A number of young would-be Afghan migrants on Wednesday said human traffickers are going about their business freely in Kabul and no action is being taken against them.
These would-be migrants say that the people smugglers sell their services "dishonestly" and make promises in exchange for money that they do not keep.
This, they say is specifally related to the modes of transport used and the routes promised to refugees who seek refuge in Europe.
One Kabul resident, who himself wants to leave for Europe, says he has met with 10 different human traffickers and is now waiting his turn to leave.
"Human traffickers have significantly increased. Everyone tells us different stories and we don't know who to trust," Abdul Raouf said.
Raouf who has already tried to reach Europe once before was deported from Iran on his first attempt. He said the human traffickers at the time took all the money he had on him.
"When I travelled to Iran the trafficker took my $3,000 USD to keep with him but when I was deported, he didn't pay back my money," he said.
According to these would-be migrants, those using human traffickers now pay money changers, who hold their cash. Once in Europe the migrants call these operators and give them the go-ahead to pay the money to the traffickers.
Following government calls to money changers to abstain from working as middle-men, they continue to take guarantees of thousands of dollars a day.
"All money changers have been told that helping smugglers is a crime but still a few of them are secretly doing the business," Haji Zeerak, spokesman for the Money Changers Union said.
He said a minimum of $400 million USD leaves the country each month due to human traffickers. He also linked the dip in the Afghani against the U.S dollar to this problem.
People have however, raised questions as to why government has not clamped down on this practice and tracked and arrested the human traffickers.
The Interior Ministry said on Tuesday, however that a senior-level commission comprised of 10 different government organizations has started work to track down the traffickers and curb the problem.
"Many individuals and groups were arrested last week for deceiving people and trafficking them illegally to foreign countries," MoI spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said. "They are being interrogated."
Meanwhile, speculation suggests that officials within the government and at foreign embassies also help the human traffickers get visas for would-be migrants.
According to them, the lack of action by government to crack down on these traffickers has led them to continue their illegal business without any fear.
Journalists and human rights activists from Libya attending a UNESCO workshop in Tunis organised to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists
earlier this month, have called on the organisation and other international bodies to help ensure that those involved in crimes against journalists and others working in the media are brought to account.
Yesterday’s workshop, organised by the UNESCO Tripoli Office and the Regional Bureau of Reporters Sans Frontières, took place against the background of growing concern about the safety of journalists in Libya. There have been a series of arrests and disappearances. Moutaz Khraif who was seized last week just behind the Surpeme Court, was finally freed after protests in the city. In August, Reda Fahail Al-Boum was freed only when UNSMIL intervened after he had been seized at Mitiga airport.
There is still no news of photographer Mohamed Al-Naili who disappeared at the end of last month or of the two Tunisian journalists kidnapped in eastern Libya in September last year or the five-member Cyrenaica TV crew seized the previous month.
Many Libyan journalists have been forced to leave the country for their safety.
At the workshop, participants pointed out that those still in Libya were being silenced at the very time the provision of accurate and impartial information was badly needed. Those responsible for this were able to get away with it because there was no protection from the law; those threatening journalists and activists knew they could act with impunity.
“We all are aware that collecting and transmitting information is very important in times of crises. If allowed to work professionally, journalists can make a vital contribution to enhance the peace and reconciliation process in Libya”, said Austria’s ambassador to Libya, Ronald Sturm. “However, we are increasingly faced with a culture of impunity that endangers professional journalism.”
Malik Stitah, a journalist from Derna, said that UNESCO and other international partners had to “do their utmost to ensure the impunity issue in Libya remains in the spotlight as an urgent issue to be addressed by all responsible parties”.
UNESCO Representative to Libya Michael Croft agreed. Impunity was becoming ingrained in Libya, he said, insisting that Libya’s international partners had to react and make clear to the powers there that this was unacceptable.
Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the arrest of his predecessor's security adviser, for allegedly stealing some $2bn (£1.3bn).
