[Breitbart] At least six Russian mercenaries were killed in an attack by an al-Qaida-linked group in central Mali, according to a statement by the extremists on its media platform.
The group, known by its acronym, JNIM,
… the Al Qaeda in the Sahel group that in Arabic is called JNIM and in French is GSIM. Recent estimates of its size range from 2,000-6,000 turbans…
said it ambushed a convoy of mercenaries working for the Wagner Group on Thursday in the Mopti region, killing fighters and burning vehicles.
A Mali security official who works in the area confirmed an attack on Russian soldiers occurred on Thursday and that several people died while manning a checkpoint in the center of the country. The official spoke on condition of anonymity on Saturday because he was not authorized to speak to the media
Russia has capitalized on deteriorating relations between the West and coup-affected Sahel nations in West Africa to send fighters and assert its influence. Wagner has been active in the Sahel, the vast expanse south of the Sahara Desert, with the mercenaries profiting from seized mineral riches in exchange for their security services.
Wagner has been present in Mali since late 2021 following a military coup, replacing French troops and international peacekeepers to help fight militants who have threatened communities in the central and northern regions for more than a decade. At the same time, Wagner has been accused of helping to carry out raids and drone strikes that have killed civilians.
The incident comes months after the deadliest attack on the group, where approximately 50 Wagner fighters were killed by an al-Qaida ambush on their convoy along the border with Algeria.
African countries will have many problems due to Russian influence both on the continent and in the markets, Zelensky said.
Ukraine is ready to share with African countries, among other things, the experience of destroying Russian mercenaries - Wagnerites. This was stated by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky at the 3rd International Conference on Food Security Grain from Ukraine on Saturday, November 23.
"We know who the Wagnerites are. We know how to fight them. We know how to destroy them. This shows that we have the relevant experience," the head of state said.
Zelensky recalled that Ukrainian military personnel had previously participated in peacekeeping missions on the African continent. According to him, Ukraine can contribute to the security sphere using the experience of a modern army.
The President noted that African countries may be interested in technologies developed in Ukraine, such as air and sea drones. In addition, Ukraine is ready to help in the field of cyber defense, having experience in repelling numerous cyber attacks on the financial system and communications.
Zelensky added that Russian influence poses numerous challenges to African countries both on the continent and in markets. He called on African states to prioritize security and independence over the benefits of cheap resources, even in difficult economic conditions.
Among other areas of cooperation, Zelensky highlighted food security, education, mining, digitalization, and the Diia application.
"We can offer all these things with pleasure," the president said.
Let us recall that earlier the terrorist group Al-Qaeda in Mali announced an attack on a Wagner PMC convoy and the elimination of six Russian mercenaries.
[IsraelTimes] PMO confirms disappearance of Zvi Kogan, says Mossad investigating; Hebrew news sites say he may have been followed by Iranian intelligence
Rabbi Zvi Kogan, an emissary to Abu Dhabi’s Chabad chapter, has been missing since Thursday, and Israel’s security services reportedly fear he was kidnapped or murdered, it emerged Saturday.
The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement confirming Kogan’s disappearance and said authorities were treating the incident as a suspected act of terrorism.
The PMO added that the Mossad intelligence agency had launched an "extensive" investigation into the incident alongside Emirati authorities.
At the same time, the National Security Council issued a reminder that it has advised for some time not to travel to the United Arab Emirates for non-essential purposes.
A statement from the UAE interior ministry said Abu Dhabi was "implementing extensive measures in its search for" Rabbi Kogan, without mentioning his Israeli citizenship.
Ynet cited security officials as saying there was growing suspicion Kogan was murdered, and the Walla news site reported that Israel has information that he was being followed by Iranian intelligence, citing security sources.
Ynet reported that Kogan’s car was found abandoned in in Al Ain, around 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Abu Dhabi, where Kogan is based. It added, without citing sources, that officials suspect a number of Uzbek citizens assaulted the rabbi and later fled to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... Kogan is a dual Israeli-Moldovan citizen, and has been part of the Abu Dhabi Chabad chapter since Israel normalized ties with the UAE in late 2020. According to Ynet, Kogan participated in the first ever Holocaust remembrance day ceremony in the Gulf state in 2021, and led the Yizkor prayer during the event.
Kogan is the nephew of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was murdered along with his wife in a terror attack at the Nariman Chabad House in Mumbai in 2008, Channel 12 news reported.
