[Tolo News] With the future of the Kabul-Washington security pact still uncertain, U.S. officials have looked to break, or circumvent, the logjam negotiations now face. In a recent letter to President Barak Obama, Senator Carl Levin ...Democrat Senator-for-Life from Michigan. He has been in the Senate since 1979. Prior to that he was president of the Detroit city council and Mayor Coleman Young's right-hand man. He is currently the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services... , Chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, suggested giving up on President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... and waiting to sign the pact with the next Afghanistan's Caped President, set to be elected in April.
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I'll sign it for a small fee. Well, not so small, but I'm not going any further east than Rome, period.
[Al Ahram] Protesters gathered in front of the Qatari embassy in Cairo on Friday to demand that the Egyptian government cut ties with Qatar due to its support of the Muslim Brotherhood and interference in Egyptian domestic politics
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[Al Ahram] The Minya prosecution ordered the detention of a correspondent reportedly working for a US-based Christian television station for 15 days on charges of inciting religious strife between Mohammedans and Christians.The journalist, Bishoy Armia, has also been charged with impersonating a journalist, conducting interviews with citizens, and photographing military and security buildings without a security permit, according to Ahram's Arabic news website.
Security forces locked away Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! Armia last Friday in El Badrman village, in Upper Egypt's Minya governerate, where sectarian festivities between Mohammedans and Christians raged throughout last week following a contraversial relationship between a Mohammedan girl and a Christian boy.
According to security reports, Armia was working as a journalist without a permit.
The 32-year-old journalist made headlines in 2008 when he lobbied to have his religion changed on his national identification card from Islam to Christianity, after converting and subsequently changing his name from Mohammed Hegazy to Bishoy Armia.
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[MAGHAREBIA] Tunisians are increasingly worried about the plans of Ansar al-Sharia ...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, with the Libyan and Tunisian versions currently most active... , especially with the approach of New Year's Eve.
The terrorist organization could even resort to using women in suicide kabooms on December 31st, Tunisian daily Assarih suggested on Thursday (December 5th).
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[Libya Herald] The General National Congress has voted in favour of a statement declaring that the Sharia can be the "only source for legislation in Libya". All state bodies have been instructed to comply.
According to the statement, the Sharia is "above the constitution", and all laws must be considered null and void that contravene it.
A Congressional committee was already in place to ensure that all legislation was Sharia-compliant, the statement said. Moreover, it added, the Justice Minister, Salah Marghani, had formed a committee in cooperation with Congress that included representatives from Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs and from the judiciary to review laws and determine what violates Islamic law.
Yesterday's vote is not seen as fully legal since it was a statement, not a law, that was passed. But it demonstrates the mood of Congress and is expected to be widely adhered to. The vote was passed with no opposition and member rose afterwards and clapped.
The role of the Sharia is expected to be more precisely defined, as will other constitutional areas that Congress has pronounced on, when the still-to-be-elected 60-Constitutional Committee gets down to work in the new year.
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[Libya Herald] The new head of Derna Local Council, Hussam Al-Nuwaissary, has refuted the Prime Minister's statement yesterday that the government was in close contact with various security bodies inside and outside the town, including as the local Security Directorate and a number of army battalions.
On his Facebook site, Nuwaissary said that there had been no direct or indirect communication with the government. He accused it of being interested in the town only because people had started protesting against the lack of security there.
Protests against the presence of Ansar Al-Sharia and other militias in the town continued today for the fifth day in a row, with demonstrators, as has become standard, setting off from the town's Sahaba mosque.
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[Shabelle] Although often seen as rivals in global politics, the US and La Belle France are working together to prevent parts of Africa from falling into the hands of al-Qaeda-linked fighters.
These Western countries -- and their allies -- want Africa to do more to promote stability so that bully boyz can be effectively denied room to operate.
[MAGHAREBIA] Dr Ahmed Ould Habibi is among the most prominent cultural scientists in the region. Magharebia met with the Nouakchott academic to learn more about culture's role in both creating and stopping terrorism. Platitudes and warm milk.
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#1
No mention made of their fatalist religion. Sorry Dr. Habibi, the position of Professor of Senseless Mumbo Jumbo has already been filled. Please permit us to keep your CV on file.
BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Thousands of Christian civilians sought refuge at an airport guarded by French soldiers Friday, fleeing from the mostly Muslim ex-rebels with machetes and guns who rule the country a day after the worst violence to hit the chaotic capital in nine months.
When several French helicopters landed at the airport, people sang with joy as they banged on plastic buckets and waved rags into the air in celebration.
Outside the barbed wire fences of the airport, bodies lay decomposing along the roads in a capital too dangerous for many to collect the corpses. Thursday's clashes left at least 280 dead, according to national radio, and have raised fears that waves of retaliatory attacks could soon follow.
"They are slaughtering us like chickens," said Appolinaire Donoboy, a Christian whose family remained in hiding.
France had pledged to increase its presence in its former colony well before Christian militias attacked the capital at dawn Thursday. The arrival of additional French troops and equipment came as the capital teetered on the brink of total anarchy and represented the greatest hope for many Central Africans.
About 1,000 French forces were expected to be on the ground by Friday evening, a French defense official said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
As night fell across the near anarchic capital, Christians fearing retaliatory attacks by the mostly Muslim ex-rebels crowded as close to the runway as possible, laying out their woven mats in front of a barbed wire coiled fence. National radio announced that at least 280 people had died, citing figures from local Red Cross officials.
The U.S. State Department said it was "deeply concerned" by the violence and praised France's quick intervention.
It wasn't like we were going to send the 82nd Airborne...
France signaled its amped up presence in its former colony on Friday by sending out armored vehicles to patrol the streets. A French fighter jet made several flyovers, roaring through the sky over an otherwise lifeless capital as civilians cowered at home. Britain also flew in a C-17 plane Friday loaded with equipment to help with France's intervention.
As many as 250 French troops are carrying out permanent patrols in Bangui, and "we didn't notice any direct clashes between armed groups today," said French military spokesman Col. Gilles Jaron in Paris.
On Thursday, however, 10 armed attackers in a pickup truck fired on a French position at the airport, including with a rocket-propelled grenade whose charge did not detonate. French forces returned fire, killing four attackers and wounding six, Jaron said.
A planned vote on a U.N. Security Council resolution Thursday allowed France to proceed with its mission. It coincided with the worst violence to roil the capital since March when the mostly Muslim rebels known as Seleka overthrew the president of a decade.
On Thursday, Christian militias believed to be loyal to ousted leader Francois Bozize attacked the city, and hours of gunbattles ensued. The conflict in one of Africa's poorest countries has gathered little sustained international attention since the government overthrow in March, and the dramatic developments were overshadowed Friday by global mourning for South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, who died at the age of 95.
Streets in the city were empty Friday except for military vehicles and the trucks favored by the rebel forces who now claim control of the government. Nine unclaimed bodies lay sprawled in front of the parliament building alone — local Red Cross workers didn't dare retrieve them, or other bodies that were left to decay outside.
France insisted it was going only reluctantly into Central African Republic and with the limited aim of doubling its presence in the country to 1,200 troops. Still, it remains an open question how France can achieve even its limited goals in the six months allotted to the mission.
"There's a big gap between the vision France has of itself as a global power and as a power that can intervene," said Aline Leboeuf, a security and development specialist at the French Institute for International Relations.
The real question, she added, is: "Can you intervene in the right way and when do you leave?"
Any more hand wringing, Aline, and you'd need lotion...
Rebel leader-turned-president Michel Djotodia appealed for calm, even as his residence and that of the prime minister were looted and vandalized by the fighters Thursday. He announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew in hopes of preventing retaliatory violence against Christians from Muslims.
In a speech broadcast Thursday in the Sango language and a television interview in French, Djotodia called on people to realize that French forces were not in Central African Republic to take sides in an increasingly sectarian conflict.
Djotodia, who is Muslim, unified rebel groups in the country's mostly Muslim north, where resentment of the federal government and a sense of disenfranchisement has been rife for years. Yet once those rebels were unleashed upon the capital, he wielded very little control over the mix of bush fighters, child soldiers and foreign mercenaries he had recruited.
Funny how that works...
Supporters of the ousted president formed self-defense militias such as those behind Thursday's attack, which came hours before the U.N. Security Council voted to authorize the French deployment.
"We're appreciative of France, but we know that 50 years after our independences, France is again required to come in as a fireman to save us — it's not right," said Alpha Conde, president of Guinea. "It's a humiliation for Africa that 50 years afterward, we are not at all able to manage our problems ourselves."
