[AnNahar] The Syrian capital's tiny tourist train is returning puffs of hope to a city encircled by war with short trips to the greener suburbs of Damascus.
The train, whose large yellow wagon and leather seats can hold 100 people, had stopped running since the 2011 outbreak of Syria's conflict.
But it was relaunched on Friday and will be open to the general public starting Saturday.
Train trips to towns in Damascus province, like Zabadani, had been a favorite weekend pastime for the capital's residents before the war.
Since many of these areas are now controlled by anti-regime rebels, the train will carry travelers on short round trips to nearby neighborhoods under regime control, like Dummar.
For many in Damascus, the train is reminiscent of weekend vacations and picnics in idyllic surrounding villages -- areas now destroyed by fierce festivities and heavy shelling.
"It's the train of my childhood... I want to ride it again to remember those beautiful days," Nour, a high-school student, told AFP.
"This is going to make people happy," said Samir Khoury, a 43-year-old engineer.
For 50 Syrian pounds (0.20 U.S. cents), the fuel-run train with a German engine will offer a transportation alternative for residents of the traffic-jammed capital.
"We decided to restart this train to give people hope again and put a smile on people's faces in Damascus," said Zuheir Khalil, one of the officials behind the train's relaunch.
The train leaves its station at Rabwa, near the Umayyad Mosque in the west of the capital, and runs alongside the Barada river before reaching Dumar to the northwest.
The inaugural ride on Friday of the train, regaled with Syrian flags, attracted dozens of people, gathered in front of a giant poster of embattled Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... Throughout Syria, transportation methods -- especially bus routes -- have been cut off by fighting and kidnapping.
Syria's conflict has killed more than 220,000 people, displaced roughly half the population and devastated the country's economy.
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#1
How many days till its all blowed pu? put me down for 7 ( a week is enough to pizz off the ISIS)
[ArabNews] An Afghan delegation is headed to Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... for "open discussions" with representatives of Taliban bandidos holy warriors over the next few days aimed at ending Afghanistan's long war, officials said on Friday.
The scheduled meeting would mark a significant step toward opening formal talks to ending the war, but it was not clear on Friday whether the Taliban's reclusive supreme leader had approved them.
The Mighty Pak Army chief told Afghanistan's Caped PresidentAshraf 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. .. in February that senior figures in the Taliban were open to direct talks with Kabul to end the war, but until now there had been little sign of progress.
The 20-member Afghan delegation will attend preliminary talks set for Sunday and Monday, said Attaullah Ludin, deputy chief of the country's High Peace Council.
"The open discussions are based on peace in Afghanistan. There will be representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistain, the Taliban and some other organizations," Ludin said.
He added that members of the High Peace Council would be meeting the Taliban in Qatar and also two representatives of Hizb-e-Islami, another Lion of Islam group fighting Afghanistan's US-backed government that also has a political wing.
A senior Taliban official in Qatar confirmed that a meeting was set for the next several days with Afghan figures, as well as some from Pakistain and other countries.
The Taliban official also said that Hizb-e-Islami figures would participate in the meeting.
The Kingdom has approved the restructuring of Saudi Aramco, a move that will see it separated from the Petroleum Ministry.
The Kingdom's Supreme Economic Council approved the restructuring plan that had been proposed by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, second deputy prime minister and minister of defense.
The king also appointed Khaled Al-Falih as chairman of Saudi Aramco and health minister.
Amin Al-Nasser, Saudi Aramco senior vice-president, has been named acting president and CEO of the oil giant to succeed Al-Falih.
Al-Nasser joined Saudi Aramco in 1982 with a degree in petroleum engineering and has been senior vice-president for upstream operations at Saudi Aramco since 2008.
Other members of the new Aramco council include Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi, Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf, Economy Minister Adel Fakeih, Water and Electricity Minister Abdullah Al-Husayen and Aramco's Al-Falih, according to a copy of a royal decree seen by Reuters.
Saudi Aramco is a world leader in crude exports. It is involved in hydrocarbons exploration, production, refining, distribution, shipping and marketing.
