[IsraelTimes] The Taliban says it will close all national and foreign nongovernmental groups in Afghanistan employing women. It comes two years after they told NGOs to suspend the employment of Afghan women, allegedly because they didn’t wear the Islamic headscarf correctly.
In a letter published on X Sunday night, the Economy Ministry warns that failure to comply with the latest order will lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in Afghanistan.
The ministry says it is responsible for the registration, coordination, leadership and supervision of all activities carried out by national and foreign organizations.
The government is once again ordering the stoppage of all female work in institutions not controlled by the Taliban, according to the letter.
“In case of lack of cooperation, all activities of that institution will be canceled and the activity license of that institution, granted by the ministry, will also be canceled.”
The Taliban have already barred women from many jobs and most public spaces. They have also excluded them from education beyond sixth grade.
Abdul Rahman Habib, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Economy, said that currently 853 non-governmental organizations, including 175 foreign and 678 domestic organizations, are operating in the country.
The spokesperson told TOLOnews: "At present, there are a total of 853 non-Emirate (non-governmental) NGOs, including 175 foreign and 678 domestic organizations, whose budgets for individual projects are registered in the Ministry of Economy’s system, and they operate in various sectors with project-based activities."
On Sunday, the Ministry of Economy once again issued an order to stop women from working in non-governmental organizations. The ministry stressed that if these organizations do not cooperate in this regard, all their activities will be suspended, and the licenses they have obtained from the ministry will be revoked.
[IsraelTimes] Three ports on Yemen’s west coast under Houthi control have been out of service since Israeli strikes against them on December 18, according to sources quoted by Al Arabiya.
Ships anchored in the ports of Hodeida, Salif, and Ras Issa have been unable to leave, the Saudi news outlet reports, cutting off an essential lifeline for the regime.
The harbors were again targeted in IDF strikes last week, as part of Israel’s campaign to destroy infrastructure used by Houthis for military activities. The ports of Ras Issa and Hodeida also include fuel storage facilities, making them vital economic hubs for the terror group.
A strike on the Hodeida port in July reportedly cost the Houthis over $300 million in material losses and lost port revenue, as the Iran-backed rebel group struggles to find resources, given Yemen’s dismal economic crisis and international isolation.
#4
As best I can tell, the Houthis are still offloading supplies from ships in some of their port facilities, still accepting deliveries by truck, still having aircraft landing & taking off from their airfields, and still have something resembling an electric grid. Article doesn't mention how many ports under Houthi control continue to operate.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Russian company STG Engineering has suspended wheat supplies to Syria after the overthrow of former President Bashar al-Assad, TASS reports,citing the company's CEO Dmitry Trifonov.
"We supplied wheat to Syria for three years, the monthly volume of deliveries was 1.1 million tons. Now the deliveries have completely stopped," the agency's source said.
According to Trifonov, wheat supplies to Syria will resume after establishing contacts with the new authorities of the country. He explained that the reason for the suspension of exports is the debt of the Syrian side to the Russian company, which amounted to 116 million dollars.
The leader of the new Syrian government, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said in an interview with Al Arabiya TV that Syria has strategic interests related to Russia. He also added that Damascus does not want Moscow to leave Syria to the detriment of relations between the two countries.
In September, Russian Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev said at a visiting meeting in the Saratov Region that the situation in the Russian agro-industrial complex remained normal, despite the worsening weather during spring field work. At that time, almost 64 million tons of wheat had been harvested.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on December 8, the former leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, announced his resignation as president and left Syria amid the offensive of the armed opposition and the gradual loss of control over the cities. He and his family arrived in Russia, where they were granted asylum. Two days later, the armed Syrian opposition ordered its forces to withdraw from the captured cities so that internal security units and the police could enter.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/31/2024 00:00 ||
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[KhaamaPress] Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and candidate for Chancellor of Germany, has called for fundamental changes in Germany’s immigration and asylum policies. He emphasized that deporting criminals from Syria and Afghanistan should be prioritized, even amid instability in these countries.
In an interview with the German news agency, Merz stated, "We know that Syria and Afghanistan remain highly unstable. However,
women are made to be loved, not understood... we in the party have long believed that deportations to these countries are fundamentally possible and necessary. We will do this." His remarks highlight his strong stance on tackling immigration issues.
Merz also stressed the need for reforms in Germany’s asylum and immigration policies. He promised significant changes in these areas if he were to win the upcoming election. His focus would be on creating a more controlled and sustainable immigration system.
According to Germany’s Interior Ministry, approximately 975,000 Syrians currently live in Germany. Most arrived after the Syrian civil war began in 2015, with over 300,000 receiving "subsidiary protection" due to the ongoing conflict.
Merz is a proponent of labor migration and opposes the current asylum system. He stressed the importance of distinguishing between asylum seekers and labor migrants colonists. He argued that Germany has already provided significant support to refugees, but the number of asylum seekers has become unsustainable, and the capacity of cities and communities is reaching its limit.
To address labor migration, Merz’s party has proposed creating a digital agency called "Work and Residency" to streamline and regulate the process of labor migration separately from asylum applications.
The ongoing refugee crisis in Germany has sparked intense debate about the future of asylum policies. Merz’s calls for reform reflect a growing concern over the social and economic impact of large numbers of refugees on Germany’s infrastructure and public services.
#1
"To address labor migration, Merz’s party has proposed creating a digital agency called "Work and Residency" to streamline and regulate the process of labor migration..."
This pre-supposes that Germany has an actual shortage of labor. ALL importations of labor (planned or otherwise) press downward on wages, particularly so if there is not an ongoing shortage of existing labor.
[IsraelTimes] In opinion piece published in major newspaper over weekend, world’s richest person writes Alternative for Germany is ‘last spark of hope’ for country
The German government accused US billionaire Elon Musk on Monday of trying to influence its election due in February with articles supporting the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, even though it suggested they amounted to "nonsense."