France's military, which controls Bangui airport, said about 2,000 Central Africans took refuge there Thursday, most if not all of them Christian. The crowd swelled on Friday.
Yves Wayina, 26, fled with his wife and six children.
"France must come and rapidly deploy and do everything possible to save us," he told the AP on Friday. He's not sure whether he can go back and live among Muslims. Too much has happened. Too many attacks by the Seleka, which include foreign mercenaries among their ranks.
"We are angry," he said through the fence keeping civilians away from the airport runway. "The Muslims should go back where they came from."
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"It's a humiliation for Africa that 50 years afterward, we are not at all able to manage our problems ourselves."
Don't take it so hard. You could be living in Detroit.
[YNAIJA] 500 suspects including a medical doctor have been recommended for trial by the Defence Headquarters yesterday in respect of terrorist operations in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states.
The DHQ described 614 cases inconclusive and recommended a review of the issues against the suspects. It also asked the authorities to release 167 others from detention.
Some of those slated for immediate trial include high profile suspects some of whom had been training other Death Eaters in weapon handling.
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[An Nahar] Germany said Friday it was temporarily reducing its embassy staff in Yemen and told its aid workers to leave after an attack claimed by al-Qaeda killed 52 people, including two Germans.
All German employees of government-funded aid and development organizations must leave Yemen "as quickly as possible", a foreign ministry front man told news hounds.
The German embassy in the Yemeni capital will operate "in emergency mode with reduced personnel" and with appropriate security measures, he added.
Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... is "extremely shocked" by the deaths of two German doctors in Thursday's attack on a Yemeni defense complex, government front man Steffen Seibert told a news conference.
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[An Nahar] Demonstrators calling for democratic reform clashed with police Friday in Shiite villages near Manama ahead of an international forum on Middle East security, witnesses said.
A Shiite-led uprising to demand changes in the Sunni-ruled kingdom was crushed in March 2011 but almost weekly protests against the authorities have been since staged in Shiite villages around Manama.
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[Bangla Daily Star] BNP has called a 24-hour hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... in the Dhaka city from Sunday morning to protest the arrest and remand of the party's Vice-President Sadeque Hossain Khoka.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pond, the radioactive tadpoles grown into frogs. Really big frogs, in fact... the main opposition party declared a two-day dawn-to-dusk shutdown in Moulvibazar district from Sunday and daylong shutdown in Titas upazila of Comilla for Sunday demanding release of its big shots and withdrawal of cases against them.
Abdus Salam, member secretary of Dhaka city unit of the main opposition party, told news hounds that they would enforce the shutdown from 6:00am Sunday to 6:00am Monday.
The BNP also demanded immediate release of Khoka, also Dhaka city convenor of the party.
A Dhaka court yesterday placed Khoka on a two-day remand in connection with an arson attack on a bus at Shahbagh that left three passengers dead and 16 others injured.
Members of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and detectives tossed in the clink Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! the BNP leader from a house at the capital's Uttara on Wednesday.
On November 28, the bus in Shahbagh carrying 19 people was set on fire and Shahbagh police filed the case for instigating and criminal masterminding the arson attack.
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North Korea said on Saturday it had deported Merrill E. Newman, an 85-year old American it had detained for more than a month on charges of "hostile acts" against the state, because he had admitted to his wrongdoing and apologized.
The deportation was announced by the North Korean news agency, KCNA. It was not immediately known whether Newman had already left the country or where he was headed.
Newman, who was a U.S. special forces soldier during the 1950-53 Korean War and worked with guerrillas fighting behind the lines against North Korea, has been held since late October. He was visiting North Korea as a tourist when he was pulled off an Air Koryo flight in North Korea minutes before it was due to depart for Beijing on Oct. 26.
KCNA said Newman was released on humanitarian grounds, "taking into consideration his admittance of the act committed by him on the basis of his wrong understanding, apology made by him for it, his sincere repentance of it and his advanced age and health condition".
North Korea had accused Newman of being a criminal who took part in the killings of innocent civilians during the war. Last week, KCNA published what it said was an apology by him for "a long list of indelible crimes against the DPRK government and Korean people". The regime also released a video of Newman making his confession and apology.
The United States and Newman's family had called on North Korea for his release because of his age and medical conditions that required medication.
