Commander Kaftar, an armed Afghan woman says she leading a group of armed men to defeat the Taliban and defend the country.
Commander Kaftar, means commander Dove, is fighting the Taliban for years in Nahrin district in northern Baghlan.
She is the only female commander that led armed men in the war against soviets. Currently she is providing security of her area.
"If Taliban come to my area, I will see them with this cute gun," she told TOLOnews in Kabul. "I and my men continue to defend Nahrin."
She said however that she had no expectation from the government.
Her colleagues say they are happy with their commander.
They asked the government to give their commander a role in the government.
"The government must give commander Kaftar the same role it has given the other Jihadi figures," said Zarbaigum Sarwary, a female colleague of commander Kaftar.
An Afghan Taliban faction group that opposed Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour as Mullah Omar's successor has elected their new leader, who the dissident faction says, was a close aid of late supreme leader of Taliban.
The splinter group announced Monday that Mullah Mohammad Rasool Akhund – who refused to pledge allegiance to Mansour – is their new leader, causing deep divisions in the insurgency.
However there is no immediate response from the Afghan Taliban to either confirm or reject the announcement – which is believed to be the first public and official division of the group.
The division emerged when the death of Mullah Omar was revealed this year in July. The news came two years late the death of Mullah Omar – which was hidden from many high-ranking Taliban members.
"We tried our level best to save the Taliban movement from disintegration but after Mansoor's refusal to step down ... we finally parted ways with him and chose our own emir," NBC News quoted a senior member of the rival faction as saying.
"Akhund is our new emir. He will now lead the Mujahideen to continue their fight against the U.S.-led foreign forces and the Afghan security troops," the source told NBC News.
The Afghan government however denied commenting in this regard.
The 50-yeard-old Akhund hails from the birthplace of the Afghan Taliban in Kandahar province, according to the source.
Another member of the faction told NBC News that their new leader was an "old and trusted friend" of the late Mullah Omar.
"He spent 10 years with Mullah Omar... and remained close to him even after the fall of Taliban regime," the source said.
Akhund repeatedly served as Taliban's shadow governor for Nimroz and Farah provinces after the group was ousted in 2001.
According to Tunisia's interior ministry ISIS in Libya has been preparing training camps near Tunisia's borders.
Walid al-Loukini, an advisor to the interior minister, tells the London based al-Hayat newspaper, that ISIS in Libya "has the same potential possessed by the group in Syria and Iraq", adding that ISIS fighters are proficient in guerrilla warfare.
al-Loukini added "Tunisian security and military units have the necessary preparedness to confront the growing threat posed on Tunisia".
The Tunisian prime minister, Habib Essid, warned earlier that ISIS has been approaching the southern borders of his country, calling on the international community "to confront the threat of terrorism, which threatens the whole region".
Posted by: badanov ||
11/03/2015 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Darth Vlad's airstrikes have been blamed for allegedly causing mucho ISIS Fighters to leave Syria for Libya + North Africa, where they are in position to establish a new ISIS front for the entire North Africa region.
Lest we fergit, LUCIANNE = the US is repor setting up a rough, infrastructure-led line demarcation all across Central Africa, ostensibly from Liberia to Ethiopia, separating or dividing heavily Islamist-troubled North Africa from the mainly-untouched southern former Euro-Colonies???
May have been bird in the jet engine intake, may have been a bomb in the bathroom. Eventually something will be revealed.
[AlAhram] Plane broke apart in midair; external impact suspected but flight recorders show jet wasn't struck from outside; there is no direct evidence of terrorism; plane was in 'excellent' condition yet it had been previously damaged
A Russian passenger jet crashed in Egypt's Sinai on Saturday, killing all 224 people on board. The plane was travelling from Sharm El-Sheikh to St Petersburg in Russia.
Since the crash, both Russian and Egyptian officials have released a number of statements on the probable cause of the crash.
The statements, at times conflicting, are mainly speculative, since the black boxes have yet to be decoded.
The following points are taken from official statements so far:
1) The plane broke apart in midair
Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee Chief Viktor Sorochenko said on Sunday that "the disintegration [of the plane] happened in the air and the fragments are strewn over a large area."