Musk, who is set to serve Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... ’s new US administration as an outside adviser, endorsed the AfD as Germany’s last hope in a guest opinion piece for the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.
"It is indeed the case that Elon Musk is trying to influence the federal election" with X posts and the opinion piece, a German government spokesperson said.
Musk is free to express his opinion, the spokesperson said, adding: "After all, freedom of opinion also covers the greatest nonsense."
Musk, the world’s richest person, has defended his right to weigh in on German politics because of his "significant investments," and has praised the AfD’s approach to regulation, taxes and market deregulation.
His intervention has come as Germans prepare to vote in a parliamentary election on Feb. 23 after the collapse of the coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Musk also called for Scholz’s resignation after a car rammed into a crowd at a Christmas market on Dec. 20, killing five people.
The AfD is currently in second place in opinion polls behind the main opposition conservatives, and might be able to thwart a center-right or center-left majority in the election. Germany’s mainstream parties have pledged not to work with the AfD at the national level.
The government spokesperson said Musk’s endorsement of the AfD was "a recommendation to vote for a party that is being monitored (by domestic intelligence) on suspicion of being right-wing hard boy and which has already been recognized as partly right-wing hard boy."
German politicians have excoriated Musk for his endorsement of the AfD, with the co-leader of Scholz’s Social Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... (SPD) comparing him to Russian President Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... "Both want to influence our elections and specifically support the AfD’s enemies of democracy. They want Germany to be weakened and plunged into chaos," Lars Klingbeil told the Funke news group on Monday.
Friedrich Merz, leader of the opposition Christian Democrats and current favorite to succeed Scholz as chancellor, told Funke that Musk’s comments were "intrusive and pretentious."
Musk’s guest opinion piece for Welt am Sonntag — a sister publication of POLITICO owned by the Axel Springer Group — published in German over the weekend, was the second time this month he supported AfD.
"The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the last spark of hope for this country," Musk wrote in his translated commentary.
He went on to say the far-right party "can lead the country into a future where economic prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovation are not just wishes, but reality."
The Tesla Motors CEO also wrote that his investment in Germany gave him the right to comment on the country’s condition.
The AfD is polling strongly, but its candidate for the top job, Alice Weidel, has no realistic chance of becoming chancellor because other parties refuse to work with the far-right party.
An ally of Trump, the technology billionaire challenged the party’s public image in his opinion piece.
"The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing hard boy is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like... to you? Please!"
Musk’s commentary has led to a debate in German media over the boundaries of free speech, with the paper’s own opinion editor announcing her resignation, pointedly on Musk’s social media platform, X.
"I always enjoyed leading the opinion section of WELT and WAMS. Today an article by Elon Musk appeared in Welt am Sonntag. I handed in my resignation yesterday after it went to print," Eva Marie Kogel wrote.
The newspaper was also attacked by politicians and other media for offering Musk, an outsider, a platform to express his views in favor of the AfD.
Musk’s opinion piece in the Welt am Sonntag was accompanied by a critical article by the future editor-in-chief of the Welt group, Jan Philipp Burgard.
"Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally wrong," Burgard wrote.
Responding to a request for comment from the German Press Agency, dpa, the current editor-in-chief of the Welt group, Ulf Poschardt, and Burgard — who is 2xdue to take over on January 1 — said in a joint statement that the discussion over Musk’s piece was "very insightful. Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression."
"This will continue to determine the compass of the ’world’ in the future. We will develop ’Die Welt’ even more decisively as a forum for such debates," they wrote to dpa.
German government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann on Monday said billionaire Elon Musk was trying to exert influence over the German election due to take place on February 23.
However, she also sought to downplay the sway that Musk's interventions might have after declaring his support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
"It is indeed the case that Elon Musk is trying to influence the federal election through his statements," said Hoffmann.
"He is free to express his opinion. One does not have to share this opinion. Freedom of expression also includes the greatest nonsense," she said.
Hoffmann stressed that the elections were a German matter to be decided by the voters at the ballot box.
"In Germany, elections are decided by voters at the ballot box," she said, adding that the country's "elections are a matter for Germans."
The spokeswoman also pointed out that the AfD was under investigation by the German domestic intelligence service on suspicion of being a far-right extremist organization. At the state level, in some cases, it already has been.
#1
The nicest thing that can be said about his "opinion piece" is that Musk has no clue. If the AfD had anything to say, Musk would not have been able to build his Tesla factory in Brandenburg (the party was the fiercest opponent of this project).
The AfD doesn't want less state (hear that DOGE?), it wants more.
The AfD prefers Putin's Russia to America (whoever the president may be).
The most ridiculous comment is about Alice Weidel. He just failed to say that Hitler built autobahnen and was a vegetarian.
Last spark of hope? Good help us.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/31/2024 5:56 Comments ||
Top||
#5
The AfD doesn't want less state (hear that DOGE?), it wants more.
The AfD prefers Putin's Russia to America (whoever the president may be).
These statements are true.
However this is also the position of the CDU's ally and regional coalition partner BSW (which is a political reorganization and offshoot of the Communist Party of East Germany.)
The CDU is also regionally cooperating with the rump CPEG.
The CSU leader Söder is a political weather vane who has for years obsequiously kowtowed to the Greens and their disastrous economic policies literally debasing himself as a tree hugger (Image search "Soeder Baum Umarmen).
Ironically this makes him the lesser evil since, as an opportunist, he doesn't have an iron commitment to climate socialist suicide.
[IsraelTimes] Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser says there are indications that the Saudi suspect in a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market 10 days ago is mentally ill.
“There are striking signs of a pathological psyche,” Faeser tells reporters, adding that lessons must be learnt on how to track potential “perpetrators who are psychologically disturbed and… driven by confused conspiracy theories.”
