militias with only a secondary road that passes over Samarra dam bridge and is not suitable for the heaviest military vehicles.
Samarra, 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of Baghdad, is a mainly Sunni city but also home to the Askari shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
hey now...
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2014 10:19 Comments ||
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#2
ISIS has threatened to raze the Askari mosque, IIRC.
[AnNahar] Kurdish forces backed by U.S. warplanes battled Saturday to retake Iraq's largest dam from Islamic State jihadist fighters, whose latest atrocity was a massacre in a Yazidi village.
Two months of violence have brought Iraq to the brink of breakup, and world powers relieved by the exit of long-time premier Nuri al-Maliki were flying aid to the displaced and arms to the Kurds.
Kurdish forces attacked the IS fighters who wrested the djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... dam from them a week earlier, a general told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"Kurdish peshmerga, with U.S. air support, have seized control of the eastern side of the dam" complex, Major General Abdelrahman Korini told AFP, saying several jihadists had been killed.
Buoyed by the air strikes U.S. President Barack Obama Jedi mind meld... ordered last week, the peshmerga have tried to claw back the ground they lost since the start of August.
The dam on the Tigris provides electricity to much of the region and is crucial to irrigation in vast farming areas in Nineveh province.
The recapture of Mosul dam would be one of the most significant achievements in a fightback that is also getting international material support.
A day after the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... foreign ministers encouraged the bloc's member countries to send arms to the Kurds, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Iraq.
Steinmeier, whose country hosts the largest Yazidi diaspora in the West, visited the autonomous region to assess the needs of the displaced and the peshmerga.
Fear of an impending genocide against the Yazidi minority, whose faith is anathema to the Sunni Moslem bully boys, was one reason Washington cited for air strikes it began on August 8.
Obama declared the Mount Sinjar siege over on Thursday, but vulnerable civilians remain in areas taken by the jihadists.
In Kocho, senior Kurdish official Hoshyar Zebari said the jihadists "took their Dire Revenge™ on its inhabitants, who happened to be mostly Yazidis who did not flee their homes".
Human rights groups and residents say IS fighters have demanded that villagers in the Sinjar area convert or leave, unleashing violent reprisals on any who refused.
A bigwig of one of Iraq's main Kurdish parties said 81 people had bit the dust in the Friday attack, while a Yazidi activist said the corpse count could be even higher.
The village lies near the northwestern town of Sinjar, which the jihadists stormed on August 3 sending tens of thousands of civilians, many of them Yazidi Kurds, fleeing into the mountains to the north.
They hid there for days with little food or water.
Mohsen Tawwal, a Yazidi fighter, said he saw a large number of bodies in Kocho on Friday.
"We made it into a part of Kocho village, where residents were under siege, but we were too late," he told AFP by telephone.
"There were corpses everywhere. We only managed to get two people out alive. The rest had all been killed."
The Pentagon announced that U.S. drones had struck an IS convoy leaving the village on Friday after receiving reports that residents were under attack.
The outcome of the latest U.S. strike was not immediately clear.
Amnesia Amnesty International, which has been documenting mass abductions in the Sinjar area, says IS has kidnapped thousands of Yazidis since it launched its offensive in the region on August 3.
Members of the Christian, Turkmen and other minorities have also been affected by the violence.
In New York, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution aimed at weakening the jihadists, who control large areas of neighboring Syria as well as of Iraq.
The resolution "calls on all member states to take national measures to suppress the flow of foreign terrorist fighters", and threatens sanctions against anyone involved in their recruitment.
When jihadist forces began their Iraq offensive on June 9, Kurdish peshmerga forces initially fared better than retreating federal soldiers, but the U.S.-made weaponry abandoned by government troops turned IS into an even more formidable foe.
They were able to sweep through the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad in early June, encountering little effective resistance.
Many in and outside Iraq say the Shiite-led government was partly to blame by pushing sectarian policies that have marginalized and radicalized the Sunni minority.
Outgoing premier Nuri al-Maliki was seen as an obstacle to any progress, and his announcement on Thursday that he was abandoning his efforts to cling to power was welcomed with a sigh of relief at home and abroad.
In another potentially game-changing development, 25 Sunni tribes in the western province of Anbar, including some that had previously been on the fence, announced on Friday that they were launching a coordinated effort to oust IS fighters.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Better to not have lost it in the first place. We really needed Iraq just in the time it was being surrendered to whatever.
