[CNN ...the organization formerly known as the Cable News Network. Now who knows what it might stand for... ] There are active discussions about a further drawdown of the US embassy in Kabul among State Department officials, according to two sources familiar with the discussions, as the Taliban ...Arabic for students... continues to gain ground in Afghanistan.
Those gains -- which have occurred much more rapidly than many US officials expected -- have made the situation more urgent and sped up the conversations that have been happening for some time now, one source said.
US officials are no longer talking about six months as the likely timeline for the government of Afghanistan to collapse; they now believe it could happen much more quickly, the two sources said. The US military began withdrawing from the country earlier this year and has completed more than 95% of the US troop withdrawal, which will be completed by late August.
Right now, the State Department is working to identify essential personnel in the embassy and it is likely that some kind of partial drawdown of personnel occurs in the coming days or weeks, the sources said. The embassy already reduced the number of diplomats in Kabul earlier this year where hundreds serve and has slowly continued to cut back on the overall footprint in recent months. A partial drawdown would be a continuation of efforts to shrink the overall US footprint due to the security situation.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2021 00:00 ||
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[11129 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[BBC] A new BBC investigation has revealed the scale of operations by a shadowy Russian mercenary group in Libya's civil war, which includes links to war crimes and the Russian military.
A Samsung tablet left by a fighter for the Wagner group exposes its key role - as well as traceable fighter codenames.
And the BBC has a "shopping list" for state-of-the-art military equipment which expert witnesses say could only have come from Russian army supplies.
Russia denies any links to Wagner.
The group was first identified in 2014 when it was backing pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Since then, it has been involved in regions including Syria, Mozambique, Sudan, and the Central African Republic.
Wagner's fighters appeared in Libya in April 2019 when they joined the forces of a rebel general, Khalifa Haftar, after he launched an attack on the UN-backed government in the capital, Tripoli. The conflict ended in a ceasefire in October 2020.
#BREAKING: A senior Pentagon official said Tuesday the drone attack on the Mercer Street tanker came from #Yemen. Would note Newsweek reported back in January that #Iran transferred the Shahed-136 drone, which was used on Mercer Street, to Houthis #OOTThttps://t.co/lumDCz2dOa
Direct translation via Google translate. Edited.
[REGNUM] Turkey and Azerbaijan intend to create a joint Turkic army. Negotiations on this issue are already underway. This was announced on July 28 during a press conference in Ganja by the speaker of the Turkish Grand National Assembly Mustafa Shentop .
“Our idea is one nation, two states. And it will always be so. In this regard, took a lot of negotiations and agreements," quotes the Sputnik Azerbaijan Shentopa.
He also added that within the framework of the agreements, including the military exercises of the two countries, the parties are also taking steps to strengthen economic cooperation.
Speaking about the situation on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Shentop said that the shelling of the border Azerbaijani regions by the Armenian military is a threat to the security of the region.
"If these provocations do not stop, then even more bitter consequences are inevitable. The world community should also urge Armenia to stop provocations that pose a threat to peace in the region," he stressed.
As REGNUM reported earlier , early in the morning of July 28, Azerbaijani Armed Forces units launched an attack on Armenian positions in the northeastern direction of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, as a result of which local battles unfolded. There are casualties on both sides.
[IsraelTimes] Hamid Noury charged with murder for role in ordering mass executions of political dissidents in 1988, a purge Iran’s new leader is claimed to have led
A former Iranian prison official handed out death sentence ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead... s as part of a 1988 purge of political dissidents, Swedish prosecutors said on the first day of a landmark case likely to stoke tensions in the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
Hamid Noury, 60, appeared relaxed in light-colored clothing in Stockholm District Court and listened through a translator as prosecutors read out a litany of charges including "murder" and "war crimes," dating from July 30 to August 16, 1988, when Noury was allegedly assistant to the deputy prosecutor of Gohardasht prison in Karaj, near Tehran.
Prosecutor Kristina Lindhoff Carleson accused Noury of "intentionally taking the life of a very large number of prisoners sympathetic to or belonging to the People’s Mujahedin" (MEK) as well as others considered opponents of the "theocratic Iranian state."
Human rights groups have estimated that 5,000 prisoners were killed across Iran, allegedly under the orders of supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, in reprisal for attacks carried out by the MEK at the end of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88.
While not accused of directly carrying out any of the killings, Noury’s participation included handing down death sentences, bringing prisoners to the execution chamber and helping prosecutors gather prisoners’ names, the prosecution said.
Defense counsel Daniel Marcus pledged to refute all charges during the three-day trial, and denied Noury even worked at the prison.
Also in court were lawyers for the group of over 30 civil complainants who helped bring the case, including victims and their families.
Among those following the case was Lawdan Bazargan, 52, whose brother was executed while in prison for belonging to a left-wing group in 1987, and whose sister will testify in the trial.
"When we tried to reclaim his body they told us ’An apostate does not have a body,'" Bazargan told AFP, having traveled to Sweden from her home in the United States for the trial.
A verdict in the three-day case, the first of its kind, is expected in April 2022.
‘DEATH COMMISSION’ ACCUSATIONS
MEK supporters were among several hundred protesters who gathered outside the court carrying photos of the dead and demanding justice.