Kogan has served as an aide to the Chief Rabbi of the United Arab Emirates, Rabbi Levi Duchman.
The UAE became the most prominent Arab state in 30 years to establish formal ties with Israel under a US-brokered agreement in 2020, dubbed the Abraham Accords. It has maintained the relationship throughout Israel’s more than 13-month war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... lsrael has been on high alert for Iranian efforts to harm Israelis and Jews around the world through its various agents and proxies, as the countries have exchanged direct military blows for the first time this year.
[IsraelTimes] A body has been found in the United Arab Emirates amid searches for Rabbi Zvi Kogan, missing since Thursday, Hebrew-language media reports.
According to the reports, the body is undergoing tests to see if it is Kogan, an emissary to Abu Dhabi’s Chabad chapter.
Israel’s security services reportedly feared Kogan was kidnapped or murdered. The Walla news site, citing security sources, reported that Israel has information that Kogan was being followed by Iranian intelligence.
Ynet reported yesterday that Kogan’s car was found abandoned in Al Ain, around 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Abu Dhabi. It added, without citing sources, that officials suspect a number of Uzbek citizens assaulted the rabbi and later fled to Turkey.
[Rudaw] Two Kurds hailing from Iraq and Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... have pleaded guilty to people smuggling charges, Britannia’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said on Friday.
Dilshad Shamo, 41 from Iraq, and Ali Khdir, 40 from Iran, ran a people smuggling ring out of the Welsh town of Caerphilly, the NCA said. Wales
They were first arrested in April of last year and were charged in February with "offences of facilitation of migrants colonists through Europe," the NCA said.
Their trial in Cardiff began on November 11 and they pleaded guilty to all offences after "after hearing ten days of evidence against them," according to the crime agency.
Both were UK citizens, according to Sky News.
The pair "used messaging and social media apps to provide videos from people who had already taken the journey so they could advertise their routes," the British crime agency said, publishing a video from December 2022 in which a man purportedly thanks his smuggler while being transported by lorry.
Kurdish criminal groups control the increasingly lucrative cross-Channel migration routes, according to the NCA, which said in its 2023 assessment that the groups are mainly based in northern Europe.
A spokesperson for the NCA press office told Rudaw earlier this month that the UK is collaborating with the Kurdistan Region to combat "organised immigration crime."
Every year, tens of thousands of people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region seek to escape endless crises of lack of employment, political instability, and corruption by joining thousands of others from scores of countries taking perilous routes to Europe. The UK is a popular destination for many people, but crossing the English Channel is dangerous and can be deadly.
BREAKING: UC Berkeley has announced it is offering a course describing Hamas as a “revolutionary resistance force fighting settler colonialism.”
The course also refers to Israelis as occupying, while the Palestinians are indigenous. This is what indoctrination looks like. pic.twitter.com/w9J7yJn5Xg
Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor for the UC Berkeley Office of Communications and Public Affairs told Campus Reform the matter is under review.
”The matter is currently under review and the course description has already been changed,” Mogulof said.
Both instructors set to teach the course, Christián Gonzalez Reyes and Harry Mizumoto, signed a letter following spring 2024 protests at UCLA that blames Israel for “all violent struggle that is currently taking place on Palestinian lands.”
U of Rochester announces 4 student arrests for involvement in 'Wanted' posters targeting pro-Israel staff
The university has announced that four individuals have been arrested in connection with the recent appearance of 'Wanted' posters on campus that targeted pro-Israel faculty and staff.
On Tuesday, Department of Public Safety Associate Vice President Quchee Collins identified the four individuals as university students who are charged with crimes of felony criminal mischief, explaining that their actions are criminal and not just disciplinary.
StopAntisemitism released a new report covering worsening anti-Semitism in America’s colleges and universities.
The report, “Antisemitism on U.S. College and University Campuses,” claims there has been a “jaw-dropping 3,000% rise in antisemitic tips and submissions,” attributing this trend to the failure of universities “to protect their Jewish students in the wake of violent antisemitic uprisings.” Many schools either “ignored” the worsening anti-Semitism or worked to “actively” make “hostile environments for their Jewish students.”
Some key findings of the report are that more than half of Jewish students “have personally been victims of antisemitism at their schools,” more than 40 percent of Jewish students “hide their Jewish identity from their classmates out of fear,” almost 70 percent “say Jews are completely excluded from their schoolʼs DEI initiatives,” and 43 percent “would not recommend their school to fellow Jewish students.”
