[ToloNews] "I was looking at the moon from the window of the cell where I was imprisoned," said Obaidullah, a former Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... member, who was released last week from the Guantanamo Bay detention center and reintegrated with his family in Khost province ... across the border from Miranshah, within commuting distance of Haqqani hangouts such as Datta Khel and probably within sight of Mordor. Khost is populated by six different tribes of Pashtuns, the largest probably being the Khostwal, from which it takes its name... after nearly two decades of separation.
Obaidullah, now 36, was just eighteen years old when he was detained and he has spent nearly half of his life in US custody.
"I was associated with the Taliban only for a short period of time. I was serving in the Taliban’s military section, therefore I was arrested by the American forces," the former Taliban member told TOLOnews’ Sharif Amiri.
"They (US forces) imposed on us the most brutal acts during our detention as if we were the most dangerous criminals--I had no hope that someday I would rejoin my family," said Osman, Obaidullah’s cousin who was also released from the US jail after three months from Bagram prison.
Obaidullah’s family said that his release was a dream for them.
"We had no information about Obaidullah for two and half years, however, there were some rumors in the media that he was transferred to Guantanamo prison, but we received a letter from him after two and half a years, then the letters started coming from him more regularly with the help of ICRC and then we started having online calls," said Mohammad Akram, Obaidullah’s brother.
Obaidullah was eighteen years old when he was arrested by US forces.
Obaidullah became the father of a baby girl only three days before his arrest. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... he was always living with her memories in the jail.
Eighteen years ago? Surely by now she’s been married off long since, and with half a dozen children of her own.
"I want my children to go to school and study, because we cannot achieve development without learning. Afghanistan needs its children to study and become educated," said Obaidullah.
[Libya Observer] The Vice President of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...Qatar's satrapy in Asia Minor... , Fuat Oktay, said his country's aim in Libya and Cyprus is to foil schemes against Ankara, adding that plots to confine Turkey to land had failed via the signing of the maritime MoU with Libya.
"No matter who is involved, no plan in the region which excludes Turkey has any chance of success." Oktay told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday, adding that Turkey is very active in the area designated in the deal with Libya and that the deal is also beneficial for the region.
Speaking on the security motion with Libya, which will face a vote in parliament on Thursday, Oktay told Anadolu Agency that the bill authorizing deployment of Ottoman Turkish troops to Libya will last for one year, so troops can be sent whenever needed.
"We hope that there is no need for such an invitation, it will have a deterrent role and the parties will understand this message correctly," he stressed, referring to Libya’s legitimate administration’s help request from Turkey.
"We hope that there is no need for such an invitation, it will have a deterrent role and the parties will understand this message correctly." He explained.
He added that Turkey is in constant contact with the international community to exchange views regarding Libya, holding meetings and talks with many leaders such as Russia's Putin, Germany's Merkel, America's Trump and Britannia's Johnson.
Tunisia’s designated prime minister Habib Jemli has submitted a proposed cabinet to President Kais Saied, the office of the presidency says on its Facebook page without giving details.https://t.co/qNyHnO7lF2
[AlAhram] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... may hold off from sending troops to Libya if forces loyal to eastern commander Khalifa Haftar ...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy, so it's kind of hard to describe him as a Qadaffy holdover. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all... halt their offensive against the internationally recognised government in 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... and pull back, the Ottoman Turkish vice president said on Wednesday.
The Ottoman Turkish parliament is due to debate and vote on a bill mandating the deployment of military forces to Libya on Thursday after Fayez al-Serraj's Government of National Accord (GNA) requested support as part of a military cooperation agreement. ]
"After the bill passed from the parliament...it might happen that we would see something different, a different stance and they would say "okay, we are withdrawing, dropping the offensive"," Fuat Oktay said in an interview with Andalou news agency. "Then, why would we go there?"
Oktay also said that Ankara hoped the Ottoman Turkish bill would send a deterrent message to the warring parties.
Ankara has already sent military supplies to the GNA despite a United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... embargo, according to a U.N. report seen by Rooters, and has said it will continue to support it.
Haftar's forces have received support from Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
[AlAhram] Six Saudis detained by Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... 's Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s were released and flown to Riyadh on Wednesday, officials said, as efforts to end the five-year conflict gain momentum.
