Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Having terminated the military cooperation agreement with France, the Chadian authorities demanded that its troops leave the country by January 31, 2025. This was reported by radio RFI.
It is noted that those close to the French government reported that Paris had received orders to withdraw troops on December 19. Initially, it was proposed to extend the withdrawal of troops until March, but this schedule was rejected as too protracted.
The military in France explained that it is impossible to withdraw a thousand soldiers and a large amount of equipment in seven weeks.
France believes that the Chadian government is using “harsh pressure tactics” and intends to persuade officials to make a constructive decision.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, France is rapidly losing its position on the African continent. This process is expressed both in the reduction of the deployment points and capabilities of the French army, and in the diplomatic relations of Paris with the former colonies.
On November 28, 2024, Chad's government spokesman and foreign minister, Abderaman Koulamalla, announced that the country was asking for the end of the French military presence on its territory. Now, about 1,000 French troops serving in Chad must go home and the military bases will be closed.
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will reportedly avoid traveling to Poland for next month’s events marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp, fearing he may be arrested.
The major event is planned for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 and is expected to be attended by dozens of leaders and heads of state, including Britannia’s King Chuck ...King of England, Scotland, Ireland -- at least part of it -- Wales, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, and places like that. The first King Chuck had his head chopped off, the second one was Good Time Charlie. The third once wanted to be a tampon and thinks we'll all be extinct within the next seven years... According to Polish outlet Rzeczpospolita, Israeli authorities haven’t contacted their Polish counterparts about attending the event, and officials in Warsaw believe the reason is related to Poland’s stance that it will adhere to the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu over possible war crimes in the 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... war.
The report also says President Isaac Herzog does not plan to attend the event.
[IsraelTimes] Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his visiting German counterpart Annalena Baerbock that it is essential for Kurdish militant groups including the PKK and YPG to lay down arms and dissolve, Turkish foreign ministry officials said.
Ankara considers the YPG, which has fought for years in Syria alongside US troops, to be an extension of the PKK, which fights against the Turkish state and is banned as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and the United States.
Turkish forces and their Syrian allies have clashed with a YPG-led alliance in Syria since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad this month.
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[IsraelTimes] Lawsuit alleges State Dept. discriminated against Palestinian-Americans by ‘abandoning’ them in Gaza, not making same effort US has made in Lebanon, Afghanistan and other war zones
Nine Palestinian Americans sued the United States government on Thursday, alleging that it had failed to rescue them or members of their families who were trapped in Gaza after the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7 2023, and Israel’s ensuing war against Hamas.
The lawsuit accuses the State Department of discriminating against Americans of Palestinian origin by abandoning them in a war zone and not making the same effort that it would to promptly evacuate and protect Americans of different origins in similar situations.
It was the second case against the US government this week after Palestinian families sued the US State Department on Tuesday over Washington’s support for Israel’s military.
A US State Department spokesperson said the department does not comment on pending litigation, while adding the safety and security of American citizens around the world is a “top priority.”
Thursday’s lawsuit was announced by advocacy group, Council on American Islamic Relations, and attorney Maria Kari, and was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The suit alleges the plaintiffs’ rights to equal protection under the US Constitution has been violated by depriving them “of the normal and typical evacuation efforts the federal government extends to Americans who are not Palestinians.”
It mentions comparable instances of the US government evacuating its citizens from conflict zones such as in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sudan, and names President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as defendants.
The State Department spokesperson said the US has evacuated Americans from unsafe areas around the world, including Gaza.
[IsraelTimes] Mohammad Reza Nouri indicted for multiple terrorism- and murder-related offenses over killing of Stephen Troell; suspect being held in Iraq, where he has already been convicted
An Iranian officer blamed for the 2022 killing of an American in Iraq has been charged in New York with federal murder and terrorism crimes, authorities announced on Friday.
Federal authorities in New York City said Mohammad Reza Nouri, a captain in Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has been charged in Manhattan federal court with multiple terrorism and murder-related charges that carry a potential penalty of life in prison. At least one charge carries the potential for a death sentence ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead... Nouri, 36, is in jug in Iraq, where he already has been convicted by an Iraqi court for his role in Stephen Troell’s killing, authorities said.