The report criticizes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, saying these “completely exclude Jewish students,” and that anti-Semitic discrimination is “frequently minimized.”
StopAntisemitism graded individual schools regarding their friendliness to Jewish students and their response to anti-Semitism. The schools that received A grades are Baylor, Clemson, Elon, and Mississippi Universities.
The schools that received failing grades were Emerson College, the New School University, the University of California, Davis, the University of Oregon, the University of Washington, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University, and Cornell University.
Yale undergrads to vote on anti-Israel divestment measures
An anti-Israel student group at Yale University has managed to advance a student vote on several measures against the Jewish state.
After collecting over 1,500 student signatures, the Sumud Coalition was able to force a vote by the Yale College Council to approve a student referendum in December.
'Antisemitism is not a bug': Barnard College faces criticism for inviting anti-Israel speaker
Barnard College stood by its decision to host UN Special Rapporteur Francesca P. Albanese despite widespread allegations of antisemitism.
“The fact that Albanese was invited by the chairs of the Human Rights, Economics, and Anthropology departments is proof that at Columbia and Barnard, antisemitism is not a bug but a feature of our institution” Eden Yadegar, president of Students Supporting Israel Columbia University, told the Times of Israel.
Antisemitic Protest Targets Harvard Hillel, Jewish Student Center
An antisemitic protest targeted the Hillel building, the center of Jewish religious and communal life, at Harvard University on Monday night, as it hosted a lecture by a former spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“Zionists are not welcome here!” protesters chanted, along with “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free,” which is a call for the destruction of Israel. A “Zionist” is someone who believes in Israel’s right to exist;
…that’s incomplete. A Zionist is someone who believes that Israel is the national homeland of the Jews, just like Ireland is the national homeland of the Irish and France is the national homeland of the French, and that Israel has the right to exist. An anti-Zionist is someone who believers that, unlike all the other peoples of the world, Jews do not get to have a national homeland, and any uppity enough to try deserve to be killed horribly for it…
over 90% of Jewish people subscribe to that belief, meaning that if “Zionists” are not welcome, neither are Jews in general. The Hillel building itself is not technically on Harvard’s campus, but it is the center of religious life for Harvard students, especially undergraduates..
The protest was organized by a group calling itself Harvard Jews for Palestine, which was not a recognized student group as of last year. Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee allowed unrecognized student groups to take the lead in campus protests last year after its radical tactics put it in danger of being disciplined. (The Palestine Solidarity Committee was suspended by the university in April, amid “encampment” protests, and reinstated in September.)
#1
If the Colleges refuse to seriously address the issues. Terminate all state and federal funding. Pull their accreditations. Ban the students, arrest the outside inciters.
Charge all major donors with supporting Racial Hate, civil rights violations, funding/supporting terrorist activities.
[IsraelTimes] Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ...hereditary prime minister of the Great White North... condemned violence and antisemitism at anti-NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... and pro-Paleostinian protests in downtown Montreal last night, where NATO delegates are gathered for the alliance’s annual assembly.
Around 300 delegates from NATO members and partner states are meeting in Montreal from Nov. 22-25.
Local media reports that protesters burned an effigy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lit smoke bombs and set two vehicles on fire.
Police used tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd and three people were arrested for assaulting officers and obstructing police work, according to CTV News.
Videos and pictures posted to social media show masked rioters burning flares and battering storefront windows.
"What we saw on the streets of Montreal last night was appalling. Acts of antisemitism, intimidation, and violence must be condemned wherever we see them," Trudeau says in a post on X.
Montreal police says officers carried out a dispersal operation in the downtown area and that the protest was over by 7 p.m. ET.
[Rudaw] Iraqi fighter jets killed five suspected 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) murderous Moslems in a strike on a hideout in southwest Kirkuk province, the federal government’s security cell announced on Saturday.
The Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... was carried out by the Joint Operations Command on Friday in the Zughaitoun Valley in southwest Kirkuk.
When Iraqi forces reached the site on Saturday, they discovered the bodies of five suspected ISIS fighters inside the hideout. They also found two boom belts, grenades, and other ammunition.
"We will persist in intensive security operations to eliminate ISIS terrorism wherever it may be," read the statement from the Security Media Cell.
Last week, ISIS planted an improvised bomb on a road in the Tuz Khurmatu district of Salahaddin province that went kaboom!, killing two Peshmerga who were part of a joint Kurdish-Iraqi brigade.