According to the company's website, Aramco has stewardship of natural gas reserves of 288.4 trillion standard cubic feet (scf) and as of 2014 operates 212 oil rigs. They've been running this gig for decades. You never see them in Forbes on the rich list but they are the richest people in the world. All that money goes in one way or another to spread and entrench our favourite religion (plus a few sex slaves, high class prostitutes, palaces, private islands and gold limos). They are sympathisers. They let the Islamofascists grow and metastasize like koranic cancer in their desert kingdom. I hope the NSA stops persecuting Snowden and starts chasing these guys instead. Ram the Christmas tree they've been looking to sit on up their collective behinds. I've even bolded the names so you can make your Christmas list and raid the swiss banks
Saudi Aramco's board of directors recently held its annual spring meeting in Seoul, South Korea.
An Aramco statement said the meeting's "varied and rich agenda" also included a briefing from Ali Al-Naimi, minister of petroleum and mineral resources, on the recent dissolution of the Supreme Council for Petroleum and Mineral Affairs and the creation of the Supreme Council of the Saudi Aramco. As provided for in the company's Articles of Incorporation, the council was constituted with 10 members, including five members of the board. The council is chaired by Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
On the organizational side, the board made six vice-president appointments including Abdulaziz A. Al-Abdulkarim, Ibraheem M. Assa'adan, Nabeel A. Al-Jama', Nabeel A. Al-Mansour, Nasser A. Al-Nafisee, and Muhammad M. Al Saggaf.
Additionally, general management appointments included Salah M. Al-Hareky, Fuad A. Al-Hazmi, and John Stuart Lilly.
[AnNahar] The far-right populist Dutch politician Geert Wilders issued a "warning" to America on Thursday, saying that mass immigration from Moslem countries threatened the nation's security. "None so deaf as those that will not hear. None so blind as those that will not see.” ― Matthew Henry
"I am warning America. Don't think that what's happening in Europe today will not happen in America tomorrow because it will," Wilders told news hounds on Capitol Hill in Washington.
"Islamic immigration has proven to be a Trojan horse, the jihadists are among us," he added, warning of "enormous security problems" in the United States if Moslem immigrants are allowed to stay.
"Let them go, but never let them return," he said.
The firebrand ...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments... politician, who heads the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, has long been accused of inciting racial hatred for his outspoken and sometimes extreme views.
Wilders was invited to America by Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa and his Texas colleague Louie Gohmert.
Wilders, a flamboyant-looking politician who sports a shock of peroxide-blond hair, has called Islam a fascist religion and compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days as a politician somebody doesn't like... 's "Mein Kampf."
Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, two Democratic congressmen who are both Moslem, had tried to block Wilders from entering the United States. They wrote to Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... saying that Wilders was "known for perpetuating Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... ."
[Ynet] An American woman locked away You have the right to remain silent... last month for trying to travel to Syria to join the Lion of Islam group 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.... was in touch with an Islamist preacher in Jamaica, a federal law enforcement official said. The woman, Keonna Thomas from Philadelphia, was charged in early April with attempting to provide material support to a terrorist group after she bought a ticket to Europe to travel to Syria. It's never a 'Martha, Evelyn, or Judy' is it ?
A court document detailing criminal charges against Thomas, who went by the nickname Young Lioness, said she sent electronic communications to a radical preacher in Jamaica several times earlier this year.
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[Ynet] Iraq's Sunnis fleeing the fighting in western Anbar province have provided a cover for 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.... bandidosforces of Evil to carry out a wave of bombings that struck Baghdad, political and security officials in the Iraqi capital claimed on Friday.
There has been a spike in bombings in Baghdad in the past week, with multiple blasts each day. On Thursday night alone six bombings killed 21 people and maimed scores.
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[AnNahar] The 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.... jihadist group said Friday it carried out a series of deadly boom-mobileings in Shiite districts of Iraq's capital to avenge attacks on displaced persons from a Sunni province.
Eleven people were killed and more than 40 maimed in a wave of car kabooms on Thursday, medics said.
The interior ministry reported three bombings, although IS said in a statement it carried out six attacks "to avenge residents of Anbar killed in the streets of Baghdad" by Shiites.