Troell, a native of Tennessee, was killed in his car by unknown assailants as he pulled up to the street where he lived with his family in Baghdad’s central Karrada district. He worked for Global English Institute, a language school in Baghdad’s Harthiya neighborhood, which operated under the auspices of Texas-based non-governmental organization Millennium Relief and Development Services.
It was a rare killing of a foreigner in Iraq, where security conditions have improved in recent years.
Acting US Attorney Edward Y. Kim said in a release that Nouri orchestrated the killing of Troell in Baghdad, Iraq, in November 2022.
"Nouri is alleged to have gathered intelligence on Troell’s daily routine and whereabouts, procured weapons and vehicles, and provided safe harbor to the operatives who carried out the sinister plot to brutally attack Troell in front of his wife," Kim said.
The prosecutor said the "Iranian regime is actively targeting US citizens, such as Troell, living in countries around the world for kidnapping and execution both to repress and silence dissidents critical of the regime and to take vengeance" for the death of Qassem Soleimani , an Iranian military leader killed by an American drone aircraft strike in January 2020.
In court papers, the US government asserted that Nouri celebrated the killing with a coconspirator on the day of the attack and left Iraq for 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... the night of the killing. It said shortly before leaving Baghdad, Nouri visited a religious site associated with mourning for Soleimani’s death.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the release that the Justice Department "will not tolerate hard boyz and authoritarian regimes targeting and murdering Americans anywhere in the world."
[IsraelTimes] Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli criticizes Pope Francis for suggesting the international community should study whether Israel’s military offensive in Gaza constitutes a “genocide” of the Palestinian people.
In an open letter addressed to the pontiff and published by several news outlets, Chikli says the pope’s remarks — made in excerpts published last month from a forthcoming book — amount to a “trivialization” of the term genocide.
“As a people who lost six million of its sons and daughters in the Holocaust, we are particularly sensitive to the trivialization of the term ‘genocide’ — a trivialization that comes dangerously close to Holocaust denial,” Chikli writes.
Chikli, who ends the letter by calling Francis “a dear friend of the Jewish people,” asks the pope “to clarify your position regarding the new accusation of genocide against the Jewish state.”
The Vatican does not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Israel says accusations of genocide in Gaza are baseless and that it is solely hunting down Hamas terrorists and other Palestinian armed groups following the October 7, 2023, cross-border onslaught in Israel.
[IsraelTimes] The Defense Ministry body responsible for facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza says it helped deliver eight empty trucks that will be added to the World Food Programme to bolster the delivery of aid throughout the Strip.
Six of the trucks are for aid and two of the trucks are for fuel.
Israel is working to bolster WFP’s capacity after passing legislation aimed at effectively dismantling the UN’s relief agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA at the end of January over its ties to Hamas.
“Since the outbreak of war, [COGAT’s] efforts have enabled 63 empty trucks into the Gaza Strip for international organizations,” COGAT says in a statement.
[IsraelTimes] Army says government backs decision to strengthen Palestinians, despite opposition from some ministers; Jewish terrorism numbers down over past year, but incidents still serious
The Israel Defense Forces supports strengthening the Paleostinian Authority so it can more effectively combat terrorism in the West Bank, military officials said on Thursday, as the PA appears to step up efforts against Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... and 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... Officials said the IDF was backing efforts to increase coordination and cooperation with the PA on the orders of the government rather than as its own initiative, despite statements from some government ministers who have urged the weakening of the PA.
The comment comes as PA security forces have been carrying out an operation against terror groups in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, including killing and detaining members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, seizing weapons, and neutralizing bombs.
The crackdown came after terror operatives stole two PA vehicles and paraded them through Jenin last week.
The PA has a relatively strong presence in southern and central West Bank cities, where it has managed to maintain public order. But in the northern part of the territory, especially the refugee camps in the Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem areas, the PA has struggled to exercise authority against the terror groups there.
Military officials said the PA gained some fortitude this week when its members entered Jenin and an adjacent refugee camp.