I will not look a gif horse in the mouth, but good work in getting this asset back.
#4
Why wouldn't they blow it and blame the US for it? I'm still scratching my head we're providing air support instead of A-10's to the kurds. Hell, we're getting rid of them anyway, might as well make a damn profit while helping an ally.
Posted by: Charles ||
08/17/2014 10:42 Comments ||
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#5
(1) Let's all just remember, the use of large bombs near an earth-filled dam is contra-indicated.
(2) The zoomies in the Air Force would never allow the use of A10's; it would show that they're useful, and probably be the end of the F35 contract (it's supposed to be the
ground attack bird, remember?)
(3) When the "leader" of your ally is considered to be an impediment to winning, it does not bode well long term.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/17/2014 13:12 Comments ||
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#6
The Kurds could use A-10's. Why put them all in the Arizona desert.
#7
AFAIC Globalist Obama remains primarily concerned wid empowering Globie-desired, future OWG Co-Superpower Iran - HIS ACTIONS IN IRAQ, SYRIA = BABY ASSAD, + LEBANON, OR LACK OF SAME, IS DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY LINKED TO SHIA IRAN BECOMING THE DOMINANT US-STYLE MILPOL NUCLEAR POWER, OR ONE OF THEM, IN ANY FUTURE OWG GLOBAL FED UNION(S).
As per the so-called "SUNNI AWAKENING/SPRING", or perhaps more accurately "SUNNI RE-AWAKENING" VEE CO-SUPERPOWER SHIA IRAN, personally I'm more concerned about what Sunni State(s) the Bammer + Globies may empower as offset or hedge as Sunni Co-Superpower(s) agz Co-Superpower Shia Iran.
Sunday, August 17, the 41st day of Operation Protective Edge. A five-day truce began amid rocket fire midnight Wednesday, but held through Thursday, Friday and Saturday. An 11-point Egyptian ceasefire proposal, leaked to the press on Friday, was rejected by Hamas leaders Saturday. Negotiators are due back in Cairo Sunday
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/17/2014 05:13 ||
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[IsraelTimes] An Israeli man in his 40s was hospitalized with moderate injuries Saturday night, after his car was hit by a Molotov cocktail in the West Bank south of Jerusalem.
The IDF dispatched troops to the area — near the Paleostinian village of Husan near the Betar Illit settlement.
The driver, whose car was also hit by stones, received treatment from Magen David Adom and was taken to Hadassah Hospital at Ein Kerem for further treatment.
The Molotov cocktail set the car ablaze, Channel 2 reported.
An MDA paramedic said the victim was stable, but had a wound to the head and second degree burns.
There were no immediate arrests.
Unconfirmed reports also said shots were fired at the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, near Nablus. There were no immediate reports of injuries, and IDF troops were dispatched to the scene.
[ARABNEWS] Syrian rebels on Saturday were defending Marea, one of their main strongholds in the north, against a rapid advance by holy warriors, a monitoring group and an activist said.
The opposition Syrian National Council in exile called for the international community to attack Islamic State positions not only in northern Iraq but also in Syria.
IS fighters were nearing the towns of Marea and Aazaz, both bastions of rebel groups battling Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... 's regime, after seizing a number of villages in Aleppo province bordering Turkey in just three days.
If the jihadists manage to take the strategic towns, this could deal a severe blow to rebel groups battling both regime forces and the IS.
"There is fierce fighting on Saturday between rebels and the IS around Marea," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.
Marea is the main base of the coalition Islamic Front, the most important rebel grouping that is fighting both Assad's troops and the jihadists.
"The pressure is now on Marea, militarily," said activist Abu Omar, front man for the Marea "revolutionary council."
"The rebels have sent in many reinforcements and weapons to the area in and around Marea," he told AFP, speaking via the Internet.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
The Syriabn army does not attack IS areas and IS attack other jihadi groups.
Is it a Syrian/Baath creation?