The release, overseen by the International Committee of the Red Thingy (ICRC), comes after 128 Houthis detained in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... were freed and repatriated to Sanaa in November.
"We are happy to see a momentum occurring with the release of detainees that has been happening on both sides," said Freya Raddi, ICRC's deputy head of delegation in Yemen.
"Today is important as six more families will be reunited. It is a special moment when this happens, and we are honoured to be part of it."
The Saudi-led military coalition fighting the rebels confirmed the six "prisoners of war" had arrived at Riyadh's King Salman ...either the largest species of Pacific salmon or the current Sheikh of the Burnin' Sands, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and Lord of Most of the Arabians... airbase on Wednesday, Saudi state media reported.
It was unclear when and under what circumstances the Saudis were detained.
The Houthi-run al-Masirah television said the rebels had handed over the prisoners to the ICRC, adding that they were waiting for the coalition to reciprocate by releasing "our prisoners".
The Houthis freed by Riyadh in November had been captured in various parts of Yemen between 2015 and earlier this year.
The initiatives coincide with a lull in Huthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and come after a bigwig in Riyadh recently said it had an "open channel" with the Iran-backed rebels.
Riyadh and its allies intervened in the Yemen war in March 2015 to support the internationally recognised government, shortly after the Huthis seized Sanaa.
Since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced by Yemen's conflict, which the UN has termed the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The maneuver in front of US Embassy Baghdad is a military parade. No protester can make it to Green Zone without a bullet in the head. Plus, “the Great Satan” didn’t shoot anyone while “our Muslim” brothers killed our sons for the same action. Just wake up and be Iraqi.
— MP Sarkawt Shams :النائب سەرکەوت شمس الدين (@MPSarkawtShams) January 1, 2020
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2020 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran Proxies
#1
For three years that spanned the end of the Obama years and the beginning of the Trump administration, Sarkawt Shams covered the Washington beat. He's since moved back to his native Iraqi Kurdistan, and during Iraq's first country-wide elections since the collapse of ISIS in 2018, he managed to become the youngest member of the Iraqi parliament, securing the number one position of the Kurdish New Generation Party.
[IsraelTimes] Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz says natural gas is now flowing to Jordan after an offshore rig of the Leviathan field went online yesterday.
"Israel is becoming an energy exporter for the first time in its history," Steinitz tells the Ynet news site.
Though an Israeli firm began sending to natural gas to Jordan in 2017, marking Israel’s first ever gas exports. Leviathan is expected to provide a significantly greater amount.
Steintz says gas is expected to begin flowing to Egypt in the next week to 10 days.
And then both of Israel’s neighbours will be dependent on her for their comfort and prosperity.
He also dismisses concerns that tests yesterday at the gas rig would lead to a spike in air pollution, calling it "completely baseless, unnecessary hysteria." He argues there will ultimately be an improvement in air quality, as the natural gas will allow Israel to shutter coal-fired power plants in Hadera and Ashkelon.
#1
The interesting thing is that only a few years ago the oil flowed the other way, when it wasn’t being interrupted by indignant jihadis in both countries.
#2
The Tamar field (a bit NE of the Leviathan field) already produces NatGas. In fact this one field supplies enough to fire 60% of Israel's electrical production and nearly all residential and commercial use of NatGas. The Leviathan is closer to Eygpt than Tamar and will be, for now, used almost exclusively for exports. I'm not sure whether the gas from Liviathan goes to Jordan vis Israel or via Egpyt but there certainly is a pipeline to Egypt.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/02/2020 12:34 Comments ||
Top||
Thousands of supporters of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, which rivals Gaza’s rulers Hamas, held a rare gathering in the enclave to mark the party’s 55th anniversary.https://t.co/Lwk6hS0qxDpic.twitter.com/EtaG3FXr30
[AlAhram] Al-Azhar Observatory for Countering Terrorism said that more than 30,000 Death Eater Israeli Jews broke into al-Aqsa Mosque compound in 2019 under the protection of Israeli police.
The observatory added, in its annual report that was released on Wednesday, that the number is the highest ever to be recorded since Jerusalem was occupied in 1967.