Sambo Dasuki is accused of awarding phantom contracts to buy 12 helicopters, four fighter jets and ammunition. The equipment was meant for the fight against Boko Haram Islamist militants. He denies the allegations.
Mr Dasuki reacted to the order by saying he had never been invited to appear before the weapon procurement investigative panel, which made the allegations. He was already under house arrest as part of an ongoing trial for allegedly possessing illegal firearms.
The court for that trial had ordered for his passport to be released for him to be able to travel to the UK for treatment for suspected prostate cancer. It was expected that the trial would continue on his return. But the government refused to let him leave the country.
Before he got into power in May, Mr Buhari vowed to investigate corruption in the previous government, in which Mr Dasuki served. A spokesman for Mr Buhari said the corruption resulted in the needless deaths of thousands of Nigerians.
The BBC's Bashir Sa'ad Abdullahi says soldiers have reported they are better equipped since President Buhari came into office, but the previous president's supporters say this is because those weapons were ordered while Goodluck Jonathan was in power.
Honduran authorities have arrested five Syrians intending to make it to the United States with stolen Greek passports, triggering alarm Wednesday in the wake of the Paris attacks launched by Syria-linked jihadists.
The Syrians were arrested on Tuesday as they flew into Toncontin airport serving the Honduran capital and failed to make it past airport security checks, a police spokesman, Anibal Baca, told reporters.
"Five Syrian citizens have been detained and will be taken to our offices to be investigated because it is suspected they are carrying false documents, passports stolen in Greece," Baca said.
They had traveled by air from Syria to Lebanon, then to Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica and on to Honduras.
From there they were to make their way to Honduras' second city of San Pedro Sula with the aim of going overland through Guatemala, then Mexico and on to the United States, Baca told AFP.
The reasons for the Syrians' trip were not immediately known, and Honduran police were considering the possibility that they were refugees fleeing the war in Syria.
"We are not saying they are terrorists," Baca said. "They are being investigated for using false passports. It could be they are fleeing war. That is being investigated." Innocent until proven guilty, I always say. How about letting them babysit liberal congresscritters' kids/grandkids until after their trial is over?
Countries involved in the Syria conflict, including the United States, have been on alert for possible attacks since the killings in Paris last Friday and the October 31 bombing of a Russian passenger jet leaving Egypt.
Those attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State group based in Iraq and Syria. One of the gunmen in the Paris attacks was carrying a Syrian passport used to transit through Greece, though authorities have not confirmed that he was the man in the document.
Honduras on Monday said it had reinforced security in its ports and airports following the French attacks.
A spokesman for the country's Inter-institutional Security Force, Lieutenant Colonel Santos Nolasco, said that day that Honduras was part of a route to the United States often used by unauthorized migrants.
This year, 12,600 foreigners were detected illegally entering Honduras, almost all of them with the aim of getting to the United States, Nolasco said.
Those detained by authorities include nationals of Somalia, Iran, Ghana, Ethiopia, Senegal, Cameroon, Guinea, Sri Lanka, Eritrea, Togo, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal, as well as of other Latin American countries.
#1
traveled by air from Syria to Lebanon, then to Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica and on to Honduras.
That's a lot of frequent-flyer miles for a refugee.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/19/2015 7:18 Comments ||
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#2
I wonder if those passports are identical to the ones just seized in Trumbull County Ohio.
Seat occupancy rates for airline flights between Tokyo and Paris have dropped by 20 to 30 percent in the wake of last Friday's deadly terrorist attacks.
Japan Airlines says the average occupancy rate on its Paris flights between Saturday and Monday dropped by about 20 percent, to 65 percent. All Nippon Airways says its rate fell by about 30 percent during the same period, to 50 percent.
Airline officials say that both business and leisure travelers to Paris canceled their reservations following the attacks.
Airlines arriving or departing from Paris airports have not been affected by the attacks. They say their will maintain their flight schedules. This might get somebody's attention even if they don't care about security.
[AlAhram] A "commando" of people tossed in the clink Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! or killed in a massive police raid in a Gay Paree apartment Wednesday were a terror unit capable of staging a fresh attack, the city prosecutor said.