[IsraelTimes] Local officials say incident is over, as state media says gunfire was directed at a police patrol in Amman and that an investigation is ongoing
A gunman opened fire near the Israeli Embassy in Jordan early Sunday, a security source and state media said, adding that the gunman was killed and three copperswere maimed in the incident, which was over.
Police shot a gunman who had fired at a police patrol in the Rabiah neighborhood of Amman, state news agency Petra reported, citing public security, adding investigations were ongoing.
Jordanian police had earlier cordoned off an area near the heavily policed embassy after gunshots were heard, witnesses said. Two witnesses said police and ambulances rushed to the Rabiah neighborhood, where the embassy is located.
Police had called on residents to stay in their homes as security personnel searched for the culprits, a security source said.
The area is a flashpoint for frequent demonstrations against Israel.
The kingdom has witnessed some of the biggest rallies across the region as anti-Israel sentiment runs high in Arab countries over the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , which was sparked by the Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... terror group’s onslaught of October 7, 2023.
In March, Jordanian riot police had to fire tear gas to push back hundreds of demonstrators marching on the embassy to protest the military operation.
Israeli ambassador Rogel Rachman has been in Israel since leaving for security reasons in the wake of the October 7 massacre.
Bilateral relations, established in 1994 but long-suffering from deep unpopularity in the Hashemite Kingdom, took a further hit in 2017 following a deadly shooting incident in Amman involving an Israeli embassy guard.
Two Jordanians were killed and the Israeli security guard, Ziv Moyal, was injured in the embassy compound, during an apparent altercation between them. The details of the event were a subject of disagreement between Israel and Jordan.
Momani says in a statement that investigations into the attack were underway.
Police shot a gunman who had fired at a police patrol in the Rabiah neighborhood of Amman, state news agency Petra reported, citing public security, adding investigations were ongoing.
The gunman was killed and three policemen were injured in the incident earlier this morning.
The protests do not become any less obscene with time.
[IsraelTimes] IDF says it’s probing claim woman killed in Strip, after terror group releases blurred image of body
Thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Saturday night to demand the release of hostages held by Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , shortly after the terror group’s military wing claimed that a female captive had recently been killed in the northern Gaza Strip, with the Israel Defense Forces saying it could neither confirm nor deny this.
In a statement issued on Telegram on Saturday evening, a front man for the al-Qassam Brigades claimed that "one of the enemy’s female prisoners was killed in an area that is under Zionist aggression in the northern Gaza Strip, while the danger still threatens the life of another female prisoner who was with her."
Alongside the statement, Hamas published a blurred picture of a body it claimed belonged to the slain hostage. It did not identify the woman.
The IDF said in response that it was "checking the information" but added that "at this stage, we are unable to verify or refute it."
"IDF representatives are in contact with her family and are updating them with all the information available to us," the military said, adding that "Hamas continues to use psychological terror and behave in a brutal manner."
Hamas has made similar claims in the past regarding hostages. In some cases, the assertions were proved correct, such as in the case of Alex Dancyg, 75, and Yagev Buchshtav, 35, whom Hamas had announced in March had been killed, with their deaths confirmed months later.
Conversely, in an incident last November, Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... claimed that Hanna Katzir, who had been kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, had been killed in an Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... . Days later, however, Katzir was released alive on the first day of a week-long temporary ceasefire deal.
Hamas also claimed last November that Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, kidnapped at just four years old and 9 months old respectively, had been killed in captivity. The IDF has said this cannot be confirmed, and their fate remains unknown.
’TOO MANY PARENTS WHO HAVE LOST THEIR CHILDREN’
Ahead of the start of the weekly protests, rally organizers said they would focus this week on the dangers to the hostages’ health as they begin their second winter in Hamas captivity. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s health team estimated in an assessment earlier this month that some of the remaining hostages had likely lost around half of their body weight.
The central rally at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square featured speeches from the families of several captives — including Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the parents of slain Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin — while on nearby Begin Road, Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, delivered a fiery ...a single two-syllable word carrying connotations of both incoherence and viciousness. A fiery delivery implies an audience of rubes and yokels, preferably forming up into a mob... address to anti-government protesters.
Protesters carried Israeli national flags and held photos of the 97 hostages kidnapped during Hamas’s brutal massacre on October 7 last year who are believed to be held in Gaza. Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai stood among the audience as he listened to the speeches of the hostage relatives.
