[NYTimes] Data From Seized Computer Fuels a Surge in U.S. Raids on Al Qaeda
As an October chill fell on the mountain passes that separate the turban havens in Afghanistan and Pakistain, a small team of Afghan intelligence commandos and American Special Operations forces descended on a village where they believed a leader of Al Qaeda was hiding.
That night the Afghans and Americans got their man, Abu Bara al-Kuwaiti. They also came away with what officials from both countries say was an even bigger prize: a laptop computer and files detailing Qaeda operations on both sides of the border.
American military officials said the intelligence seized in the raid was possibly as significant as the information found in the computer and documents of the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now beyond all cares and woe... in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... , Pakistain, after members of the Navy SEALs killed him in 2011.
In the months since, the trove of intelligence has helped fuel a significant increase in night raids by American Special Operations forces and Afghan intelligence commandos, Afghan and American officials said.
American and Afghan officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing operations that are largely classified, said that American forces were playing direct combat roles in many of the raids and were not simply going along as advisers.
The raids appear to have targeted a broad cross section of Islamist turbans. They have hit both Qaeda and Taliban operatives, going beyond the narrow counterterrorism mission that B.O. regime officials had said would continue after the formal end of American-led combat operations last December.
The tempo of operations is "unprecedented for this time of year" -- that is, the traditional winter lull in fighting, an American military official said. No official would provide exact figures, because the data is classified. The Afghan and American governments have also sought to keep quiet the surge in night raids to avoid political fallout in both countries.
"It's all in the shadows now," said a former Afghan security official who informally advises his former colleagues. "The official war for the Americans -- the part of the war that you could go see -- that's over. It's only the secret war that's still going. But it's going hard."
Nothing wrong with that. Let's make it a secret war, put the fear of Allah into the hearts of the jihadis, and honor our good men when they come home, fatigue in their eyes and an unwillingness to talk about 'over there'...
American and Afghan officials said the intelligence gleaned from the October mission was not the sole factor behind the uptick in raids. Around the same time that Afghan and American intelligence analysts were poring over the seized laptop and files, Afghanistan's newly elected president, Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. , signed a security agreement with the United States and eased restrictions on night raids by American and Afghan forces that had been put in place by his predecessor, 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... . Mr. Karzai had also sought to limit the use of American air power, even to support Afghan forces.
Somalis living in the United States have been mostly cut off from sending funds to people in their homeland, after banks handling most of the transactions between the United States and Somalia halted service. why would that be?
Under pressure from regulators concerned with foreign funding of terror activity in the war-torn East African country, California Merchants Bank became the latest bank to cut off transfer services to Somalia, according to recent media reports. That followed an earlier decision by US Bank to cut off service. Oh ...that
San Diego is home to more than 10,000 Somali immigrants. Pikers, we've got that many in the taxi queue at Washington National.
Each year, people in Somalia receive an estimated $1.3 billion in remittances, according to a report published in 2013 by Oxfam and two other groups. These funds provide a significant boost to the Somali economy. Somalia, with a population of about 10 million, has been mired in civil war since at least the early 1990s. In 2011, it experienced a brutal famine. Somalia also is home to an al-Qaeda-linked terror group known as al-Shabab. Taxi driving is the business, and business has been goooood
With no funds arriving from emigrated relatives, people in Somalia will struggle to pay for food, clothing and rent, outlets including the Los Angeles Times reported.
The risk of sending funds to terrorists is the impetus for banks stopping wire transfers to that country. really?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Washington National, that's when I started to wonder.
PARIS, FEBRUARY 12 - Egypt reached an agreement on Thursday with France to buy 24 Rafale fighter jets as well as a FREMM frigate and short and medium-range missiles produced by MBDA, a joint venture that includes Italy's Finmeccanica.
Not sure why they need Rafales except for the prestige factor. They're not going up against the Israelis any time soon, the Libyans don't have an air force, and a simple advanced trainer like a Hawk is perfectly capable of bombing terrorists in the Sinai. The Hawk is a lot cheaper and easier to maintain, too.