Sorochenko was quoted by RIA-Novosti news agency while in Cairo, where he is part of an international panel of experts from Russia, Egypt, La Belle France and Ireland who are looking into the accident.
2) The pilot did not make contact with the air traffic control
Pilot Ayman El-Mokadem, who heads a separate Egyptian committee to determine the cause of the crash, made initial statements on Saturday to the effect that the pilot sensed technical failure and reported it to the air traffic controllers.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... since then both Egypt's civil aviation minister and Russian officials have denied that the pilot made any emergency calls.
3) The plane was in "excellent" condition
Alexander Smirnov, deputy general director of the airline, Kogalymavia, to which the jet belonged, said at a Monday presser in Moscow that: "the plane was in excellent condition."
The Irish Aviation Authority also said on Monday the plane was registered in Ireland, and regulators there found its safety documentation in order earlier this year, AP reported.
The Airbus A321 was owned by Irish firm Willmington Trust SP Services (Dublin) Ltd and leased to Russian airline Metrojet.
The aviation authority said that because the plane was Irish-registered, "in April/May 2015, the Irish Aviation Authority conducted an annual review of the aircraft certifications in support of its annual Certificate of Airworthiness renewal process and all certifications were satisfactory at that point in time."
4) The plane was previously damaged
Kogalymavia's deputy general director for engineering, Andrei Averyanov, said on Monday that in 2001 the plane's tail section had struck the tarmac on landing but was later fully repaired.
Ayeryanov said that the 2001 incident could not have been a factor in the crash.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... previous damage to a plane, even if repaired, could in rare circumstances cause a plane to crash, even decades later.
5) The only possible explanation is an external impact
"We rule out a technical fault of the plane or a pilot error," said Smirnov on Monday. "The only possible explanation could be an external impact on the airplane," he added.
But when pressed for more details about the type of impact and what could have caused it, Smirnov insisted that he was not at liberty to discuss details because the investigation was ongoing, AP reported.
He also did not explain whether he meant something had hit the plane or that some external factor caused the crash.
6) Flight recorders show the jet was not struck from outside
The Russian plane was not struck from the outside, a source in the committee analysing the flight recorders told Rooters on Monday, basing his comments on the preliminary examination of the black boxes recovered from the Airbus A321.
7) There is no direct evidence of terrorism yet
US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Monday he knew of no "direct evidence" that terrorism was to blame for the weekend plane crash of a Russian passenger plane in Egypt, AFP reported.
Speaking at a Washington defence summit, Clapper said it was "unlikely" that the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group had the capacity to carry out such an attack, but added "I wouldn't rule it out."
"We don't have any direct evidence of a terrorist element yet," he said.
8) No cause should be ruled out
There are not yet any grounds to rule out any single theory, the Kremlin's front man Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, replying to a question about whether a terrorist attack could be to blame, Rooters reported.
#1
Theinvestigation's outcome may decide whether Russia = Darth Vlad will next be sending in Russian heavy forces andor SPETNATZ into Egypt + Sinai to find-n-destroy the plane's killers.
Also good for saving Egypt's COPTIC CHURCH + other Judeo-Christian denominations from Hard Boy threats = violence???
#6
Following the Camp David accords Israel built super-sophisticated ectronics posts in the Negev on an escarpment that overlooks the Sinai. It was the first to use aerostats for that purpose. I would think that if anyone had a clue as to the disintegration of the airliner it would be Israel.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/03/2015 12:26 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Bird into the intake would be a little far-fetched (although some birds do fly at flight-level altitudes.), but it would disable the engine, not break up the a/c.
My kopecks are on on-board rapid decompression from structural failure. The question is how it originated.
#10
if it was an in cabin bomb or outside missile forensic investigation would probably discover it
a bomb near the fuel tank would be a bit more difficult to discover
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/03/2015 14:49 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Latest on FOX is reporting no evidence of any sort of explosion, but I am leaning on that rather than structural failure and unless it was a Blackbird, do not see that as a cause of this magnitude. lost lots of motors and even windscreens to ducks, geese, buzzards, but always got the aircraft back, basically in one, albeit bloody piece. Even had a lawn dart and a tomcat each hit by Bambi. hornet lost its nose gear and both motors to fod, but came home and the tomcat just lost a brake line.