Since the start of April, 114,000 residents have fled fighting between government forces and IS in the western province which is largely controlled by the Sunni bad boy group, according to U.N. figures.
Police say several of the displaced have been kidnapped and killed in Baghdad, including four victims found on April 25 with gunshot wounds to the head.
The fighting in the Ramadi area of Anbar province has ratcheted up tensions between the Sunnis and Iraq's majority Shiites.
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[Ynet] The UN confirms that Iran will take part in consultations on Syria that begin Monday in Geneva.
The UN special envoy on Syria has said these are not a new round of negotiations but a series of individual meetings with "as many parties as possible" to get a sense of whether another round of negotiations is feasible.
Iran's participation is important because it is a key ally of the Syrian government and did not take part in the two rounds of negotiations on Syria that failed.
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[ArabNews] The battle for the Syrian border town of Kobani was a watershed in the war against the Islamic State group — Syrian Kurdish forces fought the militants in rubble-strewn streets for months as US aircraft pounded the extremists until ultimately expelling them from the town earlier this year.
It was the Islamic State’s bloodiest defeat to date in Syria. But now, three months since Kobani was liberated, tens of thousands of its residents are still stranded in Turkey, reluctant to return to a wasteland of collapsed buildings and at a loss as to how and where to rebuild their lives.
The Kurdish town on the Turkish-Syrian border is still a haunting, apocalyptic vista of hollowed out facades and streets littered with unexploded ordnance — a testimony to the massive price that came with the victory over IS. There is no electricity or clean water, nor any immediate plans to restore basic services and start rebuilding.
While grateful for the US airstrikes that helped turn the tide in favor of the Kobani fighters and drive out IS militants, residents say their wretched situation underscores the lack of any serious follow-up by the international community in its war against IS.
“First, Islamic State fighters were holed up in our home and then the American planes bombed it,” said Sabah Khalil, pointing from across the border in Suruc, Turkey, to where her family house in Kobani is now a pile of crumpled cement.
“Who is going to help us rebuild? That’s what everyone is asking,” she added, sitting on a stone outside her tent, soaking in the spring sun as children in tattered shoes played nearby.
Today more than 70 percent of Kobani lies in ruins. More than 560 Kurdish fighters died in the battles.
About 70,000 of the refugees have returned to the town and surrounding areas, some only to pitch tents outside their destroyed homes, according to Aisha Afandi, co-chair of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD.
With no outside help, the Kurdish fighters use primitive tools to dismantle mines and booby traps left behind by IS militants. The rotting bodies of dead fighters are still trapped under the rubble, and as the weather gets warmer, there are concerns of spreading disease.
At the nearby Arin Mirxan camp in Suruc, named after a female Kurdish fighter in Kobani who is said to have carried out a suicide bombing against IS militants in October, the hopelessness is on full display.
Ali Hussein and his mother Zalikha Qader sit next to each other in the camp, eating roasted pumpkin seeds and wiling the time away.
In nearby “Tent Number 3,” Shahin Tamo, 21, takes care of his 7-year-old brother Sarwan, a skeletal child with large eyes who suffers from a serious neurological condition. They are here with their parents, two brothers and two sisters. Their Kobani home was looted and burnt.
“Everything is gone. Our house, my education, my future,” Tamo said. “Who will compensate that?”
[AnNahar] A battle for Syria's border region of al-Qalamun is imminent as Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... and the Syrian army are making the final preparations for the fight, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Friday.
A high-ranking March 8 forces ... the opposition to the Mar. 14th movement, consisting of Hizbullah and its allies, so-called in commemoration of their Mar. 8th, 2006 demonstration of strength in Beirut ... official told the daily: "The battle of al-Qalamun is very, very imminent and it will be very big."
"Hizbullah's preparations with the Syrian army are focused on a battle that will fortify al-Qalamun's villages and those on the Lebanese side of the border," he added.
An Nahar daily meanwhile noted the "lack of any official, security, or military stance" on the upcoming battle.
Media reports on Wednesday said that six Hizbullah members were killed in an ambush by the Qaeda-linked al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front in al-Qalamun region.
They said that al-Nusra carried out a "major operation" against a Hizbullah "supply convoy" in the Syrian region.