Reports were in the daily Le Monde, which noted that the five-billion-euro contract lacked only the final signature from the representatives of the two governments. The definitive signing is expected to come on Monday, said the Paris daily. President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi will sign for Egypt and either Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian or President Francois Hollande will sign for France.
The contract is the first export one for the Rafale fighter jets, produced by France's Dassault and heir to the Mirage aircraft, and was stipulated in only three months. Facilitating the acquisition, underscored Le Monde, was the position that Egypt has long held as client of French armaments.
Cairo bought its first French fighter jet, a Mirage, in 1967, just after the Six-Day War.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
Not sure why they need Rafales
Could be as a foil for the run around they have been getting from the Admin for more/newer weapon systems.
Posted by: USN, Ret ||
02/14/2015 0:53 Comments ||
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#2
I guess French given them better conditions than the Russians.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/14/2015 8:09 Comments ||
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#4
"Not sure why they need Rafales"
Because the French defence industries are like the American defence industries; they don't want to sell you what you need, they want to sell you something that makes back their investment.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/14/2015 10:24 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] La Belle France has found itself the best positioned Western nation to assist in the regional fight against 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... -- but also the most vulnerable to being sucked into an open-ended war, experts say.
Despite the presence of 3,000 troops in the region under La Belle France's Barkhane operation battling jihadist groups around the Sahel, Gay Paree insists it will limit itself to "indirect support" of the widening African effort to combat Boko Haram.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
How do you say 'quagmire' in French? Quagmire.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/14/2015 9:31 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] The Shiite militia that has taken control in Yemen's capital accused Western powers Thursday of trying to exert pressure by closing their embassies, criticizing the hasty exit of diplomatic staff as "unjustified".
You wanted us infidels gone, and now you want us to stay...
Can't have kidnapping for fun'n'profit if the kidnapees all leave. Have you no respect for the local culture?
Pshaw. There's always someone to kidnap. Cousin Fatima will start looking pretty good at some point...
The United States, Britannia and La Belle France have rushed to close their embassies over security fears in Yemen with U.S. staff destroying top-secret documents and abandoning vehicles at the airport Wednesday.
But Hussein al-Ezzi, described as the Shiite Huthi militia's head of foreign relations, said the closures were designed to put "pressure" on the Yemeni people.
[AnNahar] British supporters of Germany's PEGIDA movement, which protests against what it calls the "Islamization" of Europe, are planning their first demonstration on February 28, police said on Friday.
A Facebook group calling itself PEGIDA UK, which has the slogan "United Against Extremism", has called for a march to take place in the northeastern English city of Newcastle.
In a statement, local police said: "We have spoken to the organizers and they have informed us they plan to hold their event in Newcastle on February 28.
"We are aware there are also plans in place for counter events to be held in the city on the same day.
"We will now speak to all of those involved, our partners and our local communities and over the coming days agree on plans for the events."
PEGIDA is a right-wing populist group that rails against Islam and "criminal asylum seekers", and drew 25,000 people to a march in the German city of Dresden last month.
It has since seen its numbers fall off, although PEGIDA-inspired protests have also taken place in Austria and Sweden in the past week. The small crowds drawn to each one were dwarfed by counter-demonstrations.
A homegrown British group that protested against the perceived threat from Death Eater Islam, the English Defense League, held a number of protests throughout 2013, which often ended in festivities with anti-fascist demonstrators.
But the group has lost momentum since its leader Tommy Robinson quit in October that year, saying he could not longer keep "extremist elements" in the group at bay.
[BBC] An Argentine prosecutor has asked a federal judge to investigate President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner over allegations she helped cover up Iranian links to a deadly 1994 bombing.
Prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita inherited the case from Alberto Nisman, who was found dead in mysterious circumstances.
The president denies the allegations, with the government calling the probe an "anti-democratic attack".
The attack on a Jewish centre killed 85 people. Iran also denies involvement.