#1
What can tourists expect when visiting North Korea? - a CNN review.
The tour bus bounces along one of North Korea's potholed roads, pop music blasting out over the speakers. It's a catchy tune and even though none of the tourists can understand the lyrics, a few are tapping their feet to the beat. The hit song, "Without a Break," is by Moranbong, by far North Korea's most popular band. The driver is clearly a fan and plays the DVD several times a day. Most tourists are busy looking out the window and pay little attention to the video screened at the front of the bus. They don't notice the nuclear missile being launched behind the all-girl band, nor do they see it smash into our little blue planet, blowing up the Earth. "'Without a Break' is about the nuclear destruction of the U.S.," says Australian Mark Freeman, who has visited North Korea four times.
Sounds like a paradise for western leftists and the mentally deranged.
Everyone else wants to undermine Champ these days, the House Dems might as well try to save themselves. from the tsunami that's apparently headed their way in the coming election. When folks start running to the lifeboats you don't want to be the last one to try and find a seat.
Multiple Democrats on Capitol Hill are worried that House Democratic leaders are close to joining with House GOP leaders to support a bipartisan measure that could undermine the White HouseÂ’s efforts to reach a long term deal curbing IranÂ’s nuclear program, IÂ’m told by sources involved in discussions.
Champ's going to have a hard time explaining this away to his new bestest friends, the Mad Mullahs™. Even if the Senate doesn't go along, a House vote of disapproval will show Champ doesn't have his government going along with him on international affairs. It's more than just a contrary minority voting their spleens, it shows that even we don't trust Champ. That's going to make it next to impossible for Champ, or Jahwn, or anyone else in the White House to strike a deal with a foreign power. That might be the best outcome of all.
The worry is that Dem Rep. Steny Hoyer, the number two House Dem, may join with GOP Rep. Eric Cantor on a resolution or bill that will either criticize the current temporary deal with Iran, or call for a new round of sanctions, or set as U.S. policy some strict parameters on a final deal with Iran, such as opposition to any continued uranium enrichment, House Democratic aides say. House Dems and outside foreign policy observers have communicated such worries to HoyerÂ’s office, sources add.
Stony doesn't have the safest Dem seat in the House, and the lifeboat's beginning to look a little crowded...
Hoyer’s office confirmed to me that Cantor had produced a bill and shared it with him, but declined to discuss details. “Cantor has a bill, and it’s being reviewed by our office,” Hoyer spokesperson Stephanie Young said. “No decisions have been made.” Spokespeople for Cantor didn’t respond.
Hoyer would very much like to see the internal polls in his district over the holiday...
Any resolution or bill along these lines that has the support of any House Dem leaders would increase the pressure on Senate Democrats to pass a measure of their own, which the White House opposes. And some fear that a measure in the House itself — even if the Senate didn’t act — could have an adverse impact on international talks.
According to reports in the Hill and National Journal, Cantor and House GOP leaders are looking for a way to express opposition to, and put obstacles in the way of, the deal the Obama administration is pursuing. But now that a bill has been produced, and could be joined by Hoyer, that significantly ratchets up worries that Congress could very well act in a way that scuttles hopes for a long term deal.
Again, that might be just the thing we need until 2017 when we have a chance of getting an adult as President...
Those wary of a possible Hoyer-Cantor measure point out that the two have previously collaborated on measures relating to U.S. policy in the middle east.
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that could undermine the White House's efforts to reach a long term dealsolving the Jewish problemcurbing Iran's nuclear program
#2
Watch for the tipping point where enough Donk congresscritters decide they're the ones not going under the bus, but rather the other guy "for the good of the party".
#5
...or have the NSA 'release' via friendly media MiniTruth unseemly details of their behaviors. However, that will just delay a Trunk from gaining the seat by months rather than years.
[Pak Daily Times] A Pak immigrant who says he was held for more than 10 months in solitary confinement after being falsely placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! on terrorism charges has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Miami, saying he was a victim of "overzealousness" in the US war on terrorism.
Irfan Khan, a 40-year-old Mohammedan, emigrated to the United States from Pakistain in 1994 and is a naturalised US citizen. He is the son of a 78-year-old south Florida imam who was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a judge in August for funneling more than $50,000 to the Pak Taliban. Hafiz Khan was convicted in March on four counts of providing money and support to the group, which the United States considers a terrorist organization. He had faced a maximum of 60 years in prison, and prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence.