"A new team of snuffies was neutralised and all indications are that given their arms, their organizational structure and their determination, the commando could have struck," said Gay Paree prosecutor Francois Molins.
He also said police had found a cellphone belonging to one of the gunnies and jacket wallahs who staged La Belle France's worst-ever attacks Friday, killing 129 people and injuring over 350. The phone was found in a dustbin outside the Bataclan music venue, scene of the worst violence, where 89 people were bumped off.
A text message showed one of the gunnies had sent a message saying "we're ready, let's go." The message was sent at 9:42 pm (2042 GMT), before the attack, Molins said, adding that police were investigating who the message was sent to.
Sweden's ambassador to Israel was summoned to the Israeli Foreign Ministry to explain the remarks Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom made on Saturday to Swedish state broadcaster SVT.
Asked if she was concerned about the radicalization of young people in Sweden who are fighting for Islamic State, Wallstrom said: "Clearly we have a reason to be worried not only here in Sweden but around the world because there are so many who are being radicalized.
"Here again, you come back to situations like that in the Middle East where not least the Palestinians see that there isn't any future (for them). (The Palestinians) either have to accept a desperate situation or resort to violence."
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/19/2015 00:00 ||
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#3
either have to accept a desperate situation or resort to violence." She may regret that last part, as her own citizens may someday feel the exact same way with regards to the Muslim invasion.
#4
All this flooding of ME migrants into Europe is coming to a head. Margo is going to have her hands full fending off mobs of muslims or mobs of pi$$ed off Swedes.......or both. Better find a bunker while they are cheap.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/19/2015 18:32 Comments ||
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As crowds continued to gather at the Place de la RĂŠpublique last night, laying flowers and lighting candles in memory of the dead, a group of French Muslims held up banners and started to chant.
'Unite against brutality, unite for humanity!' They shouted. 'Killing any human is killing all mankind! Saving any human is saving all mankind!'
Around 30 Muslims, wow - 30 Muslims out of the 1,600,000 muslims in Paris
all of Bangladeshi origin and living in Paris, felt they had to take a stand against Islamic extremism because â as they saw it â few other Muslims were willing to raise their voice.
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/19/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, seems like we found the moderate Muslims.
What's that? About .00002%?
[Rudaw] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... is starting a new offensive with "new strategies" against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), including raids on the group in northern Iraq and Turkey's own Kurdish southeast, Turkish media reported.
Ground operations will begin soon in Turkey's Kurdish areas of Oramar, Doski, Shamzinan, Amad heights, Dersim and Shirnakh, the reports said.
The Turkish air force will also reportedly resume air raids in the Qandil, Avashin and Zap mountains in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, which the PKK has used as a safe haven for its guerrillas over the last 30 years.
The Turkish army has urged the country's intelligence agencies and police to arrest those behind PKK financing in the Kurdish areas.
At a security meeting this month, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had warned that weeks-long assaults on the PKK would continue during the winter.
The Turkish government reignited a war with the PKK after the rebels grabbed credit for the deaths of two coppers in late July. The fighting has ended a 2013 ceasefire that was meant to resolve a three-decade conflict in which some 40,000 people have been killed.
Turkish forces have been fighting the PKK since the two-and-a-half year cease-fire broke down in late July following a bombing in Suruc.
Early this month, the PKK's umbrella organization declared a resumption of the deadly conflict with the Turkish government, formally ending a unilateral truce.
"We are going to resume our military activities in northern Kurdistan and Turkey," said the leadership of the Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), which was founded by the PKK to put into practice incarcerated Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! leader Abdullah Ocalan's ideas.
The statement accused Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of unwillingness to solve the Kurdish question in Turkey. It said the AKP was demonstrating "the will to fight."
It added: "We are always ready for a bilateral ceasefire; when we declared a unilateral truce the Turkish army kept attacking us in northern Kurdistan," in Turkey.