The army hopes to encourage the PA to continue carrying out such operations. Officials said the army will do what it can to ensure the PA is strong enough to successfully operate against terror, which would also benefit the IDF, but did not provide details about what steps were being taken to bolster the Paleostinian force.
Officials declined to say if the military supports increasing supplies of arms and equipment to the PA security forces, which must be approved by Israel.
While hard-right elements of the government have long criticized the transfer of weapons to the PA, Israel’s security establishment maintains a different approach, viewing PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....> and his security forces as an important ally in combating terror in the West Bank, and generally does support the transfer of arms and equipment to it.
As the PA faces a legitimacy crisis over its failure to deliver Paleostinian statehood or even hold elections, its popularity has waned significantly, particularly in the northern West Bank where rivals have taken up weapons and challenged its authority.
In the past, the PA would not enter the northern West Bank cities and refugee camps after the IDF had recently operated there, arguing that the military’s raids hamper its legitimacy further, and insists that Israel let it deal with the problem on its own.
There reached a point where for months at a time the military would not carry out operations inside the refugee camps, giving the PA space to operate there instead. But the decision ended up enabling terror groups to gain significant power in the refugee camps, the Israeli military officials said.
Now, the IDF and PA have been operating in the refugee camps within a few days of each other, according to military officials.
The military also supports the potential increase in permits for West Bank Paleostinians to work in settlements and inside Israel, after they were nearly all revoked following the October 7, 2023, onslaught, officials said Tuesday.
Currently, some 10,000 West Bank Paleostinians have work permits, and the vast majority of them are working inside settlements or industrial zones in the West Bank.
The military sees the work permits as a significant method of easing the pressure on the economically depressed territory.
DECREASE IN JEWISH AND PALESTINIAN TERRORISM
Also on Thursday, the IDF said it had identified a decrease in the number of incidents of Jewish terrorism against Paleostinians in the West Bank this past year compared to the previous year.
Still, some of the incidents of "nationalistic crime" — attacks by settlers against Paleostinians — this year have been some of the most grave in recent memory, according to military officials.
Throughout 2024, the IDF and Shin Bet recorded 663 incidents of "nationalistic crime," compared to 1,045 last year. In 2022, the military recorded 947 incidents, and in 2021, 446.
This year, there were several cases of Israeli settlers killing Paleostinians in the West Bank, including during attacks by mobs on Paleostinian villages.
The IDF has similarly recorded a decrease in the number of Paleostinian terror attacks carried out against Israelis in the West Bank and in Israel, including knifings, shootings, and car-rammings.
In 2024, the military counted 254 terror attacks, compared to 847 in the year prior. In 2022, it recorded 342, and in 2021, just 91.
There has also been a major decrease in the amount of stone-throwing and Molotov cocktail attacks by Paleostinians, with the IDF recording 1,188 such incidents this year compared to 3,256 last year, 3,779 in 2022, and 8,633 in 2021.
The IDF said it had killed at least 787 Paleostinian terror operatives in the West Bank since the October 7, 2023, onslaught. Some 70% of them were armed with a gun, according to the military.
In all, some 820 Paleostinians were killed in the West Bank during that time, with 4% of them being civilians who were not button men or rioters who clashed with troops, or turbans carrying out attacks, the IDF said.
Over 100 Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s were carried out by the IDF in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, mostly with drones and helicopters. Five were carried out by fighter jets.
Per year, the IDF said it killed 479 terror operatives in the West Bank in 2024 and 504 in 2023. In 2022, the military said it killed 155 terror operatives, and in 2021, troops killed 77.
The IDF said it had also detained 2,868 wanted Paleostinians this year and another 3,026 in 2023. In total since October 7, 2023, the IDF said over 6,000 wanted Paleostinians were detained, including 2,350 members of Hamas.
Also in the past year, 37 Israelis were killed in terror attacks carried out in the West Bank or by West Bank Paleostinians inside Israel, according to the IDF’s data. In 2023, the military recorded 41 deaths in Paleostinian terror attacks, 32 in 2022, and just 3 in 2021.