So what the lady is saying is that Dr. Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, 50, the drug-using, German-trained psychotherapist from Hofuf in the Shiite region of Saudi Arabia, treated German patients for eighteen years — since his arrival in 2006 — despite becoming dangerously mentally unstable himself. A mental instability that was reported to various authorities a number of times over the years, and an equal number of times brushed off — possibly because no one wanted to be seen as racist, the other possibility being that no one cared that the welfare of the masses receiving government health insurance was placed in the hands of a dangerous monomaniac who spent all his free time tweeting about German unfairness to non-Syrian refugees and whether he ought to commit mass murder to punish them for it. Top men and women are assuredly running that country. February elections can’t come soon enough.
A representative of the Magdeburg city municipal company that runs its annual Christmas market had written to local police three weeks before December’s fatal attack to point out problems, an alleged leaked email said to have been seen by the Volksstimme newspaper claims. The publication states the email refers to the security plan made for the Christmas market, given German authorities know well their annual festivities are a prominent target for attacks, and states the police side of arrangements wasn’t being adhered to.
Referring to the security plan having emergency vehicle accesses to the centre of the market to allow access for police, ambulance, and fire engines in case of an incident but those routes having to be closed off by a parked police vehicle otherwise, the council employee states those police vehicles are frequently absent.
They are reported to have written: “In the area of Hartstrasse, the vehicles are sometimes parked in the wrong position,… I spoke to my colleagues politely and they told me that they had no information about the operation here.”
The email is said to have received no response. It is further stated the market’s security concept was inspected prior to the event opening, but that inspection failed to notice deficiencies, including car-sized gaps between the so-called ‘diversity barriers’ ringing the site not being secured with thick steel chains. Volksstimme stated: “when the market opened, there were wide gaps between the concrete barriers that were supposed to protect the entrances and escape routes.”
In the event, access to the market had been left so wide-open the alleged attacker was able to drive in the market at one end, and then straight out of the other — at the Hartstrasse mentioned in the leaked email — without being stopped, and after having killed five and injured over 200, dozens of them critically.
Damning as the email may seem, Germany’s Bild notes a Magdeburg police representative totally rejected responsibility for the Christmas market, a situation the paper characterised as “everyone is blaming each other”.
The police spokesman told Bild: “The organizer is fundamentally responsible for security at the Christmas market” and that if the city had wanted to be able to control access to the market at four emergency access points, they should have erected lockable security gates rather than rely on the police.
As previously reported, the police being involved in blocking those entrances was nevertheless part of the plan police had agreed to and their own security documents referred to “mobile police barriers” being in place.
Protests by the police they are innocent in the matter appear to have already been dismissed as being potentially without foundation, however, as the local state government has already laid criminal charges against the local force and market organiser for an alleged failure to stop a preventable attack.
Criminal charges against the police? That’s not good.
Magdeburg attack: Over €600,000 donated to victims, families
[DW] The city’s administration said there have been over 5,600 donations after the deadly attack at a Christmas market. “All donations prove that our city is sticking together,” said city mayor Simone Borris.
The city administration in Magdeburg, Germany said that €615,227.91 ($641,313.57) had been donated to the victims and relatives of the Christmas market attack.
On December 20, a man originally from Saudi Arabia who came to Germany in 2006 drove a car through crowds at the city's Christmas market, killing five people and injuring as many as 235. A 9-year-old child was among those killed.
"The willingness of the population to donate is impressive and another sign of the great solidarity, the broad support and the sense of community that we are currently feeling in many places in Magdeburg,” said Magdeburg Mayor Simone Borris.
"My thoughts are also with the five fatalities, the bereaved and the many injured, as well as the countless relief and emergency services," Borris said in a statement.
"All donations prove that our city is sticking together. This gives us strength and confidence for the future," the mayor said.
[Rudaw] Iraqi government on Sunday returned another batch of nearly 100 nationals, who had fled to Syria due to the Islamic State (ISIS) war, through Turkey, announced the migration ministry.
"The Ministry has received a new group of voluntarily returning Iraqis, totaling 96 citizens. These individuals returned from areas including Tal Abyad [Gire Spi], Ras al-Ain [Sare Kani], Idlib, and Azaz on the Syrian-Turkish border to their homeland," said the ministry in a statement.
The individuals were returned through Ibrahim Khalil border crossing, which connects Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province to Turkey’s Sirnak province.
Iraq repatriated 126 nationals from the same places and through the same border crossing on Thursday.
It is not clear why Baghdad chose to return them through Turkey rather than its al-Qaim border crossing with Syria - which has been closed to movement since the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8. It was reopened a few times for the passage of humanitarian aid and return of Syrian soldiers who had fled war.
"This is the final group of returning Iraqis from Syria this year, through Turkish territory via the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing," the Iraqi ministry’s statement cited Safaa Hussein Ahmed, a director at the ministry, as saying.
Following the collapse of Assad’s regime, the ministry asked Iraqi citizens residing in Syria who wish to return, to contact the embassy and register their names.
[Rudaw] Iraqi authorities are preparing to repatriate over 500 nationals from the notorious al-Hol camp in northeast Syria (Rojava) housing people with links to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) in the coming days, an Iraqi politician said on Monday.
"Over 500 people will be returned. It is the 18th batch. They will arrive at the al-Jada [rehabilitation] camp in southern djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... in the coming days," a member of Iraq’s parliamentary committee for migration affairs told Rudaw English on the condition of anonymity.
According to the politician, 10,142 people - or 2,640 families - have been repatriated from al-Hol so far, while 2,350 families - consisting of 8,710 individuals - have left al-Jada in Mosul and returned to their homes in Sunni-majority provinces like Nineveh and Salahaddin which fell to ISIS in 2014.