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[Pak Daily Times] Conspiracies are being hatched once again against the MQM, said Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui in an important meeting held between MQM members at the Khursheed Begum Secretariat, Azizabad on Friday. Deputy Convener of the MQM Rabita Committee, Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqi, addressed the meeting and apprised the workers and office bearers of the party with national and international situation, deteriorating law and order of the city, sectarian killings, incidents of terrorism and the ongoing national and international conspiracies against the party. Heinous conspiracies, said Dr Siddiqui, were being hatched both on national and international level to crush the practical struggle of the MQM; however the coercive forces have forgotten that suppression of the righteous struggle always turns out to be counterproductive. "The same phenomenon happened during the 1992 operation when MQM emerged on national level as a third biggest political party of the country, and today, it does not only exist in Pakistain but is shining in all the five sub continents of the world," he said. He said that since the party was the only political party, which is an obstacle in the way of international forces to accomplish their nefarious designs in Pakistain, it was facing conspiracies.
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[An Nahar] British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Friday that Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... must stand down to allow for any peaceful settlement to the 33-month-old conflict in his country.
"We have always been very clear that a peaceful solution in Syria must require the departure of President Assad," Hague told a presser in Kuwait's capital after talks with his Kuwaiti counterpart Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah.
"It is impossible to imagine after so many deaths, so much destruction, a regime oppressing and murdering its own people on this scale" should remain in power, Britannia's chief diplomat said.
"It is impossible to imagine, I think, President Assad could remain on the scene in Syria in the future," Hague said.
The reiteration of Britannia's call for Assad's ouster came just weeks ahead of an international peace conference on Syria slated for January 22.
The government in Damascus has said Assad will remain president and lead any transition agreed at the conference, while the opposition and rebels fighting the regime insist he play no role.
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[An Nahar] The Mufti of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... and the North Sheikh Malek al-Shaar expressed fear on Friday over the ongoing situation in Tripoli a day after tension soared again in the northern city, jeopardizing a security plan that the army began implementing to end gunbattles between rival neighborhoods in the city.
"Thursday's festivities with the army is an attempt to topple the security plan in Tripoli or a conspiracy is being weaved," al-Shaar told al-Liwaa newspaper.
He slammed the officials inaction, noting that "they still don't realize how delicate is the situation in Tripoli."
Hundreds of coppers from different parts of Leb have been sent to Tripoli to help improve security, working under the army's command.
The army has been authorized to take charge of security in Tripoli for six months following the deadly sectarian festivities by rival sides stemming from the civil war in neighboring Syria.
Al-Shaar said that "if intruders are entering the northern city then we will have to face a greater disaster."
He revealed that he ordered the Imams of mosques in the northern city to welcome the role of the Lebanese army during Friday's sermon and to call for calm.
Al-Shaar reiterated that "those who are behind the twin bombings that targeted al-Salam and al-Taqwa mosques must be punished."
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[An Nahar] Arab Tawhid Party ... a Leb political party established by former minister, MP, and Syrian stooge Weaam Wahhab in 2006. Supporters of the party are mainly Druze and it is a part of the March 8 (Hezbollah) Alliance. A bomb exploded outside a party office in the Chouf in 2012. leader Wiam Wahhab on Friday warned that Syrian warplanes would strike the "gangs" in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... if they decided to "attack Jabal Mohsen."
Wahhab, who is close to the Syrian regime, held the Lebanese state responsible for the unrest in Tripoli, noting that security incidents will not end anytime soon in the northern city.
"Tasking the army with containing the situation in Tripoli is just talk in the media if we pay attention to what's happening on the ground, as the gangs want to attack Jabal Mohsen and they will be bombed by Syrian warplanes then, the same as what will happen in Arsal should the situation continue there as it is now," Wahhab said in an interview on al-Manar television.
Wahhab hoped the Lebanese army will "shoulder the responsibility of containing the situations in Tripoli and Arsal to avoid the intervention of the Syrian army."
"But at the same time we must not ask the army to do things beyond its capability," he added.
Wahhab also stressed that "the choice of the Sunni community has always been the state, even during the civil war."
Lashing out at President Michel Suleiman ...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too... , Wahhab added: "The president of the republic must realize that his election was unconstitutional and anyone could have submitted a challenge and ousted him."