The IDF said it has captured some 1,042 weapons in the West Bank in the past year, including those being smuggled into the territory from the border with Jordan. In 2023, a similar number of weapons, 1,065, were captured. According to the military, since October 7, 2023, 1,499 weapons were seized.
In 2022 the IDF recorded 970 captured weapons, and before that in 2021, just 458.
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells the Wall Street Journal that he was woken up by his staff at 6:29 a.m. on October 7, which was the minute that Hamas’s onslaught of southern Israel began.
“On October 7, they woke me up at 6:29 in the morning,” Netanyahu recalls during the interview.
Netanyahu’s office has apparently made an effort to present the premier as having been responding to the attack from the moment it began.
Tzachi Braverman, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, allegedly altered the office’s official minutes from that day to state that the premier received the first update from his military secretary at the time, Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, at 6:29 a.m. and not 6:40 a.m. when he actually got the call.
Braverman is being investigated for forgery and fraud over the incident.
The Journal story appears to go to great lengths to tell Netanyahu’s account, stating that Israeli security officials knew something was awry for hours but didn’t update the prime minister.
Netanyahu and his aides have sought to lay primary responsibility for the October 7 onslaught on the feet of the security establishment.
Also in the WSJ interview, Netanyahu reiterates his stance against a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, saying he will only agree to a temporary pause in order to resume fighting and ensure that Hamas is completely dismantled.
His opponents have warned that this would leave the majority of the 100 remaining hostages in Gaza indefinitely.
Hamas has also long asserted that it won’t agree to release hostages unless it has guarantees that the first phase of the ceasefire being negotiated will subsequently transition to the second and third stages during which a permanent cessation of hostilities will be agreed upon.
Netanyahu has also refused to allow a role for the Palestinian Authority in the post-war management of Gaza in what Israel’s security establishment has warned robs Jerusalem of a viable alternative to Hamas’s rule and all but ensures that the IDF will continue fighting the terror group for the foreseeable future as vacuums temporarily created by military operations are re-filled by Hamas shortly thereafter.
[IsraelTimes] After igniting fears that fall of Assad will usher in Islamist regime, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham chief denies forcing woman to don veil and says ‘it’s my personal freedom’
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new de facto leader of Syria, defended telling a woman to cover her hair before being photographed with him after viral video of the incident ignited fears that post-Assad Syria could be veering toward a fundamentalist Islamic regime.
"I did not force her. But it’s my personal freedom. I want photos taken for me the way that suits me," al-Sharaa, who has recently stopped using his nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Julani, told the BBC in an interview.
The rebel chief has received backlash from both liberals and conservative Islamists upon asking the woman, Lea Kheirallah, that she cover her hair while he toured Damascus’s Messeh area on December 10. Kheirallah complied, pulling her hood over her head.
The incident raised fears among liberal media outlets that al-Sharaa could seek to institute strict dress codes in Syria just as his group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... — a former al-Qaeda affiliate — did upon seizing control of the Idlib province in 2017. Those restrictions, however, were softened in recent years following public criticism.
La Belle France 24’s Arabic channel published a headline asking whether Syria was headed toward "Islamic rule." According to the BBC, one Syrian journalist said, "We replaced one dictator with a reactionary dictator," and social media commentators wrote that "ultra-extremists" may be rising to power and that al-Sharaa "forced a free woman" to cover her hair.
Meanwhile,
...back at the palazzo, Count Guido stepped from behind the suit of armor, rapier in hand. Ciccolini snarled and reached for his own weapon... conservative Islamists criticized al-Sharaa on Telegram for being photographed at all with a woman, which is considered by some to be immodest in Islam. According to the BBC, most of the critics appear to be from the Idlib region and include holy mans and influential commentators, some of them previously members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Some critics called al-Sharaa’s behavior "indulgent" and that he was seeking "vain public attention" and "too busy taking selfies with young ladies" instead of addressing demands to release prisoners held in his organization’s jails in Idlib.
For her part, Kheirallah said al-Sharaa’s request did not bother her, adding that he asked in a "gentle and fatherly way."
"It was his right to appear in a manner befitting his principles. He didn’t ask the women around him to cover their hair, but if they wanted to be photographed with him, the same standard applied even for the American journalist who interviewed him," Kheirallah wrote in an Instagram post.