Sheikhmous Ahmed, head of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) office for internally displaced persons and refugees, told Rudaw English on Monday that the Iraqi families have left al-Hol camp and are being prepared to be returned in the coming days.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the new round of repatriation late Sunday.
Iraqis and Syrians make up the majority of the 40,000 ISIS-linked people who have been held at the camp in Hasaka province since the military defeat of ISIS in 2019. The camp has been described as a humanitarian disaster and a breeding ground for terrorism by security experts.
Iraq repatriated over 700 nationals from the camp in October.
Iraqi main border crossing with Syria, al-Qaim, has been closed since the fall of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... ’s regime on December 8. It was temporary opened for humanitarian purposes and to allow Syrian soldiers who had sought asylum in Iraq to return to Syria.
Iraq has also returned over 200 nationals from several Ankara-held areas in northern Syria in recent days through the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing, which connects the Kurdistan Region to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund... .
[FoxNews] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in the hall of the Israeli parliament on Tuesday for a crucial budget-related vote, despite the objections of doctors following prostate surgery on Sunday night, the Israeli news agency Tazpit Press Service (TPS) reports.
Netanyahu, 75, was accompanied to the Knesset Plenum by his personal physician, Dr. Tzvi Berkowitz and appeared in good spirits as he took his seat for a brief appearance. The Israeli leader went under the knife on Sunday to have his prostate removed after suffering a urinary tract infection, which had reportedly "stemmed from a benign enlargement of his prostate," according to Netanyahu's office.
Two parties in Israel’s governing coalition are threatening to vote against the "Trapped Profits Law" if their demands are not met.
The bill would allow the government to tax so-called "trapped profits," earnings retained by corporations and multinationals for reinvestment in business growth, infrastructure, and research. Until now, trapped profits were tax-exempt to encourage investments.
Is that what American tax code calls unrealized profits, and does //not tax?
Failure to pass the bill could jeopardize approval of the state budget, which must be passed by March 31 or the government will automatically fall, triggering national elections.
The United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party, which controls seven Knesset seats, said it would vote against the bill as a warning over the government’s failure to advance legislation exempting Haredim, or Orthodox Jewish citizens, from military service.
The issue of exempting Haredim has sparked heated debate in recent months. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began making plans to draft yeshiva students after Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled in June that exemptions for the Haredi community were illegal, per TPS.
UTJ leader Minister Rabbi Yitzhak Goldknopf insists that the party will maintain its opposition without progress on the draft exemption law.
The Otzma Yehudit party, which also controls seven seats, is dissenting too.
Its leader, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, is demanding an increased budget for the police, prison service and firefighting agencies and has vowed to vote against the bill until his demands are addressed, according to TPS.
Netanyahu’s government is made up of seven parties with 68 of 120 seats.
[IsraelTimes] The Hamas terror group has partially rejected a list of hostages that Israel insists must be released during the first phase of any ceasefire deal, the Kan public broadcaster reports.
According to the report, which cites an unnamed Palestinian source, Hamas is willing to release 22 of the 34 hostages on the list but is refusing to agree to the release of the other 12.
One possible conclusion is that only 22 of the hostages are still alive. Another possible conclusion is that the Gazans are enjoying their torture play too much to let it end, even to stop the rubble bouncing around them.
Instead, the report states, the Gaza terror group offered to release 22 living hostages and 12 bodies during the first phase of a deal.
Israel turned down the idea and made it clear that it will only accept living hostages during the initial stage of a hostage release and ceasefire deal, the report adds.
The report did not provide further details on the hostages Hamas is reportedly refusing to release, although earlier this month, Egypt’s Al-Ghad outlet reported that Israel requested the inclusion of 11 men considered by Hamas to be soldiers on its list of hostages to be released in the first phase of a potential deal.
The terror group classifies all Israeli men of fighting age to be soldiers.
#1
NAILED IT
"One possible conclusion is that only 22 of the hostages are still alive."
As has been clearly shown and demonstrated already. HAMAS leadership (what there still is of it) does not have full control of the hostages or their locations.
NEXT, I expect the HamAsses to try and blame the IDF for any previously claimed and now missing hostages.
[IsraelTimes] 16,000 laborers have come to Israel from India in the last year, but analysts say it still does not make up the shortfall caused when most Palestinians were barred after Oct. 7
Wearing a safety belt, helmet and work boots, Raju Nishad navigates the scaffolding, hammering blocks that will form part of a building in a new neighborhood in central Israel’s town of Beer Yaakov.
While he and other Indians working alongside him do not look out of place on the expansive construction site, they are relative newcomers to Israel’s building industry.
They are part of an Israeli government effort to fill a void left by tens of thousands of Paleostinian construction workers barred from entering Israel since Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... ’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.
If that attack had not happened, this site, with its slowly emerging high-rise towers, homes, roads and pavements, would have teemed with laborer’s speaking Arabic — unlike the Hindi, Hebrew and even Mandarin of today.
The Hamas attack, which saw bully boyz kill some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel and take 251 hostages, triggered the deadliest war yet between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization 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... Strip.
It later spread to include other Iran-backed groups including Hezbollah in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel... and Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... rebels in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , and even direct confrontation with the Islamic Theocratic Republic itself.
None of this deterred Nishad, 35, from coming to Israel.
"There’s nothing to be afraid of here," he said, despite several air raid warnings that have sent him running for the shelters.
"Once it (the siren) stops, we just resume our work," he told AFP.
High earnings in Israel, where some workers can make three times what they would back home, are the key to why people like Nishad flock here, thousands of kilometers (miles) away.
"I’m saving for the future, planning to make wise investments and do something meaningful for my family," Nishad said.
He is just one of around 16,000 workers who have come from India over the past year — and Israel has plans to bring thousands more.
NEW RECRUITMENT DRIVE
India is the world’s fifth-largest economy and one of the fastest growing, but it has also struggled to generate enough full-time jobs for millions of people.
