[PUNCHNG] THE resurgence of the terrorist Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... sect in parts of the North-East has set alarm bells ringing again. When Nigerians thought that the lawless group had been significantly degraded, it began to make a forceful comeback, in concert with ISWAP, leaving many astounded.
According to Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State, the renewed attacks indicate that the government is worse off.
He said, ''As I address this important gathering today, it is unfortunate that the renewed Boko Haram attacks and kidnappings in many communities, almost daily, without confrontation, signalled that Borno State is losing ground.''
Zulum lamented that the recent attacks and dislodgement of military formations in some LGAs, among other related killings of innocent civilians and security agencies, called for serious concern.
The Shehu of Borno, Abubakar el-Kanemi, hailed security agencies in the fight against terrorism, but emphasised that three LGAs of Guzamala, Marte, Abbadam and some parts of Mobbar were still under the total control of Boko Haram. He said most of those communities were without civil authority.
The Nigerian military, however, denied the governor's assertions.
Bulama Bukarti, a security expert and senior fellow at the Extremism Policy Unit of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said, ''We know that Boko Haram now operates unmanned drones. They survey military formations in the North-East with unmanned drones.''
These revelations are a sobering indicator that the deadly sect continues to expand its methods on various frontiers without being effectively challenged.
The situation is quite grim and dire for thousands of resettled persons in various Borno communities in Gwoza LGA and other places deemed to be safe.
Some of these communities are far-flung and are not regularly covered by security forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2025 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Boko Haram (ISIS)
It seems to me that India already has, and Pakistan prefers to continue using their jihadi proxies, even though they aren’t fooling anyone.
[RedState] India and Pakistain seem to move inexorably toward war as rhetoric and retaliatory action were ratcheted up since a bloody massacre of 26 people by the Pakistain-sponsored group called Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... Resistance® on Tuesday; see Terror in India: Attack Leaves Dozens Dead During JD Vance's Visit — RedState. This is not the first terror attack in Kashmir, but this one was in a tourist spot, and eyewitness reports say that the button men singled out non-Moslems for execution.
Here's the state of play.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed vengeance. In a rally, he said, "I say to the whole world: India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers." The backers are, of course, Pakistain's intelligence and military apparatus.
Both countries have ordered visa holders from the other to leave immediately. Both sides have expelled diplomats, but there hasn't been an official break in diplomatic relations. Pakistain had suspended all trade with India and put Pak airspace off limits to Indian aircraft.
The nightly "Beating Retreat" ceremony at the Attari-Wagah border crossing is supposed to end with the gate up and a handshake. That has been suspended.
The cut point came on Thursday when India cut off Pakistain's supply of fresh water and announced it was reconsidering the Indus Waters Treaty.
That drew the expected response from Pakistain. Here is a member of parliament, Bilawal Baby Bhutto Zardari ...Pak dynastic politician, son of Benazir Bhutto and grandon of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. As far as is known, Bilawal has no particular talents other than being pretty and being able to memorize political slogans, but he had the good luck to be born into the right family and he hasn't been assassinated yet... , telling a rally, "I would like to stand here in Sukkur by the Indus and tell India that the Indus is ours and the Indus will remain ours, whether water flows in this Indus or their blood."
India's lone carrier, the INS Vikrant, has sortied to the Arabian Sea.
But, like the Grand Old Duke of York, it soon returned to port, allegedly due to a fire in one of its galleys.
India and Pakistain have fought four wars.
First Indo-Pakistan War (1947-1948): Fought over Jammu and Kashmir after Pakistan-supported tribal militias invaded, leading to the accession of Kashmir to India. Ended with a UN-brokered ceasefire, establishing the Line of Control (LoC).
Second Indo-Pakistan War (1965): Sparked by Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, aiming to infiltrate Jammu and Kashmir. Large-scale battles followed, ending with a UN-mandated ceasefire and the Tashkent Agreement. No significant territorial changes took place.
Third Indo-Pakistan War (1971): Centered on East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). India intervened in support of Bengali rebels, leading to Pakistan's surrender and Bangladesh's independence. The Simla Agreement followed in 1972.