[Hurriyet] More than 218,000 migrants and refugees crossed the Mediterranean to Europe in October - a monthly record and more than during the whole of 2014, the United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... said on Nov. 2.
"Last month was a record month for arrivals," U.N. refugee agency front man Adrian Edwards told AFP, pointing out that "arrivals in October paralleled the entire 2014."
In October, 218,394 people made the perilous crossing - all but 8,000 of them landing in Greece - compared to 216,054 Mediterranean arrivals during all of last year, UN figures show.
The soaring numbers of arrivals last month brought to over 744,000 the number of people who have made the journey so far this year.
The October figures show that despite the increasingly harrowing conditions at sea at the onset of winter, refugees from Syria and other trouble spots continue to pile into boats heading west, fearing that Europe is about to close its borders.
Among the more than 600,000 migrants and refugees who have crossed to Greece since the beginning of the year, 94 percent come from the world's top 10 refugee-producing countries.
The ballooning number of crossings has had dire consequences, with the numbers of deaths piling up by the day.
Some 3,440 people have died or gone missing trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, according to UNHCR numbers last week.
Three thousand four hundred and forty out of 744,000 is awfully small on a percentage basis -- the smugglers are to be congratulated on their safety record.
The figures do not take into account the latest tragedy, with at least 15 migrants and refugees, including six children, drowning off Greece on Nov. 1 when two boats making the hazardous crossing from The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... capsized.
Most of the Mediterranean deaths this year have happened on the longer, more dangerous route to Italia, but with surging numbers attempting the far shorter crossing from Turkey to Greece, the corpse count along that route has been mounting.
The latest tragedies bring the migrant corpse count in Greece's waters in the past month to over 80, many of them children, according to AFP's count.
More conservatives win in Eastern Europe due to "migrants".
[Hurriyet] Bulgaria's ruling conservative party of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov scored a resounding victory in local elections this weekend, winning mayoral seats in 22 out of the 27 major cities, official results showed on Nov. 2.
Borisov's Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party won the mayor's seat in the second largest city of Plovdiv in the second-round ballot on Nov. 1, a week after securing the capital, Sofia.
Analysts said the win was partly down to Borisov's firm stance on the migrant crisis, which helped Bulgaria stay on the sidelines of the major refugee flow across the Balkans.
Analysts say the victory cements GERB's power in the lead-up to the next presidential elections in 2016.
Borisov is at the helm of an uneasy four-party coalition cabinet after failing to secure a majority in general elections in 2014.
The vote was a total disappointment for the opposition Socialists, who failed to get a single mayoral seat in a major city for the first time in Bulgaria's post-communist history.
The liberal Turkish minority Movement for Rights and Freedoms party, now in opposition, won only one mayoral seat in the southern city of Kardzhali.
The remaining four big city mayor seats went to independent candidates and mayors backed by the small right-wing Reformist Bloc, GERB's junior partner in the cabinet.
The complete official results are due to be announced by Nov. 4.
Analysts said the win was partly down to Borisov's firm stance on the migrant crisis, which helped Bulgaria stay on the sidelines of the major refugee flow across the Balkans.
[AnNahar] As they digest the resounding victory of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... 's party in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's general election, residents of the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir say they want only one thing from the new government: peace.
A tentative peace had prevailed for two years, after peace talks between the government and the Death Eater separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) yielded a ceasefire. But the truce crumpled in late July after the fighting resumed with a flurry of tit-for-tat attacks and mutual fingerpointing.
"40,000 dead since 1984...That's enough, it has to stop," Seehriban Cinak said with a sigh.
In Sur district, where Cinak lives, young PKK supporters have shot it out with the police on a regular basis over the past three months.
On Sunday, security was tight as voters lined up to cast their ballots in polling stations with walls pockmarked by bullets. The tensions were driven even higher by recent attacks on a pro-Kurdish peace rally in Ankara that killed 102 people -- the bloodiest in the country's modern history.
"The people who until yesterday were accustomed to war, have became accustomed over the past two and a half years to peace, serenity, a lack of fighting. Thus the people who got used to that peace, that comfort, will not return to the war of the 90s," Hakan Akbal, the 39-year-old president of an association of young entrepreneurs in the region, said.