The pro-Damascus politician also expressed confidence that "the presidential election will not take place and we will remain in a political vacuum."
Following a meeting with President Michel Suleiman and Army chief General Jean Qahwaji in Baabda on Monday, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati announced that the army will be entrusted with Tripoli's security for six months and that all security forces in the city will be put under its authority.
The army carried out raids in Tripoli and incarcerated Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! gunnies and runaways in the wake of the decision.
At least 11 people were killed and more than 100 others maimed in festivities that started Saturday between the rival Tripoli neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen. The army has managed to largely contain the situation after a forceful intervention.
The fighting in the city is linked to the war raging in neighboring Syria. Bab al-Tabbaneh district, which is majority Sunni, and Jabal Mohsen, whose residents are from Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... 's sect, have been engaged in severe gunbattles since the revolt against him in March 2011.
Tensions soared in the city in August when twin boom-mobileings hit Sunni mosques and left hundreds of casualties.
Authorities arrested several members of the Arab Democratic Party, whose stronghold is in Jabal Mohsen, on suspicion they were involved and they summoned the group's leader, Ali Eid, for questioning.
Eid has refused to be questioned by police for not being "impartial." His son, Rifaat, said his father is ready to go to any security agency other than the Interal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau.
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[An Nahar] A group of nuns reportedly kidnapped from Syria's Maalula appeared Friday in a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera ... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS... television, in which they reassured that they are in good health and would be released "in two days."
"We are fine. We're staying at a beautiful villa and we'll leave in two days," says one of the nuns in the video.
"We left the monastery because of the intensity of shelling ... We call for an end to the shelling of churches and mosques ... Our hosts are kind and they have taken care of us," says another nun.
"We will leave in two days," says a third nun.
A fourth held woman added: "We were treated in a good manner and we're happy because we were evacuated from the monastery."
A rebel group calling itself the Ahrar al-Qalamoun Brigades said Friday that the nuns were in a safe place, stressing that will not be released before the realization of several demands, topped by "the release of 1,000 Syrian women detainees from the prisons of the Syrian regime."
Jihadists and opposition fighters on Monday entered the Syrian Christian town of Maalula and took 12 Lebanese and Syrian Greek Orthodox nuns from the Mar Takla Monastery to the Yabrud area in Qalamoun, near Damascus. The Vatican slammed the move as an "abduction."
Pope Francis called for prayers Wednesday for the nuns. Religious officials in the region have said the women were kidnapped, but a Syrian opposition activist said they were merely removed for their own safety.
The 12 nuns join two bishops and a priest who are already believed to be held by hardline rebels, deepening concerns that bully boyz in the opposition's ranks are targeting Christians.
Speaking to a crowd gathered for the pontiff's general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, the pope invited "everyone to pray for the sisters of the Greek Orthodox monastery of Santa Takla in Maalula, Syria, who were taken by force by gunnies two days ago."
The Qalamoun region boasts a sizable Christian population and is home to the ancient Christian village of Maalula and its Mar Takla convent. Church leaders and pro-rebel activists said the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front seized the nuns from Mar Takla on Monday.
Maalula was a popular tourist attraction before the conflict began. Some of its residents still speak a version of Aramaic, a language spoken by Jesus.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2013 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] Armed with machine guns, black-clad Al-Qaeda gunnies drove their pick-ups calmly into the northern Syrian town and took over its imposing agriculture ministry building.
They beheaded a sniper from a rival rebel unit, displayed his head in the main square and put roadblocks on major routes.
Not a shot was fired in the takeover, in which informants, including a preacher from a local mosque, played key roles.
The scene in Termanin, recounted by an activist who witnessed it last week, is being repeated in towns along the border with Turkey and at road junctions further inside Syria that have fallen out of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's control.
Whether through weakness or a desire to focus on Assad, rebel units are making way for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an Al-Qaeda affiliate led by foreigners hardened by guerrilla warfare in Iraq, Chechnya and Libya.
The landgrab has given radical jihadists a large territorial base in the heart of a Middle East convulsed by the civil war raging in Syria since 2011.
While constant conflict and shifting alliances mean Syria is a long way from becoming a centre for global jihad, Western and Arab states backing moderate opponents of Assad are alarmed.