The latest prosecutor's move mean the judge will have to decide whether to authorise new investigations to prove the president's alleged involvement.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] A Moslem party that aims to promote Islamic finance and overturn La Belle France's ban on wearing the veil in schools will take part in regional elections next month.
Led by Najib Azergui, the Democratic Union of French Moslems (UDMF) also aims to promote the use of Arabic in schools and "fight against dangerous stigmatization that equates Islam with terrorism."
The party, which has 900 members and 8,000 supporters, is to put up two candidates in the March election in the Gay Paree suburb of Bobigny, where a large proportion of the population is from an immigrant background.
It will also put up candidates in seven other regional elections next month.
"In the dramatic context like the one we are living through today, we need to make our voices heard louder," said Khalid Majid, 36, one of the candidates in Bobigny.
La Belle France has struggled to integrate its Moslem community, Europe's largest estimated at between 3.5 and five million, although figures are difficult to come by as secular La Belle France does not collate religious data.
The deadly jihadist attacks in Gay Paree last month sparked immediate concern among Moslems that Islam would be blamed for the shootings that left 17 people dead.
Azergui founded the party in 2012 due to concerns over a growing tendency in La Belle France to portray Islam and the Islamic culture as "harmful, hostile and dangerous."
"In the media debate sparked by some intellectuals and politicians, it is clearly insinuated that Islam is not compatible with democracy," the UDMF party says on its website.
"But living together, morality, deep respect for other communities, the importance of family, the elderly, solidarity, mutual aid, charity and fighting injustice are precisely the values that drive us."
A previous Moslem party was created in 1997 in Strasbourg. Its president, Mohammed Latreche, won 0.92 of the vote in legislative elections in 2007.
[POLITICO] Yet after they arrived in Washington the tribal leaders found themselves thwarted at every turn in their efforts to meet with high-level administration officials. They were told they would have to take up these matters with new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and would have to rely for weapons on those provided to them by Abadi’s ministry of defense.
That’s when George W. Bush called Abu Risha at his hotel in Washington.
It’s startling enough for a Sunni tribal leader to get a call from a former U.S. president—and even more so from Bush, who has been especially reluctant to interfere in world affairs since leaving office. But Iraq, after all, was Bush’s baby. He knew about the tribesmen’s difficulties as Islamic State fighters continued to make inroads against the Iraqi military, and he had been alerted to the delegation’s visit in Washington by his contacts in the U.S. policymaking community.
Abu Risha, the president of the powerful Anbar Awakening Council, said Bush listened carefully as the sheik explained in a 20-minute conversation that the Anbar tribesmen were unlikely to get any weapons from the Iraqi government, which, as Abu Risha claimed, is notoriously corrupt, beholden to Tehran and more interested in arming Shia militias than Sunni tribesmen. Bush urged Abu Risha to extend his stay and meet with retired Gen. David Petraeus, as well as with Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham. According to Abu Risha, Bush pledged that he would “do everything I can” to help him get a hearing in Washington.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2015 12:13 ||
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[AnNahar] U.S. authorities are facing a difficult task screening Syrian refugees for potential bandidosbandidos bully boys because of a shortage of intelligence from the war-torn country, officials told politicians Wednesday.
Michael Steinbach, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the U.S. government had data and intelligence to draw on when it performed background checks on refugees from Iraq in recent years but in the case of Syria, there was "a lack of information."
"The difference is, in Boston Iraq, we were there on the ground collecting, so we had databases to use," Steinbach told the House Homeland Security Committee. "The concern is in Syria, the lack of our footprint on the ground in Syria, that the databases won't have the information we need."
"You are talking about a country that is a failed state, that does not have any infrastructure so to speak, " he said.
Washington has decided to let in more Syrians displaced by the civil war and announced plans in December to review about 9,000 refugee cases referred by the U.N. refugee agency.
U.S. officials told AFP on Wednesday that nearly 11,000 cases referred by the UNHCR will be examined.