Senate Democrat Minority Leader Harry Reid is already praising Paul Ryan's approach to avoid shutting down and defunding the process altogether. Go ahead. Explain to me how the Republicans have no choice. Again.
#4
So, what is this talk about reforming govt? The two party system is dead. You are a fool if you put any effort toward the Republican party. They are done.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/19/2015 19:40 Comments ||
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#5
They lost me when they DIDN'T impeach Obama
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/19/2015 21:31 Comments ||
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Dozens of the U.S. citizens arrested in recent years on terror-related charges are immigrants admitted to the United States legally who later obtained citizenship.
More than 70 U.S. residents have been publicly arrested and charged with conspiring to help, attempting to help, or actually helping terror networks such as Islamic State in recent years. At least 15 of them received U.S. citizenship after being admitted to the country legally, including one of the Boston bombers.
Here are five examples.
Two immigrants from Pakistan who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship were convicted of plotting to detonate a bomb in New York City in 2012, and were sentenced to a combined 55 years in prison.
Raees Qazi, 22, and Sheheryar Qazi, 32
Federal prosecutors accused a Somalian immigrant who became a U.S. citizen of plotting to "go to a military base in Texas and kill three or four American soldiers execution style." The man had trained with a terrorist group in Syria and was told to return to the U.S. and carry out an act of terror.
Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, 23, whose brother was killed fighting in Syria
An immigrant brought by his family from Kuwait at a young age and later approved for U.S. citizenship killed four Marines in a shooting rampage at two military centers in Chattanooga, Tenn., in July.
Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24
A woman born in Saudi Arabia who obtained U.S. citizenship and taught pre-school in Queens, N.Y., was arrested on terror charges in April. She and a friend also living in Queens pledged allegiance to Islamic State and considered bombing a police funeral. FBI raids on their apartments turned up bomb-making materials, including propane tanks and a pressure cooker, in addition to bomb recipes and jihadi literature.
Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31
An immigrant from Ghana who obtained U.S. citizenship was arrested in June and charged with conspiring to support a terrorist group after investigators allegedly found he was plotting a terror attack on New York City landmarks in the name of Islamic State.
Munther Omar Saleh, 20, who was studying electrical circuitry at a college specializing in aeronautics in Queens
The Obama administration has ignored a request from Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions for detailed immigration histories of 72 U.S. residents arrested in the past year on terror-related charges.
Another reason why the left deigns it important to teach "Gender Studies," etc. at the expense of Civics.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
11/19/2015 00:00 ||
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“I say, ‘Congress shall make no law establishing a religion or [prohibiting] the free exercise thereof,’”
That means no official state religion, Keith. And freedom to worship. Quite contrary to Sharia Law. Not to be rude about it, but the tenets of your religion are a tad un-American.
#2
OTOH FREEREPUBLIC > [Change Now!] PETITION: STOP SYRIAN [Pan-Muslim?] REFUGEES FROM ENTERING HAWAII + USA.
Whoa, so instead of taking over Guam's Camel Rock in lieu of China + PLA, AHMED "Jumped the Shark" + leapfrogged over Guam-WESTPAC to Hawaii-EASTPAC instead - TRYING OR DEMANDING TO MAKE IT TO CALIFORNIA + TEHRAN-ANGELES???
NO HARD BOY LOVE FOR MUSLIM DETROIT???
Looks like Someone isn't getting any Date-Raisin Cakes for XMAS!
#3
And where was the representative when the German Christian homeschoolers were deported back to Germany? One set of rules for me, another set of rules for thee? It's about power bubba. If you can refuse Christians on one hand, you can turn around and refuse Muslims on another.
#7
Keith Ellison
Ellison is the first Muslim to be elected to Congress.[1] He is also the first African American elected to the House from Minnesota.[2]
#9
In the same interview Rep. Ellison attempted to butress his advocacy for the Presidents Syrian refugee proposal by, and I shit you not, highlighting the "mostly successful" Somalian refugee program.
The Hebdo attack.
The Shoe Bomber.
The Beltway Snipers.