Indians have been employed in Israel for decades, thousands as caregivers looking after elderly Israelis, while others work as diamond traders and IT professionals.
But since the war in Gaza escalated, recruiters have launched a drive to bring Indians in for Israel’s construction sector also.
Samir Khosla, chairman of Delhi-based Dynamic Staffing Services, which has sent about 500,000 Indians to work in more than 30 countries, has so far brought more than 3,500 workers to Israel, a new market for him.
Khosla himself arrived for the first time a month after the October 7 attack, after the authorities appealed for foreign workers in the construction industry, which ground to a halt when the Gaza war broke out.
"We didn’t know much about the market, and there wasn’t an incumbent workforce from India here," Khosla said.
"We really had to move around and understand the needs," he said, adding that he believed India was a natural choice for Israel given their "excellent relations."
He now hopes to bring in up to 10,000 Indian laborer’s, as he has a large pool of skilled Indian workers across all trades.
LONG-TERM EFFECTS POSSIBLE
In nearby Tel Aviv, a group of Indians live in a small flat where, in addition to the construction skills they brought with them, they have also learned to cook the familiar spicy dishes they miss from home.
"In a short time, one can earn more money" in Israel, said Suresh Kumar Verma, 39. Like Nishad, he is from India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. Verma works on a construction site north of Israel’s commercial capital.
"Making money is also necessary... It’s important to continue working hard for the family’s future."
Israeli researchers believe the number of Indians working in construction still does not match the number of Paleostinians who did so before the war, and this is hampering the sector’s overall growth.
Before the Hamas attack, around 80,000 Paleostinians, mostly from the West Bank, were employed in construction, along with some 26,000 foreigners, Eyal Argov of the central Bank of Israel said.
Now there are about 30,000 foreigners employed, far fewer than the previous overall workforce figures, he said, adding that activity in the current quarter of 2024 is about 25 percent below pre-war levels.
"These numbers (of Indians) are still very low," Argov said.
While this does not create an immediate "shortage of housing, it may cause delays in the supply of new housing," he said.
"Israel has a growing population, increasing by two percent annually, and this delay might lead to some shortage in the future."
[IsraelTimes] Channel 12 airs surveillance recordings, lists of southern communities with attack plans for each, gathered by terror group since 2016
Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... was monitoring local Israeli leaders, security officers, and individual communities near the border with 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... Strip for at least seven years before carrying out its brutal October 7, 2023, massacre, a television news report revealed on Sunday evening, airing for the first time surveillance camera footage and sensitive documents seized from computers used by the terror group.
Among the material showcased in the Channel 12 news report, one document dated November, 2020, showed that Hamas had the IP addresses and serial numbers of all of the security cameras in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council and the Ashkelon beach areas, including Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the worst-hit communities on October 7.
Another document featured in the report showed a semiofficial list of security guards working in the Sha’ar Hanegev area, with their phone numbers, including those from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Kibbutz Nahal Oz and Kibbutz Mefalsim.
In a particularly grim finding, the report showed six pages of case files on each community with assessments of the status of the attack plan for each, which the terror group eventually put into action on October 7, 2023, sending some 3,000 holy warriors across the border into Israel. Some 1,200 people were murdered and 251 hostages were taken to Gaza by holy warriors that day.
The vast majority of those killed as button men seized border communities were civilians — including babies, children, and the elderly. Entire families were executed in their homes, and over 360 people were slaughtered at an outdoor music festival, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Some of the public places raided by Hamas on October 7 were seen in the materials seized from the terror group’s computers dating back to 2016, including the health clinic and kindergarten in Kibbutz Be’eri, and the cop shoppes in the cities of Ofakim and Sderot. There were also lists of libraries and synagogues, according to the report.
Alongside the intelligence effort, the Hamas holy warriors involved in the devastating attack were reportedly selected from among hundreds of elite commandos from all over Gaza, and underwent training for several years along with continuous testing to gauge their skills.
"We see very, very precise and very detailed intelligence from an army, an army for all intents and purposes, the Hamas military wing in the Gaza Strip that is collecting information on targets for attack and essentially preparing intelligence target files," Shalom Ben Hanan, a former top Shin Bet official, told Channel 12. "The resolution, the details that are all so precise, and the very, very wide deployment of many intelligence assets is what is so surprising."
In particular, the report said that the Paleostinian terror group was tracking local leaders and security officials in southern Israel well before the 2023 massacre, including Sdot Negev Regional Council’s chief Tamir Idan and security officer Rafi Babian, of whom Hamas was found to have a photo at the Gaza border fence.
Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council chair Ofir Libstein, also presumably in the terror group’s crosshairs, was killed during fighting with Hamas infiltrators on October 7, while Idan was saved from an RPG attack, according to the report.
Former Eshkol Regional Council head Gadi Yarkoni said that his home had been "marked" to be attacked amid the onslaught.
"It seems that they’d checked [my address] some time ago... because I moved houses around three years before the event, and [the terrorists] showed up at my old house," he told Channel 12.
The Israel Defense Forces has conducted several internal investigations to understand what went wrong before and during the Hamas onslaught, but the government has refused to appoint a state commission of inquiry and has opposed any probes that could include looking at political failures surrounding the devastating surprise attack last year, its lead-up, and its aftermath.
The latest Channel 12 report was one of many outlining the extent to which the Israeli intelligence establishment failed to realize that Hamas was capable of mounting a large-scale attack on Israel and was preparing to do so.
This sort of thing could never happen anywhere else
— a college campus like Columbia or UCLA or MIT;
or a city like Austin or Ann Arbor or Philadelphia.