’BRING THEM HOME FROM HELL’
Nearby, at the anti-government protest outside the Begin Road entrance to the Kirya military headquarters, Einav Zangauker charged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "needs the war to continue so he can avoid trial."
The prime minister is due to begin giving testimony at his criminal trial in early December after a court denied his request to delay it due to the multifront conflict.
"We have a prime minister who has failed to bring my son home for over a year, and has left 100 other hostages to rot and be raped by Hamas terrorists," she said, according to the Ynet news site. "But the second his front man is arrested for leaking classified documents to foreign media, jeopardizing intelligence sources, he comes to his defense."
Netanyahu’s unofficial front man Eli Feldstein was charged on Thursday with transferring classified information with the intent to harm the state, for allegedly leaking a document to a German newspaper.
"Netanyahu doesn’t care about his citizens who are in Hamas captivity," Zangauker continued, "and he doesn’t care about the soldiers who fall in battle. He only cares about his government."
Yifat Calderon, whose cousin Ofer Calderon has been held in Gaza for 414 days, told the protesters that the $5 million reward announced by Netanyahu earlier this week for anyone who can assist in the release of hostages was in fact "endangering the captives’ lives" by instigating a "gang war at their expense."
She called on the government to secure a single-phase deal to free all of the hostages, including the bodies of at least 36 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Smaller protests were held up and down the country alongside the Tel Aviv rallies, including in Rehovot, Beersheba, Modi’in, Haifa and Jerusalem.
Protesters marched through the streets of the capital, some banging drums and others holding signs reading, "The war is over. Bring them home!" and, "Bring them home from hell."
At the Hemed Interchange near Jerusalem, former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon joined the rally, addressing demonstrators from next to a sign that read, "Starting over. Elections now!"
At Karkur Junction in the Sharon region, anti-government protesters said one activist were tossed into the calaboose for blocking the road, while in Tel Aviv, a group that provides legal representation to anti-government protesters said one person was detained while demonstrating outside the home of far-right Negev and Galilee Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf.
[IsraelTimes] Syrian media reports Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on the border with Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... a short while ago.
The state-run SANA news agency says the strikes targeted the Jusiyah Crossing in the Homs Governorate, close to Lebanon’s northeastern border with Syria.
The IDF does not immediately comment on the strike.
Last month, the military confirmed striking the Jusiyah Crossing after it was being used by Hezbollah to smuggle Iranian weapons into Lebanon.
Israel has struck several other border crossings between Lebanon and Syria in recent months, amid efforts by Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... to supply Hezbollah with weapons.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF confirms launching airstrikes against the Jusiyah Crossing on the Syrian-Lebanon border last night, after it was being used by Hezbollah to transport weapons.
The crossing had been struck already once before by the IDF, last month.
The military says fighter jets hit military infrastructure in the vicinity of the crossing, which “are used by the Hezbollah terror organization to transfer weapons from Syria to Lebanon.”
Israel has struck several other crossings between Lebanon and Syria in recent months amid efforts by Iran to supply Hezbollah with weapons.
[Rudaw] Kurdish security forces in northeast Syria (Rojava) on Saturday announced they rescued a Yazidi man from the clutches 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), ending over a decade of captivity.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) identified the rescued man as 20-year-old Diyar Ali Raffo, a Yazidi from the village of Kocho in the Shingal area of northern Iraq, who was kidnapped by ISIS in 2014.
"During a special operation conducted by our SDF’s military operations teams (TOL) in the city of Manbij, Diyar was located and freed from a house. An ISIS terrorist cell was attempting to smuggle him to Ottoman Turkish-occupied areas," the SDF said in a statement.
"Diyar sustained injuries during an ISIS hideout bombing," it added, but did not detail the extent of his wounds.
In a video published by the SDF, Raffo, who had no obvious recent injuries, said that he was forced to join ISIS ranks during his captivity.
"ISIS subjected us to their religious indoctrination and forced military training. Those aged 14 and older were compelled to join their ranks," he said.
When ISIS swept through the Yazidi heartland of Shingal in August 2014, committing genocide, the group kidnapped 6,417 women and kiddies who were forced into sexual slavery and labor.
At least 3,581 Yazidis have been rescued, Hussein Qaidi, from the Yazidi Rescue Office, announced in a presser earlier this month after a 26-year-old Yazidi woman was freed from ISIS captivity and reunited with her family.
Many have been rescued from al-Hol, the notorious camp that houses tens of thousands of ISIS families and supporters. Others have been found in areas of Syria controlled by rebels or Ottoman Turkish-backed gangs, and some have been located in third countries.