Kargil War (1999): Pakistan infiltrated the Indian-administered Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir. India launched Operation Vijay, reclaiming the territory after intense fighting. No formal peace treaty was negotiated.
If war breaks out, it is hard to see how this ends well for anyone. Pakistan is not a match for India in conventional warfare, but both nations have nuclear weapons. Pakistan is estimated to have 170 warheads, and India is thought to have 172. Pakistan reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict; India's policy is that it will only use nuclear weapons if it is attacked with them. This virtually ensures any war turns nuclear, as it is difficult to see how Pakistan's Army holds off a determined effort by India and would have to go nuclear to prevent a catastrophic defeat. Adding to the uncertainty, Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is heavily focused on tactical nuclear weapons while India's is not. This could lead Pakistan to believe it could use battlefield nukes and not risk a disproportionate nuclear response.
[IsraelTimes] In November, US President Donald Trump thought all the hostages remaining in Gaza were dead, says Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, speaking at the Jewish News Syndicate conference in Jerusalem.
“I corrected him and I said, no, there are 51 who are alive,” recounts Dermer, who says the meeting took place at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida.
Israel is spending a significant amount of time and energy discussing plans for the “day after” Hamas, says Dermer: “Just because Israel doesn’t put out a plan every five minutes doesn’t mean we’re not dealing with it.”
Israel is in the “back stretch” of the war against Hamas, he says, adding that “we need to get to the home stretch, and we need to finish this war by winning this war.”
A year from now, he predicts, “the seven-front war that began on October 7 will be over. Israel will have won. And I think you will see many peace agreements, either that have been forged, or will be forged in the coming years of President Trump’s presidency.”
“The key to that is victory,” he stresses.
In order to secure that victory over the long term, Israel must focus on the deradicalization of Palestinian society, Dermer argues.
“We should be magnanimous in victory, then link the development of Gaza to the deradicalization,” says Dermer.
He points at Saudi Arabia as an example of a society that is moving away from radicalism: “Saudi Arabia today has much greater degrees of freedom in its society. It’s not a democracy by any stretch. But look at the status of women in Saudi Arabia compared to what it was once.”
Speaking about the security challenges on the northern border, Dermer says that Israel did not know that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad was going to fall, and repeats Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s revelation that Israel prevented Iranian reinforcements from arriving.
He also pledges that Israel will continue operating in Lebanon, despite an ongoing ceasefire.
“We’re going to continue to enforce the deal so that Hezbollah cannot rearm itself,” he says.
[IsraelTimes] Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer says he believes US President Donald Trump would not agree to a “bad” nuclear agreement with Iran.
“I have a lot of confidence that President Trump would walk away from a bad deal today,” Dermer says on a panel at a conference in Jerusalem organized by the Jewish News Syndicate.
Asked whether Israel would be willing to strike Iran’s “military facilities” by itself, Dermer says he would not “talk about operational issues,” but that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be believed when he said he would do whatever it takes to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapon.
[Townhall] I know it’s not fashionable among some on the right, but we have a moral and strategic obligation to attack 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... right now. Not later. Not down the road, after more bogus negotiations with these glorified bazaar merchants who specialize in stringing along credulous Westerners until they get what they want. Today. We have the forces in place, and if we don’t do it, they’re going to end up with the bomb.
They cannot end up with the bomb. They’ll use it. It’s hard to mutually assure destruction with a psychotic death cult.
But that’s not all America, in conjunction with Israel and supported by a bunch of Arab nations, who would be cheering from the sidelines, needs to do. Yes, we must comprehensively take out its nuclear capacity — it looks like these guys are weeks from enriching enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon. We also need to obliterate their ballistic and drone capabilities. We also need to wipe out their external terrorism capacity and internal security apparatus, and we need to kill the key mullahs.
No more aspirin factory strikes after midnight. No more playing footsie. They started it, we need to finish it. I’m not suggesting an invasion of Iran — if the Iranian people want to overthrow these seventh-century scumbags and retake their heritage as a great nation, that’s on them. We’ve done enough nation-building. But the mullahs can’t remain a danger to us, and right now they are.
