[AlAhram] The United States has reduced its troop presence in Afghanistan to 8,600, fulfilling its obligation as part of a February deal with the Taliban ...Arabic for students... , the general who oversees American forces in that region said Thursday.
Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie gave no indication of when, or at what pace, US forces would be further reduced. He noted that the February deal requires the US to fully withdraw its forces by next May, but he called that an ``aspirational'' commitment that would depend on certain actions by the Taliban.
President Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... has been eager for a full US withdrawal from Afghanistan, asserting that American forces are merely policing a civil conflict and should be brought home. The war began in October 2001.
Without directly mentioning the 8,600 figure, McKenzie said, ``We're at that number now,`` in accordance with the February agreement. The deal said the US would drop to 8,600 within 135 days, which is mid-July. It represents a reduction from about 12,000 troops at the time of the agreement.
``We have met our part of the agreement,'' he said, speaking at an Aspen Strategy Group webinar.
McKenzie said a full US withdrawal would happen if conditions are right.
``Conditions would have to be met that satisfy us that attacks against our homeland are not going to be generated from Afghanistan,'' he said.
``That's not the Taliban. That is, of course, al-Qaeda and ISIS,'' referring to the Death Eater group that used haven in Afghanistan during the Taliban's previous rule to plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, as well as 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.... group's Afghanistan affiliate.
As part of the February deal, the Taliban agreed they would not allow any Death Eater group to use Afghan territory to plan or carry out attacks on the United States.
``The jury is still very much out on that'' Taliban commitment, McKenzie said, ``and so we will watch the Taliban.'' He added, ``They have not yet completely made that case. There remains an opportunity for them to do it, but time is now beginning to grow short.''
McKenzie spoke cautiously of trends in Iraq, where several thousand US troops are training and advising Iraqi forces and contending with periodic hostility from Iranian-backed militia groups.
Although he praised recent efforts by the Iraqi government to deal with Iranian influences in the country, he cited ``a beginning of a spike in unprovoked rocket attacks on Iraqi bases that host US forces.''
He said he thinks 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... and its proxies in Iraq are conducting these recent attacks ``because they have been unable to prevail in the political arena in Iraq.''
He spoke after Iraqi authorities reported that four rockets went kaboom! inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone near the American Embassy. It was the third such reported attack since the US embarked on strategic talks with Iraq's new government.
[gCaptain]The U.S. government on Wednesday issued a warning about the threat posed by pirates to boats and oil installations in the southern Gulf of Mexico, in the latest sign of concern about ongoing security challenges facing Mexico.
“Armed criminal groups have been known to target and rob commercial vessels, oil platforms, and offshore supply vessels in the Bay of Campeche area in the southern Gulf of Mexico,” the U.S. State Department said in an updated travel advisory.
The overall risk level for Mexico remained the same in the bulletin, but the warning comes after a number of reported incidents in recent months including an attack in November on an Italian flagged vessel off the state of Campeche.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office 1-1/2 years ago pledging to bring down record levels of gang-related violence plaguing the country. Instead, however, homicides hit a new record last year and they have stayed high this year.
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Venezuela sponsoring thugs to hurt viable oil businesses?
[IsraelTimes] German prosecutors file murder charges against a Russian man accused in the brazen daylight slaying in Berlin of a Georgian man, and say that the Russian state ordered the killing — adding to tensions between the two countries.
The case prompted Germany in December to expel two Russian diplomats, citing a lack of cooperation with the investigation of the Aug. 23 killing. Russia’s ambassador was called in to the foreign ministry in Berlin again today.
The victim, Tornike K., who also has widely been identified in reports on the killing as Zelimkhan Khangoshvili,
...Mr. Khangoshvili is the Caucasian Emirate (most recently affiliated with ISIS under the name Caucasus Province and the Tsarnaev brothers) fighter whose application for asylum in Germany under the name of Tornike K. was rejected for cause. He was listed for deportation when a Russian agent saved Germany from having to exert itself in the matter. For this kindness the assassin was arrested and two Russian diplomats were PNG’d. Russia has been hunting down the jihadis of Caucasian Emirate for three decades...
was a Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity who fought against Russian troops in Chechnya. He had previously survived multiple liquidation attempts and continued to receive threats after fleeing to Germany in 2016.
Federal prosecutors say that at some point before mid-July last year, "state agencies of the central government of the Russian Federation" tasked a Russian citizen they identified as Vadim K. with "liquidating" the victim.
[Jpost] "The mobilization potential of Hezbollah in Germany should not be underestimated."
The number of Hezbollah members and supporters in the German state of Lower Saxony increased from 150 in 2018 to 160 in 2019, according to a damning new intelligence report released in late May.
Golly — ten people?
The report said that in "Lower Saxony supporters and sympathizers of Hezbollah are organized in several associations that have specified the care and dissemination of Lebanese culture and the practice of their religion as their purpose and goal in statutes."
[REUTERS] China and India have agreed to de-escalate the situation at their border as soon as possible following a clash between the their troops, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi told Indian Foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar during a phone call on Wednesday that India should severely punish those responsible for the conflict and control its frontline troops, the Chinese ministry said in a statement.
China and India have blamed each other for the clash on Monday, which killed at least 20 Indian soldiers.
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06/19/2020 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Badil loses NIS 6.5 million for project seeking to expose alleged Israeli crimes in Jerusalem, laments bloc’s ’adoption of allegations by the Zionist lobby and Israeli campaigns’.
The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... last week for the first time canceled a grant to a Paleostinian nonprofit for refusing to sign a clause that would obligate it to ensure no terrorist organizations benefit from the funded programs.
Brussels’ decision comes on the heels of a bitter controversy last month over its support for Paleostinian NGOs, which resulted in Israel rebuking the EU ambassador in Tel Aviv over the bloc’s ostensible "funding of terrorist organizations."
The nonprofit, called Badil Resource Center for Paleostinian Residency and Refugee Rights, had secured €1.7 million (about NIS 6.5 million) for a three-year project called "Mobilizing for Justice in Jerusalem," which sought to expose alleged Israeli human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... violations and "international crimes" in the capital.
But the EU informed the group in a letter Friday that due to its refusal to sign Article 1.5 of Annex II of the "General conditions applicable to European Union-financed grant contracts for external actions," it was obligated to "consider your application no longer valid," the NGO said in a blurb issued Tuesday.
Article 1.5, which was introduced to the EU contracts with NGOs in 2019, stipulates that grant beneficiaries must ensure no funds go to groups listed as terrorist organizations.
The EU terror blacklist, formally called the "list of EU restrictive measures," includes several Paleostinian groups, such as Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,, Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine.
Badil refused to sign the clause because it "criminalizes the Paleostinian struggle against oppression and requires the recipient organization to perform ’screening’ procedures which amounts to policing its own people," according to its blurb.
"The inclusion of this article to contracts with Paleostinian organizations contradicts the national role of Paleostinian civil society institutions in the struggle for freedom from Israeli colonialism and apartheid," Badil’s statement read. "Further, the article violates both Paleostinian and international law, as well as the declared obligations of the EU itself."
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.
...Arabic for 
[gCaptain]The U.S. government on Wednesday issued a warning about the threat posed by pirates to boats and oil installations in the southern Gulf of Mexico, in the latest sign of concern about ongoing security challenges facing Mexico.
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