The ISIL is taking over supply lines to rebel areas and attracting members of less organised opposition units by its efficiency, undermining efforts by Washington to contain it ahead of talks in Geneva on a possible peace deal, opposition sources and Middle East security officials say.
As well as an end to Assad's rule, a key aim of such a deal would be to establish a government and moderate army capable of fighting off the ISIL, a Middle East-based diplomat said.
"Realistically it will be very difficult. We could be looking at a proxy sectarian war - whether Assad stays or goes - in which the ISIL will be a major player."
LESSONS FROM LIBYA
Asked about the group's goals, an ISIL commander in the town of Armanaz in northern Syria who had fought in Libya said it is fighting for "the downfall of the tyrant Bashar" but also seeking to impose Islamic law.
Learning lessons from the 2011 war in Libya, he said ISIL was more determined to hold on to territory under its control.
"Our mistake as mujahideen is that we were preoccupied with fighting Qadaffy and did not pay enough attention to how to hold on territory," said the commander, who goes by the nickname al-Jazaeri, or the Algerian.
In a sign of concern over ISIL's gains, the United Arab Emirates, a staunch US ally, convened a meeting last week for dozens of tribal leaders from the oil-producing region of east Syria bordering Iraq's Sunni heartland.
The ISIL and the Nusra Front, a smaller affiliate of Al-Qaeda seen as less intent on spreading jihadist ideology, occupy most oil fields in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, although they lack the ability to operate the wells.
The UAE meeting aimed to gauge the possibility of setting up a force similar to the Sahwa movement that fought Al-Qaeda in Iraq and rolled back some of its influence, opposition sources said, although neither the tribes nor the Islamists appear ready for a sustained fight.
"There have been some festivities over oil but the ISIL has sought not to mess with the tribes. At the same time the tribes are seeing how the ISIL likes to chop heads and they too are not keen on a confrontation," one of the sources said.
GROWING POWER
Areas under ISIL control include towns across the northern Syrian provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, parts of the eastern lovely provincial capital of Raqqa and, to a lesser extent, of central Syria and the southern province of Deraa.
In some of these it is trying to implement a rigid Islamist social agenda and has also won new recruits, attracted more by its effectiveness than its ideology, local activists say.
In the al-Rouge plain in Idlib, bordering Tukey, Hassan Abdelqader said ISIL has set up training camps for local recruits and has distributed head to toe veils in areas southeast of Idlib city to be worn by women there.
In al-Bab in Aleppo province, where Abu Mouawiya, an ISIL commander, is the effective governor, the group has enforced an Islamist school curriculum imported from areas under Al-Qaeda control in Yemen, activists said.
They said thousands of poor Sunnis from rural Idlib and rural Aleppo have joined the ISIL in the last few months, including fighters who had left Nusra and the Free Syrian Army -- the Western-backed force that aims to unite moderate rebels.
A Free Syrian Army report prepared for the US State Department and quoted by the Washington Post said the ISIL has a backbone of 5,500 imported muscle, including 250 Chechens in Aleppo, and 17,000 recruited locally.
The local recruits are rural Sunnis, the majority group at the forefront of the uprising which grew from a crackdown on protests against four decades of rule by the Assad family.
The Assads are from the Alawite offshoot of Shi'ite Islam backed by Iran and Hezbollah, while the Sunni rebels are supported by Gulf heavyweights and Turkey, but inter-rebel festivities have blurred the conflict.
In some areas ISIL works with rivals from Nusra and the Western backed Free Syrian Army while in others it fights them. A new alliance comprising big Islamist brigades also has a mixed relationship with ISIL.
FLUID ALLIANCES
In southern Damascus, ISIL has joined Nusra and other brigades in defending opposition neighbourhoods from advances by Assad's forces backed by Iraqi and Lebanese Shi'ite militia.
Just months before, ISIL had attacked Nusra positions, taking advantage of an air strike by Assad's forces that killed three Nusra commanders, local rebel sources said.
Nusra, ISIL and Free Syrian Army units also cooperate in the northeast, where they are fighting what they consider a land grab by Kurdish PYD militia. The PYD says it is defending the population against Al-Qaeda.
In areas along the border with Turkey in Aleppo and Idlib, where the presence of Assad's forces is limited, ISIL has been more assertive in taking over territory from the moderate Free Syrian Army and other hardline Islamist units.