Posted by: Randy Wranglebert% ||
12/31/2024 3:44 Comments ||
Top||
[IsraelTimes] Syrian Kurdish officials have reached out to Israel to establish a channel of communication, The Times of Israel has learned.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has been vocal about the imperative of supporting the Syrian Kurds. According to his office, he brings up the issue in all of his meetings with Western diplomats.
[FoxNews] Israel's spy network penetrated Hezbollah, learning intimate details of terror group's top commanders
Israel Defense Forces troops uncovered an underground tunnel complex used by Hezbollah to store weapons in southern Lebanon.
Israeli spy agencies have uncovered information about Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr's plans to marry his four mistresses over the phone, according to a report.
The New York Times reported this week about its investigation into how deeply Israeli spies had penetrated Hezbollah leading up to the assassination of its top leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as other commanders in the Iran-backed terror group.
Israel announced in July that its forces had killed Shukur during what was, at the time, a rare and provacative strike in Beirut.
It came in response to Israel assessing that the Hezbollah commander was behind the rocket attack days earlier in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 people, including schoolchildren.
The United States had also long blamed Shukur for staging and planning a bombing of a Marine Corps barrack in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 241 American service members.
Leading up to the strike that killed Shukr, Israeli intelligence agencies had identified four of his mistresses, according to the Times.
Shukr – apparently uneasy about his affairs – earlier this year reached out for help from Hashem Safieddine, one of Hezbollah’s highest religious clerics, to have the four women wedded, two Israeli officials and a European official told the Times.
Safieddine, in turn, reportedly arranged four marriage ceremonies conducted over the phone.
The intimate and sometimes mundane details of Shukr's personal affairs point to how closely Israeli intelligence agencies managed to track the moves of Hezbollah's leadership.
Beyond tracking meetings with mistresses, the Times report revealed how Israeli spy agencies recruited human sources within the terror group to plant listening devices in bunkers and expose hideout locations.
After a pager attack that had been orchestrated by Israel's Mossad for years, and increased strikes that killed Hezbollah leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while en route to New York City to speak before the United Nations General Assembly, finally ordered the killing of Nasrallah, according to the Times. Nasrallah, who headed Hezbollah for the past three decades, was killed in an Israeli air raid that leveled six apartment buildings in Beirut on Sept. 27.
The Times reported that Nasrallah had brushed off warnings from his commanders to change locations from his 40-foot underground Hezbollah bunker before the attack.
Unaware of the methodical Israeli intelligence providing clear visibility of his every move, he apparently believed that the Jewish state had no interest in an all-out war with Hezbollah.
Israeli F-15 jets soon after destroyed the bunker by dropping thousands of pounds of explosives, and Nasrallah, found locked in an embrace with an Iranian general who was based in Lebanon, reportedly died of suffocation underground.
#2
In other words, Israel spent as much time as Hamas did — or more — studying the problem, and in the end to much better effect. Truly, the Lord has blessed Israel with its enemies.
[KhaamaPress] Ahmad al-Shara, the leader of the ruling group in Syria, has expressed a different view from other Death Eater factions that are skeptical about elections and forming a government with public participation. In his first statements, he said that drafting a new constitution and holding elections to establish a government in Syria will require time.
In a recent interview with Al Arabiya on Sunday, December 29, Mr. al-Shara emphasized that the ruling government in Syria, under his leadership, is focusing its efforts on the country’s economic development. According to him, "A free Syria is the guarantor of regional security and the stability of the Gulf for the next 50 years."
The leader of the ruling body in Syria gave the green light for holding elections to form a legitimate government but stressed that drafting a new constitution could take up to 3 years, and organizing the elections might take another 4 years.
He further stated that the rebel group under his command, 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... , will be dissolved, as the "new authority" in Syria should be built on a mentality of "tolerance," unlike other Death Eater factions, which not only disregard the constitution and the will of the people but also rely on a mentality of "suppression" instead of "tolerance."
Mr. al-Shara confirmed to Al Arabiya, "Certainly, this group (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) will be dissolved, and its dissolution will be announced during the national dialogue conference." According to him, the new authority will govern the country with a civic mindset, and Syria will never be a source of harm or discomfort to anyone.
Previously, Mr. al-Shara had referred to Afghanistan under the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... as a "tribal" and "primitive" society, asserting that Syria would not turn into a second version of Afghanistan.
Mr. al-Shara, who has reportedly become a hero and statesman among Syrians, clarified that after the formation of a provisional government, no one has the right to restrict the personal freedoms of the people.
According to his guidelines, interfering with women’s dress or imposing any demands regarding their attire or appearance is strictly prohibited. Mr. al-Jolani explained that personal freedom is guaranteed for all, and respect for individual rights forms the foundation of a civilized nation.
Despite the challenges and the complex dynamics in Syria, Ahmad al-Shara’s statements signal a potential shift toward a more structured and governed Syria, focused on legal frameworks and economic development. His emphasis on the dissolution of Death Eater groups and commitment to tolerance presents an alternative vision for the country’s future, one that could ultimately foster stability and peace.
However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome... the roadmap he outlines, including a new constitution and elections, will require considerable time, resources, and international cooperation. Whether his leadership can successfully transition Syria toward this envisioned future remains to be seen, but his rhetoric offers a glimpse of hope for those seeking a more inclusive and stable Syria.
[IsraelTimes] New leaders turn Baath headquarters in Damascus into a location for former security officials, soldiers to hand over their weapons; many party members have gone into hiding or fled
A few days after Death Eaters in Syria overthrew President Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... , his ruling Baath party announced it was freezing its activities, marking a stunning change in fortunes for the political group that had ruled for more than six decades.
Many members of the party’s leadership have gone into hiding and some have fled the country. In a symbolic move, Syria’s new rulers have turned the former party headquarters in Damascus into a center where former members of the army and security forces line up to register their names and hand over their weapons.
Calls are on the rise to officially dissolve the Arab Socialist Baath Party that had ruled Syria since 1963.