Nevertheless, a photograph published by the Syrian Arab News Agency showed al-Sharaa posing with a German foreign ministry delegation that included a woman whose hair was uncovered.
Seeking a contrast to his past as an al-Qaeda commander, al-Sharaa has portrayed himself as a moderate since toppling the Assad family’s 50-year rule on December 8. He has insisted that the rights of all Syrians will be protected and that he is committed to the 1974 ceasefire agreement with Israel.
The Islamist leader told foreign journalists that his nascent government intends to overhaul Syria’s constitution and institutions, but said it will take time, and that the country is not yet ready for elections due to remaining disorder, some 13 years after civil war broke out amid the so-called Arab Spring in 2011.
[IsraelTimes] Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... suggests that The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... may intervene in northern Syria to eliminate what he claims are threats to its security posed by Syrian Kurdish groups.
Even as he mulls an invasion, Erdogan also claims the US and Western powers have a "responsibility to stop Israel" from operating in Syrian territory.
Unlike Turkey, whose proxies control large swathes of northern Syria, the IDF only entered a buffer zone this month between Syria and the Israeli-annexed side of the Golan Heights, saying it is doing so temporarily, until a new regime is put in place that can guarantee the upholding of the 1974 disengagement agreement that formed the demilitarized zone.
Erdogan’s statement to a group of journalists also comes amid reports of fighting between Ottoman Turkish-backed fighters and the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria, near the border town of Kobani and the Tishrin dam on the Euphrates River.
"We will show that the time has come to neutralize the terrorist organizations present in Syria," Erdogan says, according to a transcript of his remarks. "We will do this to prevent any further threats coming from the south of our borders."
Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization because its main component is a group aligned with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is banned in Turkey. Earlier this week, the SDF said US-led mediation efforts failed to reach a permanent truce in Syria’s north.
"The end of the road for the terrorist organizations is near," Erdogan says. "There is no room for murderous Moslems in the future of the region. The shelf life of the PKK terrorist organization and its extensions has run out."
Erdogan says that by securing the border area in Syria, Turkey would also prevent the PKK from recruiting fighters.
The Ottoman Turkish leader, meanwhile, welcomes the fact that many countries are establishing contact with Syria’s new leaders, saying it is "a sign of trust" in the new administration. He says Turkey will assist the country to establish new "state structures."
Erdogan adds that Ottoman Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will travel to Syria soon.
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[IsraelTimes] Rights group previously accused Israel of war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza as well
Human rights group Amnesty International on Friday condemned Lebanese terror group Hezbollah for firing salvos of unguided rockets at civilian areas of Israel during the latest conflict.
"Hezbollah’s reckless use of unguided rocket salvos has killed and maimed civilians, and destroyed and damaged civilian homes in Israel," said Amnesty’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard.
"The use of these inherently inaccurate weapons in or near populated civilian areas amounts to prima facie violations of international humanitarian law," she said.
"Direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and indiscriminate attacks that kill and injure civilians must be investigated as war crimes."
Amnesty said it had documented three Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli towns and cities that killed eight civilians and maimed at least 16 others following the escalation of the conflict in late September.
In footage of the attacks, it said it had identified the use of unguided multiple launch rocket systems that violate the bedrock principle of distinction under international humanitarian law.
At the time, Hezbollah announced a series of rocket barrages targeting Israeli population centers in response to Israeli air strikes on Lebanese towns and villages.
Amnesty already released the findings of its investigation into Israeli actions during the war. It said it had documented unlawful Israeli air strikes that killed 49 civilians, which must be investigated as war crimes. It has also accused Israel of committing "genocide" against Paleostinians in its military campaign against the Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... terror group 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... , a charge Israel and allies have strongly rejected.
A fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect on November 27.
Despite the truce, Israeli air strikes have killed more than 20 people in Leb ...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. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration.... since November 27, according to an AFP tally based on health ministry figures. Both Israel and Hezbollah accuse each other of repeatedly violating the ceasefire.
Since Hezbollah first started attacking Israel in October 2023, the war has killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, according to health ministry figures.