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, the United States has admitted 512 Syrians into the country, according to the State Department.
Lawmakers at the hearing voiced dismay at the possibility that some of the male refugees heading to America could be potential jihadists.
The U.S. was already working to stop imported muscle from returning to America and admitting large numbers of refugees "would be a federally sanctioned welcome party, if you will, to potential faceless myrmidons in the United States," said Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the committee.
Such a move would be a "huge mistake," he said.
The head of the National Counter-terrorism Center, Nicholas Rasmussen, told politicians there would be a thorough screening effort.
He said "what we want to be able to do is apply the full weight of U.S. intelligence community holdings to the vetting and screening process so that we can unearth any information that we may have in our holdings that gives us concern about particular individuals."
Syrian refugees are now the largest group under the U.N. refugee agency's mandate, with more than three million forced to flee the conflict. The UNHCR has warned the number could rise to 4.27 million by next December.
#1
The main question is why we need to bring any of them here. Why not send them where they're supposed to go. Europe.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/14/2015 9:22 Comments ||
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#2
If we're not going to vet immigrants, maybe we should provide temporary living space as in New South Wales circa 1788 (Wayne County MI with really-really good enclosure systems?) .
We could then look in on them in 100 years or so to see how things and their society and "politi-religion" are doing before releasing them to the general population.
Ramallah: A top UN official warned on Thursday of another potential conflict in the Gaza Strip, urging Israel to lift its blockade and the Palestinians to end in-fighting to avoid further violence.
The United Nations also called for an additional $705 million in boodle humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territories, most of it for Gaza which saw its bloodiest and most destructive war last year.
That's even more than Champ wants for a new 'stimulus'...
That's because none of the recent pledges have been paid, and the accumulated debt in need of paying off, in the usual way, has continued to accumulate -- plus the usual skimming for Hamas special projects and everyone's private pockets.
“Right now, things are not going well, and we’re very concerned about the possibility of a further conflict,” James Rawley, UN humanitarian chief for the Palestinian territories, said. “But it’s not inevitable... as long as several things happen.
“To have a complete recovery of Gaza, even to go back to where we were in July (before the 50-day conflict) requires more than construction material going in. It requires a lifting of the blockade,” said Rawley.
Rawley likely turned a blind eye to the construction of the bunkers and tunnels last time, and he'll turn a blind eye this time...
“In parallel, we have to see a commitment from the militant groups in Gaza to stop firing rockets at civilians in Israel... and Palestinian reconciliation moving forward” to reassure donors that building materials were not falling into the hands of militants, he added.
Rawley called for a “reconstruction hudna (truce) for three to five years” to allow rehabilitation of the coastal enclave.
That would allow the Gazooks to harden the bunkers to near Hezbollah levels...
Meanwhile the UN, at a news conference in Ramallah, said 75 per cent of the additional aid it needs would be destined for Gaza, while the rest would be allocated to the West Bank.
The July-August war between Israel and Hamas killed almost 2,200 Palestinians and 73 on the Israeli side, and left 100,000 Gazans homeless. Delivery of building materials to reconstruct damaged homes had increased significantly after a slow start, Rawley said, with “good cooperation” from Israel, which controls two of Gaza’s three crossings. Egypt controls the third.
Egypt should open the Rafah crossing, which has mostly been shut during and since the conflict, for medical patients and aid, Rawley said. He also stressed the importance of implementing a months-old unity deal between West Bank-based Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, which has seen disputes over who controls Gaza’s internal checkpoints.
“We also need to see... progress on intra-Palestinian reconciliation... and instill donor confidence, including by having just one Palestinian presence at the border crossings,” he said.
But Palestinian deputy prime minister Mohammed Mustafa dismissed reconciliation as the principle concern for stability in Gaza.
“I think reconciliation will help, but I don’t think it’s the problem today,” he told the Ramallah news conference. “The real test” would be to ensure funding and bring in more construction material, he added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Good thing the UN wasn't around to give the NAZIs more time to build up.