Many Syrians — including former party members — say its rule damaged relations with other Arab countries and aided in the spread of corruption that brought the war-torn nation to its knees.
"The party should not only be dissolved, it should go to hell," said Mohammed Hussein Ali, 64, who worked for a state oil company and was a party member for decades until he quit at the start of Syria’s anti-government uprising in 2011 that turned into civil war. He never left the country and said he is happy the Baath rule is over.
An official with 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... , or HTS, the group that led the Death Eater offensive that overthrew Assad, said no official decision has been made on what to do with the Baath party.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, noted that HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has said that officials who committed crimes against the Syrian people over the past decades will be brought to justice and hinted that they include party members.
The Baath party, whose aim was to unify Arab states in one nation, was founded by two Syrian Arab nationalists, Michel Aflaq and Salaheddine Bitar, in 1947 and at one point ruled two Arab countries, Iraq and Syria.
A rivalry developed between the Syrian branch under Assad and his late father, Hafez, and the one in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, who was removed from power by a US-led invasion in 2003.
In Syria, the Baath party became inextricably associated with the Assad family, which took power in 1970. For decades, the family used the party and its pan-Arab ideology to control the country. Many senior military jobs were held by members of the family’s minority Alawite sect, and party membership was used as a cover to give it a nationalist rather than a sectarian nature.
A former soldier and decades-long Baath party member who came to party headquarters to cut his military ties, Abdul-Rahman Ali, said he had no idea it was founded by Aflaq and Bitar. He had always thought that Hafez Assad was the founder.
"I am happy. We have been liberated from fear," said Ali, 43. "Even the walls had ears. We didn’t dare express opinions with anyone." He was referring to the dreaded security and intelligence agencies that detained and tortured people who expressed criticism of Assad or government officials.
Many Syrians were required to join the Baath Vanguards, the party’s youth branch, while in elementary school, where Arab nationalist and socialist ideology was emphasized.
It was difficult for people who were not party members to get government jobs or join the army or the security and intelligence services.
In 2012, a year after Syria’s uprising began, a paragraph of the constitution stating that the Baath party was the leader of the nation and society was abolished, in a move aimed at appeasing the public’s demand for political reforms. In practice, however, the party remained in control, with members holding majority seats in parliament and government.
Another former soldier, who gave only his first name, Ghadir, out of fear of reprisals as a member of the Alawite sect, said he came from a poor family and joined the party so he could enter the military for a stable income.
"You could not take any job if you were not a Baathist," he said.
While few are mourning the party’s fall in Syria, some are concerned that the Sunni majority that now controls the country could carry out a purge similar to the one in Iraq after Saddam’s fall.
A de-Baathification committee was formed in Iraq and its main job was purging Saddam loyalists from government and military institutions. The Sunni minority considered it a means of sectarian score-settling by Iraq’s Shiite majority. The Sunni resentment and disenfranchisement that followed helped to drive the rise of bad boy groups in the country including al-Qaeda and 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.... in Iraq.
In Syria, a Baath party statement issued three days after Assad’s fall called on all members to hand their weapons and public cars to the new authorities.
On December 24, party member and former army colonel Mohammed Merhi was among hundreds who lined up at the former party headquarters and handed over weapons.
Merhi said the Baath party should be given another opportunity because its principles are good but were exploited over decades. But he said he might want to join another party if Syria becomes a multiparty democracy in the future.
He handed over his Soviet Makarov pistol and received a document saying he can now move freely in the country after reconciling with the new authorities.
"I want to become again a normal Syrian citizen and work to build a new Syria," he said.
[IsraelTimes] Prominent Uighur, Jordanian, and Turkish foreign fighters given military ranks, as Islamist rebel group at core of de facto new government in Syria arranges formal armed forces
Syria’s new rulers have installed some imported muscle including Uighurs, a Jordanian, and a Turk in the country’s armed forces, as Damascus tries to shape a patchwork of rebel groups into a professional military, two Syrian sources said.
The move to give official roles, including senior ones, to several jihadists may alarm some foreign governments and Syrian citizens fearful about the new administration’s intentions, despite its pledges not to export Islamic revolution and to rule with tolerance toward Syria’s large minority groups.
A Syrian government spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment on the thinking behind the appointments.
The sources said that out of a total of almost 50 military roles announced by the Defense Ministry on Sunday, at least six had gone to foreigners.
Rooters was not able to independently verify the nationalities of the individuals appointed.
Thousands of Sunni Moslem foreigners joined Syria’s rebels early in the 13-year civil war to fight against the rule of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... and the Iran-backed Shiite militias that supported him. Some imported muscle formed their own gangs while others joined established formations such as 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.... as it rampaged across Iraq and Syria, briefly declaring a so-called caliphate before being routed by US and Iran-backed forces.
Other groups of foreign jihadists joined Islamist 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... (HTS), which disavowed previous links to al-Qaeda and Islamic State and fought bloody battles against them before going on to spearhead the lightning advance that toppled Assad on December 8.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the HTS-leader-turned de facto ruler of Syria, has purged dozens of foreign jihadi fighters as part of a campaign to Syrianize and moderate his group.
In remarks broadcast on Sunday, Sharaa said the new Syria "cannot be run by the mentality of groups and militias."
Syria’s new rulers, drawn mainly from HTS, have indicated that imported muscle and their families may be given Syrian citizenship and be allowed to stay in the country because of their contributions to the fight against Assad.
The Defense Ministry on Sunday announced 49 appointments to the army that included leaders of key Syrian armed factions. Among them were several imported muscle, three given the rank of brigadier-general and at least three others the rank of colonel, a Syrian military source said.
’TOKEN OF RECOGNITION’
"This is a small token of recognition for the sacrifices Islamist jihadists gave to our struggle for freedom from Assad’s oppression," an HTS source told Rooters.