On the Israeli side, the conflict has killed 30 soldiers and 47 civilians.
So the president has full blown dementia, the vice president has been hiding from the world after losing her election over a month ago, and Donald Trump will take over in a few weeks. Who decided to send the team, and how valid is any of this?
[CNN] The United States has removed the long-standing $10 million bounty on the de-facto leader of Syria following a high-level US delegation meeting with the former jihadist Friday.
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, one of three US officials who sat down with Ahmad al-Sharaa in Damascus, described the “policy decision” as one aligned with the need to work on “critical issues” such as combating terrorism.
Al-Sharaa “committed to this,” Leaf said, “and so based on our discussion, I told him we would not be pursuing the Rewards for Justice reward offer that has been in effect for some years.” Al-Sharaa is the leader of the US-designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
The meeting al-Sharaa, formerly called Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, underscored the urgency of US efforts to engage with Syria’s interim government to ensure the country does not see a resurgence of ISIS which US officials have warned will seek to regroup in the wake of the stunning collapse of the Syrian regime.
The international community has also rushed to endorse a set of principles meant to guide the transition to a new Syrian government that it is inclusive and respectful of human rights, which would mark a sharp departure from Assad’s brutal rule.
Also a sharp departure from how Abu Mohammad al-Jolani reportedly ran things over in his not-so-little enclave before Al Nusra burst out in their blitzkrieg conquest.
Leaf said al-Sharaa “came across as pragmatic” and described their meeting in Damascus as “quite good, very productive, detailed.” Another source familiar with the meeting said it lasted just under two hours.
Because someone who has been a jihadi since 2003 is going to take the words of an unbeliever female seriously. Ms Leaf, who claims expertise in Arab and Islamic politics, ought to know that.
“It was good first meeting,” Leaf said, noting they “ranged over a wide set of issues, domestic and external.”
“We’ve been hearing this for some time, some very pragmatic and moderate statements on various issues, from women’s rights to protection of, you know, equal rights for all communities, etc.,” she said.
Taqqiyah.
“We will judge by deeds, not just by words. Deeds are the critical thing,” Leaf said.
Leaf, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens and NEA Senior Adviser Daniel Rubinstein were the first US officials to travel to Syria following the collapse of the Syrian government less than two weeks ago.
The US had been in direct contact with HTS on these matters and had received a commitment to help find Tice, an American journalist detained in Syria more than a decade ago. The US also hopes to find more information about the fate of other Americans who disappeared, like Majd Kamalmaz.
Carstens said Friday the US has focused its search for Austin Tice on “six facilities that we believe have a high possibility of having had Austin Tice at one point or another.” They have received “additional information … which lead us to add maybe one or two or three more facilities to that initial number.”
However, due to “limited resources,” their focus has been on the initial half dozen, Carstens said, suggesting that the FBI should be on the ground more to help with the search.
“Since State cannot be on the ground, nor can the FBI for an extended amount of time right now, we’ve been working with our partners, allies, NGOs and even members of the media to take a look at these facilities and give us a sense of what they’re seeing, what they’re finding,” he said in response to a question from CNN during a virtual press briefing.
“As time goes on, in the coming days, weeks and months, it’ll be our duty, our responsibility, to go to the first six sites and search them thoroughly, in addition to knowing that our partners and allies and friends have already searched them, to really fine-tune the evidence gathering in a way that only the FBI can do,” he said.
“Additionally, we want to keep fanning that search out to the remaining facilities, and it could end up being like 20 or 30 or 40 prison sites as time goes on,” Carstens said, noting that the US will do that with “the interim authorities, who to this point have been very helpful in these searches.”
"American officials did not appear to remove HTS from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organization but did agree to stop offering incentives for Sharaa’s capture following a meeting between the jihadi chief and a delegation of senior State Department officials on Friday."
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.
...King of England, Scotland, Ireland -- at least part of it -- Wales, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, and places like that. The first King Chuck had his head chopped off, the second one was Good Time Charlie. The third once wanted to be a tampon and thinks we'll all be extinct within the next seven years...
...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 
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