Nuclear weapons mounted on ballistic missiles are a direct threat to the United States of America, as well as our friends and allies around the world. That’s indisputable. Those hand-waving away the mullahs' sordid track record of murder and atrocity committed in the name of that bizarre dictatorship are simply not facing reality.
And I like a lot of the people doing that hand-waving. I respect them, and their opinions should be considered. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm willing to be talked out of this. I would prefer not to go to war. But I'd also prefer not to be obliterated by a bunch of lunatics trying to resuscitate the 53rd missing ayatollah or whatever the hell they're on about. These guys hate us and want us dead. Pretending that America doesn’t have enemies around the world who want to butcher us is both crazy and wrong, and we dare not be guided by that childlike and sophomoric fantasy.
Nor do I want to hear any crap about how "America started it." It’s objectively false — we did not start this, except in the sense we refuse to embrace their brand of primitive fanaticism — but I don’t care if we did. You don’t ever get to threaten or kill Americans, two things these savages have been doing for nearly half a century. They took our people hostage in 1979, and eight of our men were killed trying to rescue them. They were behind the Beirut bombings that killed hundreds of American diplomats and Marines. They backed hard boyz who slaughtered Americans around the world. They armed and led the Shia thugs who maimed or killed thousands of our troops in Iraq. Payback is in order.
We talk a lot about a Jacksonian foreign policy, where America doesn’t go looking for trouble. But there’s another side to that coin. And that side depicts us wiping out anybody who dares kill Americans. The fact that we’ve allowed these barbarians to murder our people without retaliation is not only a moral disgrace but an invitation for every psychopath with a religious vision and an IED to make some Americans dead.
This is intolerable. The proper state of the world is one in which the mere thought of harming an American never arises because of the certainty that to do so will bring death to the terrorists, to everybody around the terrorists, and to everybody who helped the terrorists.
Andrew Jackson wasn’t just a big talker. If you messed with him, you died. This is actually the peaceful way — you come down hard once, and you don’t have to do it again. To be weak is to invite more conflicts; we’ve had plenty because of our weakness. Many of America’s foreign policy disasters since World War II, when Harry Truman had the stones to nuke Japan until it begged to surrender, have been a direct result of our refusal to make attacking America or Americans something less than an automatic apocalypse.
True Jacksonian foreign policy is tough but fair. It’s tough because if you screw with us, you die. It’s fair because if you don’t screw with us, we leave you alone.
Which brings us back to Iran. Iran is a threat to the United States. It has maimed and murdered our people. It has, directly and through proxies, threatened to kill our President, though, in that way it’s basically channeling much of the Democrat party. It must be made an example of.
And now is the time to do it. We have the forces in place. The Israelis are chomping at the bit to help, which is very useful. According to open-source information, at least six B-2 bombers are on-station and can attack dug-in facilities. Two carrier battle groups and cruise missile subs are also in the region, as well as other forces. They can’t stay on-station forever. The Iranians know this. That’s why they’re dragging out these bogus negotiations. Eventually, those forces will have to come home. We can’t be poised to do this forever, or even for very long.
Now, there may be good reasons not to do it, should facts we do not know support holding off. We don’t know the classified information about Iranian targets and whether they are actually vulnerable to our weapon systems. From open sources, it appears they are, but that might not be true. Second, we may lack the capacity to do what’s necessary. We have a pretty heavy force forward-deployed there now, but that might not be enough. Further, we might have used up too many weapons supplying Ukraine and that endless meat grinder of a war, as well as bombing whatever the Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s are further back into the Stone Age. There may be other factors that we are unaware of that make an attack a bad idea.
But I kind of doubt it.
Hopefully, this negotiation nonsense is just for show to mollify the weak hearts of the West, of which there are far too many. The mullahs are never going to give up their nuke program. They know it, and we know it, and anybody who doesn’t know it is either a liar or a halfwit. Pull off the damn Band-Aid and get this done.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 ||
04/29/2025 00:00 ||
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[69 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
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.
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality....jpg "Kashmir")
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