Chinese Uighur Abdulaziz Dawood Khudaberdi, also known as Zahid and the commander of the separatist Turkistan Islamic Party’s (TIP) forces in Syria, was appointed a brigadier-general, a TIP statement said and the Syrian military source confirmed.
Two other Uighur fighters, Mawlan Tarsoun Abdussamad and Abdulsalam Yasin Ahmad, were given the rank of colonel, said the TIP statement published on its website, congratulating them and the Uighur community on the appointments.
All the names appear in Sunday’s Defense Ministry announcement, though the nationalities are not included.
The TIP is thought to have hundreds of fighters in Syria and aims to establish an Islamic State in parts of China and central Asia, where there is a large Uighur Moslem population.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uighurs, a mainly Moslem ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labor in camps. Beijing denies any abuses.
There was no immediate comment from the Chinese foreign ministry.
China labels the TIP a terrorist organization responsible for plots to attack overseas Chinese targets. Beijing has said TIP "gravely threatens" China’s interests and security overseas and that combating the group was China’s "core concern" in its counter-terrorism effort.
Ottoman Turkish citizen Omar Mohammed Jaftashi and Jordanian citizen Abdul Rahman Hussein al-Khatib were also made brigadier-generals, the Syrian military source and the HTS source said.
Abdul Jashari, an ethnically Albanian fighter also known as Abu Qatada al-Albani, was appointed colonel, the military source said. Jashari heads the Albanian jihadist group Xhemati Alban and was designated a terrorist by the US Treasury in 2016.
Egyptian Alaa Mohammed Abdel-Baqi was also given a military rank, the source said.
Egypt’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Excerpted from a much longer post witht he usual Grey Dynamics information.
[GreyDynamics] Xhemati Alban is a Sunni jihadist militant group operating in the Idlib Governorate in Syria. Garnering attention for its formidable “sniper squad”, they have been active in spreading propaganda detailing the unit’s exploits. Linked to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) they have been involved in several operations together. Comprised of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and North Macedonia, the group’s current membership numbers are unknown but believed to not exceed two dozen members. Despite claiming establishment in 2012, the group’s earliest piece of propaganda dates back to 2017.
The group’s fighters are relatively unadorned when compared to contemporary modern fighting forces and their propaganda pieces are usually without patches of any kind. However, the group does have one patch of note which is that of Albanian Tactical which is a further subgroup within Xhemati Alban. Albanian Tactical offers tactical training in line with other mercenary or contract organisations in the region such as Yurtugh Tactical and Muhojir Tactical. This has allowed them to frame themselves as a contract enterprise and not simply a militia/terror group.
Xhemati Alban, which translates to “Albanian Group,” comprises ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, and the Presovo Valley in Serbia. Although the group claims to have originated in 2012, reports indicate that its active operations began around 2017, coinciding with its involvement in conflicts such as those in Ras al-Ayn, Abu al-Duhur Airbase, and Jisr al-Shughur.
Under the leadership of Abu Qatada al-Albani (Abdul Jashari), born in 1976 in Skopje, North Macedonia, the group appointed its military leader, as designated by former Jabhat al-Nusra leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani in 2014. Al-Albani’s association with Jabhat al-Nusra led to his inclusion in the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List in late 2016. Notably, al-Albani also serves as a close military advisor to the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Sabrine does not immediately respond to a request for comment.
She will be the first woman to lead the institution in its more than 70-year history, replacing Mohammed Issam Hazime who was appointed governor in 2021 by now-toppled president Bashar al-Assad.
Syrian FM says he accepted invitation to visit Saudi Arabia
[IsraelTimes] Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, appointed by the new rulers, says on X that he has accepted an invitation from his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah to visit, in what would be his first foreign trip.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] High inflation, Western sanctions and loss of control over oil fields are preventing the new Syrian authorities from restoring the country's economy, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) observers noted in their publication on Monday, December 30.
The new Syrian authorities intend to build a free market, restart the oil industry and establish international cooperation, but this will not be easy, the article says. Journalists recalled that the Syrian pound to dollar exchange rate has fallen 260 times during the military actions in the country.
"We need knowledge and experience to do business, we need technology, we need a lot of things. We especially need sanctions to be lifted, so that the banking system can work properly and move forward," Mohammad Hallaq, vice president of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, told the WSJ.
The publication estimated the costs required to restore Syria at $400 billion.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov previously stated that former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was unable to cope with social problems in the country, including due to the destructive actions of the United States, which occupied the resource-rich northeast of Syria.
The minister stressed that it was the strangulation of the Syrian economy that contributed to social tensions in the country, and Damascus was forced to resort to unpopular measures, including reducing subsidies for socially significant goods and services.
On December 8, Assad resigned as president of Syria and left the country, ordering a peaceful transfer of power. He and his family arrived in Russia, where they were granted asylum. Two days later, the armed Syrian opposition ordered its forces to withdraw from the captured cities so that internal security units and police could enter.
Russia has supported the Syrian government led by Assad in its fight against terrorist forces for several years. Moscow has pledged to provide support as long as the fighting is carried out by the Syrian state itself, President Vladimir Putin noted. Back in 2015, he emphasized that “we are not going to be more Syrian than the Syrians themselves.”
Posted by: badanov ||
12/31/2024 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (al-Nusra)
#1
"See? These are good guys we can do bizness with if the US would just help nation-build by paying them"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2024 8:10 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] Iran confirms that it had arrested Italian journalist Cecilia Sala for “violating the law,” state media reported, a move that has been decried by Italy as “unacceptable.”
“Cecilia Sala, an Italian citizen, travelled to Iran on December 13, 2024 with a journalist’s visa and was arrested on December 19, 2024, for violating the law of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the official IRNA news agency says, citing a statement by the culture ministry without elaborating.
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.
...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like...
...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 
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