With almost half the vote, Erdogan's conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) rebounded in spectacular style from an electoral setback in June to reclaim the outright majority it had enjoyed for the previous 13 years. The pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) lost ground on the other hand, barely scraping past the 10-percent threshold needed to stay in parliament. In Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of Turkey's Kurds, the AKP won two of the 11 seats to be filled, doubling its June tally by warning throughout the campaign of "chaos."
All eyes in Diyarbakir are now on Ankara, as they anxiously await Erdogan's next move.
- Peace process 'on ice' -
"The grinding of the peace processor is in the president's hands. It's he who initiated it...and he who derailed it," said Nevzat Celikten, 65, adding: "It's up to him to take care of it."
During campaigning Erdogan, who had been praised for launching peace talks with the PKK in late 2012, had vowed to continue the fight against the Kurdish "terrorists" to the bitter end. In his first remarks after his party's poll triumph Sunday he maintained the same tough rhetoric, declaring that voters had "delivered an important message for the PKK: oppression and bloodshed can not coexist with democracy."
In August, at the height of the state's bombing campaign against PKK bases and the rebels' deadly attacks on the security forces, Erdogan had declared the grinding of the peace processor to be "on ice."
Blaming the breakdown of the negotiations squarely on the separatists, he said: "Unfortunately, they (the Kurds) did not understand what we did for them."
The PKK and many Kurds see things differently: they blame Ankara's failure to keep its promises of reforms to improve the lot of Kurds for the breakdown in dialogue.
"The elections are over, we have to restart the process," Omer Ak, a 48-year-old fireplace vendor in Diyarbakir, told AFP. "Bloodshed begets bloodshed. It's time to wipe the slate clean."
Analysts say however the resumption of talks looks like unlikely, at least in the short-term.
"This government has always declared ending violence to be its priority. Dialogue will only come later," Dogu Ergil, an expert on Kurdish affairs at Istanbul's Fatih University predicted.
The prospect of peace delayed worries Seehriban Cinak.
"The government and the PKK both showed they really didn't care about us," she said. "Today, children who are barely two or three already know what war is like."
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called on supporters to band together to confront the threat from the West and Russia in Syria and Iraq, the latest recording suggesting greater unity between al-Qaeda and ISIS.
“The Americans, Russians, Iranians, Alawites, and Hezbollah are coordinating their war against us — are we not capable of stopping the fighting among ourselves so we can direct all our efforts against them?” Zawahiri said in an audio recording released on the Internet on Sunday.
It was not clear when the recording was made but references to Russian aggression suggest it was made after Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, launched air raids against opposition groups and ISIS in Syria on Sept. 30.
In a recording released in September, Zawahiri dismissed ISIS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as illegitimate but said his followers would join them in fighting the Western-led coalition in Iraq and Syria if possible.
“My mujahideen brothers in all places and of all groups … we face aggression from America, Europe, and Russia … so it’s up to us to stand together as one from East Turkestan to Morocco,” Zawahiri said.
ISIS, the ultra-hardline group that controls large parts of Iraq and Syria, has called for a holy war against both Russia and the United States in response to air strikes on its fighters in Syria.
Any cooperation between al-Qaeda and ISIS would further complicate efforts to stabilize the Middle East, where militant groups have gained influence and escalated attacks since the Arab uprisings of 2011 toppled autocrats who had contained them
[Rudaw] In the last 24 hours, nearly 70 young men have turned themselves over to Peshmerga forces on the Gwer front. Many of these man describe life in the grip of ISIS as hell.
"They ordered the men to grow beards and hair and to wear short pants. The ISIS leaders behead people because they do not care about anyone or anything. They are not Islamic or human. We escaped to the Kurdistan region because we know we are safe here," one of the group told Rudaw.
Some of those who escaped ISIS say they want to continue their educations, while other say they live with starvation, violence and constant fear.
"At this point, an investigation is underway and it is not clear how many of the those who surrendered were working with ISIS and how many of them truly escaped. Most of their families are still living in areas southeast of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , areas still under ISIS control. As they know, they will be questioned about everything," a Peshmerga officer told Rudaw.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/03/2015 00:00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
They are not Islamic or human.
Somehow, they sprang from the Islamic well. And even if every last one of them is killed, it will happen again.