Posted by: chris ||
02/14/2015 9:15 Comments ||
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#2
I've a solution: run UNRWA out of Gaza---let the locals work for a living.
[WSJ] WASHINGTON Iran's paramount political figure, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has responded to overtures from President Champ seeking better relations by sending secret communications of his own to the White House.
The Iranian cleric wrote to the Champ in recent weeks in response to an October presidential letter that raised the possibility of U.S.- Iranian cooperation in fighting Islamic State if a nuclear deal is secured, according to an Iranian diplomat. The supreme leaderâs response was respectful but noncommittal, the diplomat said.
A senior White House official declined to confirm the existence of that letter. But it comes as the first details emerge about another letter Mr. Khamenei sent to the president early in his first term.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
I was going to say 'Just in Time for Valentines Day', but the graphic beat me to it.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/14/2015 7:50 Comments ||
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#2
...Oh, goody. What could possibly go wrong?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/14/2015 8:44 Comments ||
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#3
Obama got a selfie stick... Sexting with Iran begins in 5...4...3...
[PJMedia] The new issue of ISIS' magazine takes issue with Western leaders who assert that Islam is a religion of peace.
In the Dabiq magazine article, the writer said the wrongful "slogan" is also being used by "apologetic 'du'āt' [beggars] when flirting with the West."
"They have repeated this slogan so much to the extent that some of them alleged that Islam calls to permanent peace with kufr and the kāfirīn. How far is their claim from the truth, for Allah has revealed Islam to be the religion of the sword, and the evidence for this is so profuse that only a zindīq (heretic) would argue otherwise," the magazine states.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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#2
Okay, here's a chance for the 3M (mythical moderate muslims) to proudly and loudly declare, point by point, why the ISIS is wrong and a bastardization of "true" Islam.
Come on dudes, quote chapter and verse and refute everything said by this Death Eaters.
Posted by: chris ||
02/14/2015 9:09 Comments ||
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#4
So, now that the Fanatics themselves deny that Islam is a religion of peace, will the press secretary double down and say that we are misunderstanding what ISIS is saying?
I think that should be a wake up call on the order of Oh, let's say Hitler attacking the Maginot line?
Time to quit apologizing.
Apologists? We don't need no stinking apologists!!
I will kill you.
Party is over
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
02/14/2015 11:55 Comments ||
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#5
"The new issue of ISIS' magazine..."
WTF?! They have a "magazine" that doesn't hang off an AK?
Now I know where unemployed marketing and journalism degree-holders go to "hone their craft."
#7
So ISIS is furious at Obama & Kerry for saying Islam is religion of peace.
Well Abdul, we're furious too -and for the same reason!
Isn't it beautiful when both sides agree on the same thing? (do I need sarc tags?)
Al
Posted by: frozen al ||
02/14/2015 13:35 Comments ||
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#8
WTF?! They have a "magazine" that doesn't hang off an AK?
Good stuff.
Unfortunately IS Squire is a bit clever if one is into those sort of things. Like homosexual bondage. Cool with me, but I'd never throw someone off a building and stone any surviver for some lover's spat.
#10
ISIS should take that up with Obama and Kerry. Personally, I never thought ISIS adhered to this "religion of peace" notion--they are literalists when it comes to the Koran.
[Ynet] Top intelligence official says 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... , Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... are sharing resources and tradecraft, raising fears that Islamic terror groups are helping each other expand. Golly! Where would we be without experts? Continued on Page 49
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.
Somalis living in the United States have been mostly cut off from sending funds to people in their homeland, after banks handling most of the transactions between the United States and Somalia halted service.
[POLITICO] Yet after they arrived in Washington the tribal leaders found themselves thwarted at every turn in their efforts to meet with high-level administration officials. They were told they would have to take up these matters with new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and would have to rely for weapons on those provided to them by Abadi’s ministry of defense.
[PJMedia] The new issue of ISIS' magazine takes issue with Western leaders who assert that Islam is a religion of peace.
[Ynet] Top intelligence official says 