In early January, five Hizbullah members and six Nusra gunnies were reportedly killed when the group attacked posts controlled by the Lebanese party and the Syrian army in the Qalamun town of Flita.
Hizbullah has sent fighters across the border to aid Syrian regime troops in Qalamun and in several regions across Syria.
Its involvement helped the Syrian army recapture most of Qalamun from rebel hands.
The Lebanese army for its part has been battling Syria-based gunnies from al-Nusra and the 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.... group who are entrenched on the mostly non-existent border between Leb and Syria.
[AnNahar] Iran is actively trying to buy nuclear technology through blacklisted companies, according to a confidential U.N. report, citing information from the British government.
Of course they are.
The claims -- which if true would violate U.N. sanctions -- were made to a U.N. panel of experts just weeks after world powers reached a framework deal with Iran on curbing its nuclear program.
"The UK government informed the panel on the 20 April 2015 that it 'is aware of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network which has been associated with Iran's Centrifuge Technology Company (TESA) and Kalay Electric Company (KEC)'," the report, seen by AFP, said.
"Given the late communication, the panel could not independently investigate the above information."
The United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... has slapped a series of sanctions on Iran over its failure to address international concerns about its nuclear program and suspicions that it could have military purposes.
KEC is on a U.N. list of blacklisted Iranian companies for its ties to the nuclear program.
The report was presented to the Security Council's Iran sanctions committee on April 21, just as negotiators from the P5+1 -- Britannia, China, La Belle France, Russia, the United States plus Germany - began work on finalizing the nuclear deal.
The panel noted that overall there had been few reported violations of U.N. sanctions. More information on violations how you can donate is available at the Clinton Foundation Web Site. "It might be linked, inter alia, to a decrease in the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran's prohibited activities and restraint on the part of member-states so as not to affect the negotiations process" for the nuclear deal, the report said.
World powers have set June 30 as the deadline for finalizing the agreement that would end one of the most vexing disputes in international diplomacy and could open the door to revamping relations with Iran.
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[IsraelTimes] US air strike left al-Baghdadi with spinal injuries, reports The Guardian; group now led by deputy who may become next leader
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.... leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... has been effectively replaced as head of the jihadist group after suspected spinal injuries sustained in an attack by US forces left him incapacitated, according to a Friday report by The Guardian.
Al-Baghdadi's deputy Abu Alaa al-Afri was now said to be running the organization's day-to-day operations, and could remain its leader indefinitely as sources close to IS told the newspaper that it was not clear whether al-Baghdadi would be able to resume command in the future.
A report in The Guardian last month had claimed that the self-proclaimed caliph was left seriously hurt in a March 18 US Arclight airstrike in Iraq. The strike in question killed three individuals traveling in a convoy in the Iraqi city of al-Baaj, 128 km (80 miles) west of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... The Pentagon has acknowledged that it was responsible for the attack, but said it was unaware of al-Baghdadi being one of the casualties.
Previous reports of al-Baghdadi's death or injury -- in November and December of last year -- were later proven false.
However, the way to a man's heart remains through his stomach... on Friday sources within Mosul gave credence to the earlier report, reporting that the IS chief was being treated by doctors in a hideout in the city. They said a female radiologist and male surgeon were treating the jihadist leader, adding that the medical professionals were ideological proponents of the Sunni holy warrior group.
Al-Baghdadi was the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq before founding the holy warrior Islamic State group in 2010. In June of last year, he proclaimed the large parts of Syria and Iraq under the group's control as an Islamic caliphate, and named himself as caliph.
Recently, the jihadist group -- notorious for horrific acts of violence including rape, torture and beheadings -- has lost substantial ground in both countries. An offensive of Shia militias, the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces last month reclaimed key areas from IS, including Iraq's third-largest city of Tikrit.
Two sources within the Islamic State said that coalition strikes had dealt immense blows to the group's morale and numbers, asserting that the jihadist group would attack the West for its large-scale air campaign.
"They are planning to fight back against Europe," one member said. "They want to take Dire Revenge for Baghdadi."
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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
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.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[AnNahar] The far-right populist Dutch 