The Fort Hood Shooter.
The underwear Bomber.
The U-S.S. Cole Bombers.
The Madrid Train Bombers.
The Bafi Nightclub Bombers.
The London Subway Bombers.
The Moscow Theatre Attackers.
The Boston Marathon Bombers.
The Pan-Am flight #93 Bombers.
The Air France Entebbe Hijackers.
The Iranian Embassy Takeover.
The Beirut U.S. Embassy bombers.
The Libyan U.S. Embassy Attack.
The Buenos Aires Suicide Bombers.
The Israeli Olympic Team Attackers.
The Kenyan U.S, Embassy Bombers.
The Saudi, Khobar Towers Bombers.
The Beirut Marine Barracks bombers.
The Besian Russian School Attackers.
The first World Trade Center Bombers.
The Bombay & Mumbai India Attackers.
The Achille Lauro Cruise Ship Hijackers.
The September 11th 2001 Airline Hijackers.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday that the abuse of Afghans by police in Pakistan has been rampant since Pakistani Taliban launched a deadly attack on a school Peshawar last year.
According to the latest report by HRW, the abuse by police has forced thousands of Afghans to abandon Pakistan and head towards Europe after returning to war-torn Afghanistan.
The deputy Asia director of HRW, Phelim Kine, said “The Pakistani police’s outrageous mistreatment of Afghans over the past year calls for an immediate government response. The Pakistani government should press the police to apprehend perpetrators of atrocities instead of scapegoating the entire Afghan community.”
Calling on Pakistani government to take all necessary measures to end the rampant police harassment, threats, and violence against Afghans living in Pakistan, HRW said akistani government is obligated to ensure that all law enforcement and other government officials treat Afghans living in Pakistan with dignity and respect for their human rights in compliance with domestic and international law.
“Pakistan’s government has a responsibility to prevent and prosecute terrorist attacks,” Kine said. “But permitting police reprisals against the Afghan population is neither lawful nor effective in combatting terrorism.”
HRW also added that the police abuses and ensuring that Afghans are treated fairly should be a first step toward formulating a viable legal framework to manage the Afghan population in Pakistan.
The report has been prepared after interviewing 50 Afghans who had returned to Afghanistan after living many years in Pakistan, and 46 Afghans living in Pakistan, as well as Pakistani and Afghan government officials, staff of nongovernmental and community-based organizations, United Nations refugee agency officials, diplomats, journalists, and other experts.
Pakistan is host to one of the largest displaced populations in the world. The 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees and 1 million undocumented Afghans that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates are living in Pakistan as of November 2015 include many who fled conflict and repression in Afghanistan during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and their descendants.
Some arrived as children, grew up in Pakistan, married, and had children of their own who have never lived in Afghanistan. Others have arrived in the decades of turmoil in Afghanistan since, seeking security, employment, and a higher standard of living.
CHAGHI: Iranian security forces handed over 87 Paksitanis to Levies force in Taftan area of the district. Levies force informed on Wednesday that these Pakistani workers had been arrested from different parts of Iran by Iranian forces as they were living there without valid documents.
The Levies force said that the deportees would be handed over to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for interrogation after initial inquiry.
GUJRAT: The Supreme Court issued on Wednesday arrest warrants for PML-N’s Member of the National Assembly Chaudhary Abid Raza of Kotla. The MNA had been sentenced to death in the murder case of six people in Gujrat under the Anti-Terrorism Act, but was freed after a compromise with the aggrieved.
Elected from NA-107 in 2013 elections, Mr Raza had been sentenced to death by a Gujranwala ATC back in 2001. A three-judge SC bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, while hearing a case related to Raza’s disqualification, took notice of his acquittal in the terrorism case.
The bench said that a compromise was not allowed in a case registered under ATA (1997) and issued the arrest warrants and adjourned the hearing for two weeks.
Chaudhary Ilyas of PTI who lost the NA-107 election has sought Raza’s disqualification because of his conviction under the ATA and some other reasons. The Gujrat incident in which Mr Raza was convicted had taken place in 1998 when six people on a jeep were killed in an ambush.