[IsraelTimes] Ali Mussa Daqduq helped plan Iran-backed attack that killed 5 at American-Iraqi base, was tasked by terror group with forming observation posts against Israel on Syrian soil
A recent IDF Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in Syria killed a senior Hezbollah commander who helped plan an Iranian-led attack that killed five US soldiers in Iraq in 2007, NBC News reported Friday, citing a senior US defense official.
It was unclear precisely when or where the strike that killed Ali Mussa Daqduq was carried out, the official was cited as saying.
Israel, which rarely acknowledged operations in Syria, has recently stepped up airstrikes on Hezbollah there, amid the 2-month-old ground operation against the terror group in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... Daqduq was detained by US forces soon after the 2007 attack, in which Iran-backed button men disguised as an American security team infiltrated the joint American-Iraqi military base in Karbala, fired a grenade that killed a US soldier, and captured four others, whom they later rubbed out.
According to NBC, Daqduq — who initially pretended to be deaf-mute — told interrogators that the attack had resulted from the direct support and training of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force.
The US extradited Daqduq to Iraq, which assured Washington he would be prosecuted. NBC said he was the last prisoner the US handed over to Iraq before withdrawing from the country in December 2011 after eight years of war there. Iraq, in turn, acquitted Daqduq and released him in late 2012, to Washington’s outrage.
The defense official cited by NBC said that soon after his release, Daqduq was back to leading Hezbollah operations.
According to the US Treasury Department, Daqduq had served "as commander of a Hezbollah special forces unit and chief of a protective detail for Hezbollah Secretary-General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> ," the longtime terror chief whom Israel killed in an airstrike in Beirut in late September.
Israel, which rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria, is believed to have carried out hundreds of strikes since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, mainly targeting weapons shipments from Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... to Hezbollah and Iran-backed fighters including Hezbollah. More than 90 pro-Iran fighters are said to have been killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike on Palmyra on Wednesday.
In 2018, the IDF said Daqduq, a member of Hezbollah since 1983, had been tasked by the Iran-backed terror group with establishing observation posts against Israel on Syrian soil.
In 2019, Israel said it had uncovered a Hezbollah cell, led by Daqduq, operating in a border town in the Syrian Golan Heights. The Shiite terror group’s cell was said to comprise mostly Syrian mercenaries, including some Druze who had joined for "financial reasons."
The military at the time released photographs of the false identification cards Daqduq had used in his movements throughout Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.
Daqduq’s son, Hassan Ali Daqduq, was reportedly killed on December 8, 2023, in an Israeli dronezap in Syria. At the time, Israel didn’t acknowledge the strike, but Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the IDF front man, published footage of it in February as rare evidence that "We will continue to act wherever Hezbollah is present."
[IsraelTimes] Muhammad Haydar’s fate unclear; overnight strike not preceded by evacuation orders, comes as rockets trigger sirens around Haifa, with impact in Kiryat Ata
A large-scale Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... conducted without warning on a central Beirut building killed at least 20 people and maimed scores more, Lebanese officials said, with media reports indicating that the strike targeted a top Hezbollah leader.
The strike was an attempt to kill top Hezbollah commander Muhammad Haydar, the al-Arabiya news site reported. The report was later confirmed by an Israeli defense source to the Kan public broadcaster.
The Saudi Al Hadath news outlet cited unnamed Israeli sources as saying the strike had failed to kill Haydar. The IDF has not commented on the matter.
At least 20 people were killed in the strike in Beirut and 66 were maimed, Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... ’s health ministry said.
The strike on central Beirut, which appeared to have used bunker-buster bombs, came as the Israeli Air Force conducted several waves of strikes on Hezbollah targets in Hezbollah’s Dahiyah stronghold in Beirut’s south. The Israel Defense Forces issued evacuation warnings ahead of those strikes.
Similar strikes carried out without warning outside of the Dahiyah have tended to target high-level Hezbollah members.
Haydar is a member of Hezbollah’s top military body, the Jihad Council, though his exact current position in the Iran-backed terror group is currently unknown. According to Kan, Haydar and another top Hezbollah commander, Haytham Ali Tabataba’i, have been Hezbollah’s de-facto military leaders since Israel killed the terror group’s longtime leader, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> , along with most of the group’s top military brass in a wave of recent strikes.