It attributed this to the support and encouragement offered by the occupation government to the far-right religious Zionist groups and the Death Eater Temple Mount organizations to serve its own "political gains" and implement Israel's policy that aims at Judaizing the occupied holy city and obliterating its Arab identity and Islamic heritage.
Khamenei strongly condemned US airstrikes on Iraq which killed 25 militants from Kataeb Hezbollah on Sunday night and refuted Trump's claim that Iran 'orchestrated' yesterday's embassy assault in Baghdad
Thousands - many of them members of the Iran-backed militia - rushed the heavily fortified Green Zone
Today photos emerged showing the scorched interior of the embassy's secure entrance after it was set alight
One militant had said: 'God willing if this fire reaches inside the embassy, we will not spare a single employee'
President Donald Trump's reinforcements were engaged early Wednesday as tear gas was fired to disperse those who had spent the night outside the main gates. Several ambulances arrived to ferry the wounded
Posted by: Skidmark ||
01/02/2020 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11135 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
While you are playing checkers, the Orange Man plays three dimensional chess.
The only thing between your neck and the noose is the palace guard that has no problem at the moment killing the people of Iran. Your current actions do nothing to alter that fact. It doesn't endear you or them to the people.
You have provided the Orange Man with useful local political agents who are his avowed enemies the bat calling for action against you. Do Something!!
It would be terrible if for some reason the Orange Man could somehow degrade your 'center of gravity', that palace guard, quickly and swiftly enough to allow nature to take is own course in your country.
You make the same mistake his domestic enemies do, believing your own propaganda.
#4
In fact they believe if they provoke a strong enough response the 12th iman will finally come out of his well. If it kills most of the people of Iran it’s worth it in their eyes.
#5
Mullahs or the Papacy or any other faith based movement (to include the Greens) - at a certain point corruption overpowers all else. Then they have something to lose.
#9
Trump should rescind the anti-assassination order. See if the Iranian Secret Service can defend their boy. Let Khamenei feel he has some skin in the game.
#10
Modify 3 MOABs.
1)cover with about 1 inch of cement for heat shielding
2) put on grid fins like on the F9 first stages and air puffers to align
3) Put them on a Falcon Heavy
4) Put them in orbit above Iran.
watch for Khamenei or Suleimani
Re-enter a bomb
and steer to target from above with say Iridium
#11
One B-2 can drop 80 500 lb JDAMS over any target in Iran, including houses where the leadership live. Might be the first time in history decapitation of an entire national leadership is possible w/o killing much of the population.
[AlAhram] Syria's nearly nine-year-old conflict which has cost more than 370,000 lives recorded its lowest annual corpse count in 2019, a war monitor said Tuesday.
A total of 11,215 fighters and non-combatants were killed in the past year, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Of those, 3,473 were civilians including 1,021 children, the Britannia-based monitor said.
Fighting has raged on three major fronts in Syria during the past year.
In March, US-backed Kurdish forces expelled Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS) jihadists from their last patch of territory in the country's far east near the Iraqi border.
Over the summer and in recent weeks, regime forces upped their military campaign against the jihadist-run region of Idlib in the northwest of the country.
The violence over the summer alone killed around 1,000 civilians in the region of some three million people where rebels are also present.
And to the east, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire... and its Syrian proxies in October launched a cross-border incursion into Syrian territory to expel Kurdish fighters they view as "terrorists".
The Observatory relies on a vast network of sources across Syria to document the war that broke out after the brutal repression of nationwide anti-regime protests in 2011.
The Damascus regime has since 2015 regained large swathes of the country from rebels and jihadists with Russian military backing.
The corpse count for 2017 stood at more than 33,000, but dropped to just above 19,600 people the following year.
The bloodiest year of the conflict was in 2014, when around 76,000 people bit the dust.
That year saw the rise of IS across large swathes of the country and in neighbouring Iraq.
Since early 2011, an average of more than 40,000 people a year have been killed and millions have been displaced from their homes in the war.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/02/2020 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
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 Pashtun equivalent of men...
...Qatar's satrapy in Asia Minor...
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
[IsraelTimes] Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz says natural gas is now flowing to Jordan after an offshore rig of the Leviathan field went online yesterday.
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