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Wednesday launched a countrywide crackdown against human traffickers in a bid to control the flow of immigrants, specially to Europe.
On the directives of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the FIA formed seven raiding teams which have raided human trafficking rings in Rawalpindi and other areas, while acting on actionable intelligence.
In the raids carried out so far, the FIA has arrested seven human traffickers and one proclaimed offender.
Read: EU warns of tough action against Pakistani migrants
Those arrested in the raids have been booked under the Passport Act and Emigration Ordinance. Around 89 passports were also recovered from the arrested individuals.
“There has been improvement in FIA’s performance over the last year and a half against human smugglers, but more still needs to be done,” said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan
The interior minister also directed the director general passports, NADRA chairman and the FIA to cancel the passports, block computerised national identity cards (CNIC) and freeze the bank accounts of 300 human traffickers and their agents, who have been identified so far in the ongoing investigation.
“Human traffickers who have managed to travel outside the country, will be arrested through Interpol once their red warrants are issued,” added Nisar.
The interior minister has also directed the FIA to submit a weekly progress report on the measure taken to prevent human trafficking and operations conducted during the crackdown.
The latest development comes after Pakistan on Tuesday instructed its diplomatic missions in European capitals to demand evidence of a potential crime when host countries sought to deport illegal immigrants being held on terror charges to Pakistan.
Also read: Pakistani migrant dies in Hungary while fleeing arrest
The move came days after Islamabad said it had suspended its agreement on the readmission of illegal immigrants with European Union countries, except Britain, because of its “blatant misuse”.
Nisar has also warned that airlines who carried deportees back to Pakistan without the interior ministry's permission or without travel documents would have to pay unspecified fines.
The 2010 agreement that Pakistan said it had suspended aimed to facilitate the return of Pakistani illegal immigrants and other nationals who had transited through Pakistan before arriving in the European Union (EU).
Earlier, Pakistan had expressed readiness to accept its citizens who illegally arrived in the EU.
(IraqiNews.com) The Kurdish President Massoud Barzani said on Wednesday, that the land of Kurdistan is not a place for the Shiite militia of al-Hashed al-SHa’bi, while added that the region is not in conflict with al-Hashed al-Sha’bi about the importance of war against the ISIS.
A spokesman for the Presidency of Kurdistan said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The position of the President of Kurdistan, currently and formerly, is clear, that the the Kurdistan region does not have any disagreements with al-Hashed al-Sha’bi on targeting ISIS as well as the war against it,” stressing “The need for coordination and assistance between the Peshmerga and al-Hashed al-Sha’bi to target the ISIS.”
He added, “This does not mean that al-Hashed al-Sha’bi can come to occupy Khurmatu, which is the land of Kurdistan, and is protected by the Peshmerga,” explaining that “President Barzani asserts that the land of Kurdistan is not a place for al-Hashed al-Sha’bi.”
Israel issued an unusually blunt warning on Wednesday against proposals to restructure the U.S.-led peacekeeping force in the insurgency-wracked Egyptian Sinai next door, saying any draw-down of the foreign troops would "reward terrorism".
Installed to monitor the demilitarization of the Sinai under the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace accord, the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) and some of its 12 contributor countries have been quietly mulling reviews of the deployment and mandate. They worry for the safety of the almost 1,900 peacekeepers after six were wounded in September by a roadside bomb, and argue dismantling more remote and vulnerable posts would not significantly set back the mission.
With the review proposals on the agenda for MFO talks that opened with Israel, Egypt and the United States in Rome on Wednesday, a senior Israeli military officer played down the danger to the peacekeepers from the insurgents - including "Sinai Province", the Egyptian affiliate of Islamic State.
"They are not interested in attacking the MFO. If they were interested, they could be killing them every day," the officer told Reuters on condition of anonymity, echoing MFO staff who believe the roadside bomb was intended for the Egyptian army.