A Hezbollah parliamentarian between 2005 and 2009, Haydar had been a close advisor to Nasrallah until the latter was assassinated in September. In 2019, the United States listed Haydar as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" for his role in Hezbollah.
The strike said to have targeted Haydar came as a rocket barrage from Lebanon triggered sirens in Haifa and surrounding communities. The IDF said that the barrage comprised five rockets, several of which were intercepted by air defenses.
One of the rockets impacted an industrial zone in the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Ata, causing slight damage to nearby buildings.
There were no injuries.
The Beirut strike, which rocked the working-class neighborhood of Basta at about 4 a.m. local time, destroyed an eight-story building, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said. The Lebanese civil defense agency reported at least 11 people were killed and 23 injured.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
Israel used bunker-buster bombs in the strike, leaving a deep crater, the NNA said. Security sources said at least four bombs were dropped in the attack. Beirut smelled strongly of explosives hours after the attack. Let Gwen Walz know. She'll get off on that
It marked the fourth Israeli airstrike this week targeting a central area of Beirut. The bulk of Israel’s attacks on the capital have targeted Hezbollah’s Dahiyeh.
A later strike, which was preceded by an evacuation order, hit the neighborhood of Hadath in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Also on Saturday a dronezap killed one person and injured another on a beach in the southern port city of Tyre, according to the National News Agency. The people killed and injured in Tyre were fishermen, the NNA said. An News Agency that Dare Not be Named journalist, who saw the strike from a nearby hotel overlooking the beach, said he had watched the fishermen set up their nets beforehand and they appeared to both be young teenagers.
An Israeli military source told The Times of Israel that the strike in Tyre had targeted Hezbollah operatives. The IDF did not immediately issue a statement on the strike. On Friday, two waves of Israeli airstrikes on the coastal city targeted Hezbollah’s Aziz regional division, responsible for rocket fire on Israel from the western sector of southern Lebanon.
Over the past day, the IDF said Saturday, Israel’s fighter jets have struck several Hezbollah command rooms, weapons storehouses, and other terror infrastructure sites in the Dahiyeh. The military released footage of the strikes. The IDF said the targets were embedded in civilian areas, and that it took steps to limit harm to the population during the strikes.
The strikes came as heavy ground fighting between the IDF and Hezbollah continued in southern Lebanon, with Israeli troops pushing farther from the border.
The IDF said that over the past week, the elite reserve Alpinist Unit, under the 810th "Mountains" Regional Brigade, had located an Iranian-made recoilless rifle, an artillery piece, during an operation on the Lebanese side of Mount Dov, along the border. The troops found rocket launchers and other projectiles at the same Hezbollah site, the military said.
Meanwhile,
...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... the IDF blamed Hezbollah for a Friday rocket barrage that lightly maimed four Italian soldiers from UNIFIL, the international observer force in southern Lebanon. The IDF said the projectiles, which hit a UNIFIL base near southern Lebanon’s Chamaa, were launched from the village of Deir Qanoun al-Nahr.
Italia’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani had also said initial evidence indicated the terror group was behind the "unacceptable" incident.
Italia and other European allies have accused Israel of targeting UNIFIL and rejected Jerusalem’s demand that the peacekeeping force vacate its positions while the IDF pursues Hezbollah.
Israel, in turn, has accused UNIFIL of failing to prevent Hezbollah from building terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon, forcing Israel to act.
Lebanon’s health ministry says a large-scale Israeli airstrike on a central Beirut building yesterday killed at least 29 people, updating an earlier toll.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Basta al-Fawqa in Beirut killed, in an updated but still not final toll, 29 people and wounded 67 others,” the ministry says in a statement.
“Rubble is still being removed” from the strike site, it adds.
Another eye witness report from an embedded reporter.
[IsraelTimes] Troops are now operating in ‘second line of villages’ to remove Hezbollah threat of invasion and direct missile fire, though rockets will still fly unless a ceasefire is reached
After a night of rain, the army’s routes into southern Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... were coated in a very thick layer of mud. A soldier driving a Humvee with a group of journalists this week came prepared with a waterproof suit and goggles.
"Hold on tight," the driver said, as the army vehicle sped down a sharp slope after crossing the border from Israel into the western sector of southern Lebanon, splashing mud and rainwater into the air.
Earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces had expanded its ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Troops have pushed into what the military calls the "second line" of villages, after largely completing its operations against the Lebanese terror group in the border-adjacent towns.