Posted by: Paul D ||
08/17/2014 2:23 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] Arab Tawhid Party ... a Leb political party established by former minister, MP, and Syrian stooge Weaam Wahhab in 2006. Supporters of the party are mainly Druze and it is a part of the March 8 (Hezbollah) Alliance. A bomb exploded outside a party office in the Chouf in 2012. , led by former minister Wiam Wahhab, mourned on Saturday the death of a Syrian member who died "while resisting to an armed attack" in the neighboring country's town of Dama.
"With pride, we mourn our dear martyr Naji Abou Shakra who hails from Dama in Syria," the party announced in a statement.
We salute the soul of Abou Shakra and all his fellow deaders who died defending our people in Dama and the nation, the statement said.
The party also mourned other "deaders who are Adham Faraj, Adham al-Jaramani and Nawraj al-Safadi who died defending their village," without indicating which town they hailed from.
In November 2013, the Arab Tawhid Party announced for the first time the death of members involved in the Syrian war, noting that they died in Aran village of Mount Hermon.
Many Lebanese have taken part in the ongoing civil war in neighboring Syria, particularly Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... members as party chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... has repeatedly assured that he will not withdraw fighters before exterminating the takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... threat.
[AnNahar] Jihadists have killed over 700 tribal members in eastern Syria, monitors said Saturday, and are battling to seize a northern rebel bastion, sparking an appeal for an Iraq-style Western intervention.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Islamic State (IS) jihadists have carried out the killings over the past two weeks in oil-rich Deir Ezzor province which the group mostly controls.
Among the members of the Shaitat tribe killed were 100 fighters, but the rest were civilians, the Britannia-based monitoring group said.
They were killed in Ghranij, Abu Hamam and Kashkiyeh villages, said the Observatory, which relies on a vast network of activists and medics on the ground for its information.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said the fate of 1,800 other members of the Sunni Moslem tribe was unknown.
Fighting between the jihadists and the tribe erupted after a deal between them collapsed, with the Shaitat refusing to bow to IS authority.
The IS has captured most of Deir Ezzor and declared it to be part of its "caliphate," along with large swathes of territory it has captured across the border in Iraq.
The Observatory said the Shaitat had vowed not to oppose the IS, in exchange for the jihadists not harassing or attacking its members.
But the IS had detained three members of the tribe, "violating" the agreement.
In northern Syria, rebels on Saturday were defending one of their main strongholds near the Turkish border against a rapid IS advance, the Observatory and an activist said.
The opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC), meanwhile, called for the US military to carry out air strikes on IS positions not only in northern Iraq but also in Syria.
IS fighters were nearing the towns of Marea and Aazaz, held by rebel groups battling Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... 's regime, after seizing a number of villages in Aleppo province.
"The pressure is now on Marea, militarily," said activist Abu Omar, front man for the town's "revolutionary council".
"The rebels have sent in many reinforcements and weapons to the area in and around Marea," he told Agence La Belle France Presse, speaking via the Internet.
"The rebels consider this to be one of the most important battles against the IS... There's no question of losing," he added.
Abu Omar said the jihadist group, which is also currently being targeted by U.S. air strikes as it battles Western-backed Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, is using heavy weaponry it seized when it routed the Iraqi army in June.
At a news conference on Saturday in Gaziantep, southeast Turkey, SNC leader Hadi al-Bahra appealed for Western intervention, after previous requests for military aid against regime forces were thwarted.
"In the name of humanity, I call on the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... and all countries which believe in freedom, starting with the United States, to take action in Syria the same way as it did in Iraqi Kurdistan," he said.
"The causes are the same, the enemy is the same, and double standards should not apply," said the leader of the exiled opposition group.
The Marea battle comes after IS fighters took control of around 10 nearby villages on Wednesday and Thursday, the Observatory said.
It said the fate of dozens of rebels captured during the jihadist offensive remained unknown after nine had their heads chopped off on Wednesday and another eight on Saturday in Akhtarin.
Taking the towns of Marea and Aazaz would cut supply lines to rebel groups.
Aazaz, next to a border crossing with Turkey, would be a valuable asset for IS as it seeks to expand its self-declared "caliphate" in the territories it holds in Syria and Iraq.
IS emerged from al-Qaeda's one-time branch in Iraq, and initially fought alongside Syria's opposition, including more moderate rebels and other Islamist fighters.
But its abuses and harsh brand of religion prompted a backlash from rebel groups that pushed it out of many opposition-held areas earlier this year.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/17/2014 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.
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Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