[Jpost] Sheikh Ali Halabi said in a video distributed via social media that Jews can be killed during war only, and that killing them at other times is a betrayal.
A senior Jordanian Salafi sheikh has stirred controversy in the Muslim world in recent days after he issued a fatwa against killing Jews.
Sheikh Ali Halabi said in a video distributed via social media that Jews can be killed during war only, and that killing them at other times is a betrayal. When asked by a student if it is permissible to kill Jews in Paleostine, the sheikh answered: "Someone who protects you, gives you electricity and water, transfers you money and you work for him and take his money - would you betray him, even if he was a Jew?"
According to the sheikh, killing is allowed during festivities or declared war, "But if you trust him and he trusts you, then it is forbidden to betray him. And therefore you are forbidden to murder him."
The Salafi sheikh provided an example from the period of the British Mandate in Paleostine, when a well-known Saudi sheikh issued a ruling that agreements which preserve rights and prevent bloodshed must be honored. Halabi stressed that there is a difference between emotional outlook and outlook based on Sha'aria law.
When the sheikh was asked by a student about armed soldiers in the streets, he responded: "The same answer. Does a soldier holding a weapon in the street kill every Muslim he sees?" The student answered "No."
Another student asked if it was correct that "they (IDF soldiers) only attack if they are first attacked?" The sheikh answered: "I don't live in Paleostine, but that is what the brothers there tell us. That he who does not attack Jews is not attacked in return."
Halabi said that he didn't want it to seem as if he was "defending the despised Jews. But this is the reality. Because if they would kill everyone they met, nobody would remain and the Paleostinians would continue to escape to other countries in the world."
The video that went viral on social media caused a stir in the Muslim world, with activists attacking the sheikh and distributing videos in which IDF soldiers are seen in the West Bank "executing Paleostinians under the guise that they tried to stab soldiers."
Halabi is one of the most well-known Salafi sheikhs in Jordan and he is the head of the Imam al-Albani religious studies center in Jordan.
The Times of Israel has the MEMERI video with English subtitles here.
You gotta give Ali Halabi credit for having the courage of his convictions.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
11/03/2015 7:28 Comments ||
Top||
#3
ditto g(r)om.
I thought the definition of Dar Al-Harb was the house of war. Therefore any place not owned and controlled by Muslims is at war with Islam. So this means that the war on the non-muslims is never ending. No?
[Hurriyet] Iran has begun shutting down uranium enrichment centrifuges under the terms of a deal struck with six world powers in July on limiting its nuclear programme, Tehran's atomic energy chief said on Nov. 2 during a visit to Tokyo.
"We have already started to take our measures vis-a-vis the removal of the centrifuge machines - the extra centrifuge machines. We hope in two months time we are able to exhaust our commitment," Ali Akbar Salehi told public broadcaster NHK.
NHK's website also quoted Salehi as saying it was important that there be "balance" in implementing the deal, signalling Tehran's stance that all sanctions against Iran should be lifted promptly in step with its dismantling of nuclear infrastructure.
Under the July 14 agreement, Iran is to curb its nuclear programme under United Nations supervision to ensure it cannot be used to make a nuclear weapon, in exchange for the removal of sanctions that have isolated Tehran and hobbled its economy.
In a separate development that appeared to confirm that Iran had begun implementing its side of the deal, 20 hardline conservative members of Iran's parliament wrote to President Hassan Rouhani to complain about the deactivation of centrifuges in two enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow.
"Unfortunately in the last two days some contractors entered Fordow and started dismantling centrifuges... they said they could finish the job in two weeks," Fars cited the lawmakers, among those loath to accept the nuclear deal, as saying.
Iran's highest authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, conditionally approved the deal last month, but the lawmakers said that beginning implementation so soon was against his directives.
Centrifuges spin at supersonic speed to increase the ratio of the fissile isotope in uranium. Low-enriched uranium is used to fuel nuclear power plants, Iran's stated goal, but can also provide material for bombs if refined much further, which the West has feared may have been Iran's latent goal.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/03/2015 00:00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Also a great time for maintenance.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
11/03/2015 8:08 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Also better for moving them to an 'undisclosed location' for re-start.
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 possibility of retribution for MH17 should not be overlooked. In fact, all potential motives should be thoroughly run to ground. 