Remnants of the IDF’s operations against Hezbollah in the first line of villages were visible during the drive. Numerous houses were in piles of rubble, though others seemed to be standing with minimal damage.
Hezbollah staging grounds — some of them underground, some inside the villages, and some in forested areas — with massive amounts of weapons and equipment have been blown up by the army. The military has destroyed any house that had been used by Hezbollah, sparing those where no weapons were found.
Senior IDF officers have said that since dismantling Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the first line of villages — along with much of the villages themselves — the threat of an invasion by the terror group into northern Israel has been removed.
IDF roadblocks, set up in northern Israel to prevent civilians from driving on roads that were exposed to anti-tank missile fire from Lebanon, have all been removed in recent days.
Removing the invasion and anti-tank missile threats could enable the some 60,000 displaced Israelis from the north to return to their homes, after they were evacuated shortly after Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... ’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in the south amid fears Hezbollah would carry out a similar attack and increasing rocket fire by the terror group.
Still, the IDF has not explicitly said that the residents of the north can return yet, and local authorities are in no rush to call on their citizens to come home, with some even calling on the army to further expand its operations in southern Lebanon.
In the second line of villages, the IDF is still finding Hezbollah staging grounds, along with fighting positions from which the terror group has launched anti-tank missiles directly at Israeli border communities and military posts along the border.
"Our task is to make sure that there is no ammunition left and no enemy infrastructure left in the area so that in the end, it allows the political echelon to return the residents to the Galilee and the north," said Lt. Col. Roi Katz, a battalion commander in the 188th Armored Brigade, during a press tour of a village in the western sector of southern Lebanon this week, around 2.5 miles from the border.
Katz said it would be "impossible" for Hezbollah to use the area where his forces have operated so far as a staging ground "to enter and raid the territory of the State of Israel and attack the citizens of the Galilee with ease."
At Katz’s makeshift post in the Lebanese village, a truck full of Hezbollah rockets, anti-tank missiles, bombs and machine guns was being prepared to be taken back to Israel.
The commander said that some of the weapons were left behind at the Hezbollah position and destroyed, because they were either too heavy to bring back or damaged in a way that would make them unsafe for transport.
The second line of villages is only around 4-5 miles from the Israeli border, meaning that the threat of rocket fire and drones launched by Hezbollah at northern Israel is still present.
In recent days, the terror group has been raining down around 100 rockets a day on the Galilee, as well as the northern city of Haifa. Hezbollah has also launched several missile attacks on central Israel.
The projectiles are being launched from deeper within southern Lebanon — in areas where IDF ground forces are not operating — and, in some cases, from the northeastern Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek — where Israeli ground troops will likely never operate.
Some residents of the Galilee have returned to their homes amid the IDF’s ground operation, but not en masse. Some have explained that staying in other northern towns is no safer these days. In an unfortunate irony, border cities like Nahariya, which were never evacuated, have suffered several deadly rocket attacks.
But the tank battalion commander refused to say if it was safe for the residents of the border towns to return.
"I do not decide whether the residents of the north can return to their homes. I will carry out all the goals that were defined for me because I understand that in the end, it will allow the state to return them," he told The Times of Israel.
Defense and military officials have indicated that the only way to enable the return of the displaced civilians to the north and put an end to the rocket fire is via a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah, which may be within reach but has thus far proven elusive.
SNEAKING IN THE ARCHEOLOGIST
Israeli researcher Zeev Erlich, 71, who had been brought into southern Lebanon by a senior commander to examine an archaeological site — an ancient fortress — without the proper approvals, was killed in a battle with two Hezbollah operatives, alongside Sgt. Gur Kehati, 20, of the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion.
Two other officers, including the chief of staff of the Golani Brigade, Col. Yoav Yarom — who brought Erlich into Lebanon — were maimed.
Shortly before the incident, Katz told news hounds that his forces had encountered more Hezbollah operatives in this area of southern Lebanon compared to other villages where his battalion had operated in recent weeks, raising further questions about Erlich’s visit to the frontlines.
"It should be said that we always had the upper hand and all the enemies we encountered were defeated," he said.
"As long as we work in a focused, orderly manner and bring all the capabilities of the army to the table, there really is no enemy that can stop us."
The IDF has begun demolishing Hezbollah infrastructure in villages along the second line. A terrorist-mosque has been destroyed. pic.twitter.com/hnxSnR014p
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 only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
...hereditary prime minister of the Great White North...
...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
...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 
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