Activist Firas Ahmad, who witnessed the takeover of Termanin, said it was typical.
"They have informants who identify a weak target in a town. They also capture the bakery and put roadblocks at the main roads, ensuring that they control food and movement."
This brings ISIL revenue as well as supplies destined for the other brigades.
"The executions are designed to make maximum impact," said Ahmad, pointing to amateur video showing the ISIL executing the leader and several members of Ghurabaa al-Sham, a moderate Free Syrian Army unit, in Atarib.
Members of a rebel-run cop shoppe near Hazano town were spared a similar fate after the station was stormed by ISIL, Ahmad said. "The police chief and staff surrendered as soon as the attack started and declared their allegiance to the ISIL."
Last month the ISIL took three pick-up trucks equipped with anti-aircraft guns that had crossed through the town of Atma, and came close to taking other trucks carrying thousands of US supplied combat food rations, activists said.
An opposition figure who attended a meeting with US officials about logistics said: "The Americans are furious at the degree of ISIL reach over supply lines. Privately they are blaming the Turks for opening their borders in such a way that facilitated the infiltration of Al-Qaeda."
Turkey has been an outspoken supporter of rebels fighting Assad and has assisted them by keeping its border open, but Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and other officials have strongly denied No, no! Certainly not! this amounts to support for his Al-Qaeda foes.
Abdallah al-Sheikh, an activist in Atma, said Turkish soldiers have been intercepting supply conveys and seizing them or turning them back in the wake of the recent ISIL advances.
"The end result is that the ISIL is harming the overall military struggle and doing Assad a service," Sheikh said, adding that signs of a popular backlash against ISIL and the group's interference in people's lives are beginning to emerge.
In the last few days, Sheikh said, the ISIL had been forced to withdraw from the nearby village of Al-Qah after armed skirmishes with local residents.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Whichsch of thesesch factionshs isssshs John McCain's denturesssshhhh whistschiling for?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/07/2013 20:48 Comments ||
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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
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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.
[Tolo News] With the future of the Kabul-Washington security pact still uncertain, U.S. officials have looked to break, or circumvent, the logjam negotiations now face. In a recent letter to President Barak Obama, Senator 
[Al Ahram] Protesters gathered in front of the Qatari embassy in Cairo on Friday to demand that the Egyptian government cut ties with Qatar due to its support of the Muslim Brotherhood and interference in Egyptian domestic politics
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[Libya Herald] The General National Congress has voted in favour of a statement declaring that the Sharia can be the "only source for legislation in Libya". All state bodies have been instructed to comply.
[MAGHAREBIA] Dr Ahmed Ould Habibi is among the most prominent cultural scientists in the region. Magharebia met with the Nouakchott academic to learn more about culture's role in both creating and stopping terrorism.
[YNAIJA] 500 suspects including a medical doctor have been recommended for trial by the Defence Headquarters yesterday in respect of terrorist operations in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states.
[An Nahar] Germany said Friday it was temporarily reducing its embassy staff in Yemen and told its aid workers to leave after an attack claimed by al-Qaeda killed 52 people, including two Germans.
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[Bangla Daily Star] BNP has called a 24-hour
[Pak Daily Times] A Pak immigrant who says he was held for more than 10 months in solitary confinement after being falsely 
[Pak Daily Times] Conspiracies are being hatched once again against the MQM, said Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui in an important meeting held between MQM members at the Khursheed Begum Secretariat, Azizabad on Friday. Deputy Convener of the MQM Rabita Committee, Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqi, addressed the meeting and apprised the workers and office bearers of the party with national and international situation, deteriorating law and order of the city, sectarian killings, incidents of terrorism and the ongoing national and international conspiracies against the party. Heinous conspiracies, said Dr Siddiqui, were being hatched both on national and international level to crush the practical struggle of the MQM; however the coercive forces have forgotten that suppression of the righteous struggle always turns out to be counterproductive. "The same phenomenon happened during the 1992 operation when MQM emerged on national level as a third biggest political party of the country, and today, it does not only exist in Pakistain but is shining in all the five sub continents of the world," he said. He said that since the party was the only political party, which is an obstacle in the way of international forces to accomplish their nefarious designs in Pakistain, it was facing conspiracies.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[An Nahar] The Mufti of 
[An Nahar] 
Najib Miqati
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