The case is particularly sensitive in Iran, where campaigners accuse current government figures of having a role in the deaths, most notably newly inaugurated president Ebrahim Raisi.
The former head of Iran’s judiciary was accused by Amnesia Amnesty International in 2018 of being a member of a "death commission" which was behind the secret executions.
Questioned in 2018 and 2020, Raisi denied involvement but paid "tribute" to Ayatollah Khomeini’s "order" to carry out the purge.
Khomeini died in 1989.
LURED TO SWEDEN
Sweden’s principle of universal jurisdiction means that its courts can try a person on serious charges such as murder or war crimes regardless of where the alleged offenses took place.
Noury was arrested at Stockholm airport in November 2019 following the efforts of justice campaigner and former political prisoner Iraj Mesdaghi.
After compiling an evidence dossier of "several thousand pages" on Noury, Mesdaghi set about luring the former prison official to the Nordic country — where he has family members — with the promise of a luxury cruise. Noury was arrested as he stepped onto Swedish soil.
"This is the first time that one of the persecutors has been held accountable in another country," Mesdaghi told AFP.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/11/2021 01:16 ||
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Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Repellent as some Iranian officials are - I don't believe it's Sweden's business to try people for crimes that occurred outside Sweden and didn't involve Swedish citizens.
#2
Sweden’s principle of universal jurisdiction means that its courts can try a person on serious charges such as murder or war crimes regardless of where the alleged offenses took place.
I had wondered why this trial was taking place in Sweden. Now I know. Pope Boniface, call your office. Apparently Sweden has replaced you as the ruler of the world.
Posted by: Tom ||
08/11/2021 10:16 Comments ||
Top||
wasn’t even the only Islamic jihadi from Chattanooga, Tennessee. On July 17, 2015, a fellow resident of the Chattanooga suburb of Hixson, Mohammad Abdulazeez, murdered four Marines at a Navy base in Chattanooga. This delighted Bradley, who wrote: "Gifted this morning not only with Eid but w/ the news of a brother puttin fear n the heart of kufar [non-believers] n the city of my birth. Alhamdullilah [thanks be to Allah]." By that time, Bradley was far from Chattanooga; she was living in the domains of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) in Syria, and was calling herself Umm Aminah, that is, Aminah’s mother, after her two-year-old daughter, Aminah Mohamad. Six years later, Ariel Bradley is dead, and Aminah is being brought back to a United States that is even more riven now by the divisions and confusions that drove her mother’s life so wildly off course than it was when her mother made her fateful choices.
#2
where she will reportedly be put up for adoption. So that authorities will not be accused of Islamophobia, she will most likely be placed with a devout Moslem family.
Well, Pentecostals won't do apparently. Moslems are a gamble. Can't the authorities find a single respectable atheist couple? That shouldn't be so hard in America.
#3
All that radicalism but never got banned by any social media platform. If her parents were true Christians I would expect them to at least attempt to get custody of their grand-daughter but this family appears to be equally misguided.
#5
If you are going down the toilet, might as well be all the way...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/11/2021 7:11 Comments ||
Top||
#6
She ought to be adopted out to an actual conservative Mooselimb household where the grandmother controls the ladies under strict sharia, with a whip, and they'll never see the outdoors again.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/11/2021 10:53 Comments ||
Top||
#7
What a great plot for the next Disney social justice grrrl power movie!
A senior Iranian security official urged Iraq to expel Iranian rebels from Iraqi Kurdistan, or expect Tehran to take "preventative measures" against the armed groups, Iranian state media reported. (Reuters)
#2
It's because they use iranian electric water. It's better than your ordinary water.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/11/2021 10:22 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Tired of those lightweight bottled waters that don't quench your thirst? It's time for something heavy! New Improved ZamZam Water - now with extra deuterium.
Product of Iran
[AnNahar] U.S. President Joseph Biden has announced nearly $100 million in new humanitarian assistance for Lebanon.
“This assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of State will help people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its compounding socioeconomic impacts on the Lebanese people. The funding will also support Syrian refugees sheltering in Lebanon,” a U.S. statement said.
With the $41 million of USAID funding, the United States will provide urgently needed food assistance, health care, protection, and water and sanitation support to communities, including those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Importantly, this also includes food assistance to help 400,000 vulnerable Lebanese beneficiaries. Along with funding provided by the U.S. Department of State, this support brings total U.S. humanitarian assistance in Lebanon to more than $372 million in Fiscal Year 2021; in response to COVID-19, the humanitarian impacts of the August 2020 explosions at the Port of Beirut, and the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis.
“The United States is the single largest donor of humanitarian assistance in Lebanon. With so many compounding emergencies in the country and region, including a growing economic crisis, the United States is deeply concerned about the continuing increase in humanitarian needs, and urges other donors to step up to provide much needed support to save lives,” the U.S. statement added.
Channel 12 in #Israel reports that the head of Mossad presented CIA Director Bill Burns with a dossier on #Iran's new President Ebrahim Raisi. “The Mossad described him as someone with mental disturbances,” the channel claimed in the unsourced report. https://t.co/KmFxWl3vGO
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 barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
...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 