But any dismantling of MFO positions, the Israeli officer said, would risk emboldening harder-line insurgent elements. The officer said the MFO had removed peacekeepers from two Sinai observation outposts after the roadside bombing and had yet to return to them - something Israel would raise objections to at the Rome talks, which conclude on Thursday.
An MFO official confirmed the two positions had been vacated, and declined to comment further on the Rome meeting except to say: "We will, as always, hear out our partners in Israel, Egypt and the United States."
An Egyptian diplomat said Cairo, like Israel, regarded the MFO as "essential" and opposed any reduction of peacekeepers.
Posted by: frozen al ||
11/19/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
The idiots in the government want to insulate us from what's going on in the world. As long as it doesn't hurt too much, folks will continue to vote stupid. I say if someone is at war with us, we ought to feel it. To me, it's like trying to live your life with your sensory nerves numbed to the point you don't feel warning pains. While we were numbed, they were allowed to grow to be a threat that will be much more difficult to deal with. The CIA and NSA are whining that they can't get the intelligence they need. I think those kinds of statements reveal the bottomless depth of their ignorance. Maybe people will now wake up to what is going on now that they realize they are under attack.
In measuring progress in the American-led air war against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, numbers tell one story but results tell another.
Fighter jets, bombers, attack planes and drones are dropping an average of 2,228 bombs per month on targets ranging from training camps and machine gun positions to oil facilities and weapons shacks. The Pentagon says it doesn't do body counts, but the attacks are believed to have killed upward of 20,000 IS fighters. The U.S. price tag: $5 billion since August 2014, an average of $11.1 million each day.
The bombing has damaged or destroyed hundreds of military vehicles (including American tanks surrendered by Iraqi soldiers), thousands of buildings, hundreds of pieces of oil infrastructure and thousands of fighting positions, among other targets, according to U.S. Central Command figures.
This sounds like a pummeling designed to bury an enemy, particularly one facing the military might and technological power of the United States.
But what has been the result? In a word, stalemate, although U.S. military officials say they see the tide gradually turning in their favor.
The key word is "gradually." The administration has said from the start that dealing a lasting defeat to IS will take years, that a pell-mell military approach will not work because IS is not a conventional army. But in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, many are asking why the U.S. is not in a bigger hurry.
President Barack Obama says he sees encouraging progress. On Monday he pointed to the liberation this month of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq by Iraqi Kurdish forces, the encirclement of IS-held Ramadi and the severing of a key highway serving as a supply route for Islamic State fighters between the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and the militant's self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa in Syria. A key Iraqi oil refinery also has been taken from the militants.
And yet, as the Paris attacks showed, the group is now acting on global ambitions. It has withstood the aerial pounding by U.S. and coalition warplanes, defended its core territories and apparently used its resiliency and social media savvy to replenish its ranks as quickly as they are reduced.
How has 0bean it managed this?
The answer lies partly in the gradualist U.S. military approach. Instead of bombing every target in sight and sending a U.S. ground invasion force, Obama has chosen to use air power more discriminately to chip away at the Islamic State, avoiding targets where civilians are endangered. And rather than sending U.S. ground combat troops, he is waiting for the emergence of local fighters who can do the job. The premise of this strategy, endorsed by the president's top national security advisers but doubted by many in Congress, is that although the U.S. military is capable of squashing IS, any such victory would be short-lived without local armies and governments capable of maintaining stability.
The president's new chief military adviser, Gen. Joseph Dunford, defends a U.S. approach focused heavily on avoiding killing civilians.
"We're very careful in terms of civilian casualties, and some have criticized us for that," Dunford said Tuesday. "I will not apologize for that, because we are fighting the long fight, and for us to do otherwise would be shortsighted."
In the meantime the Islamic State has leveraged Iraqi and Syrian oil resources to generate nearly $1.4 million a day through black market sales. Those funds have enabled the militants to replace damaged and destroyed equipment and weapons and to finance their recruiting efforts. Critics of the administration's approach say this is giving IS too much breathing room, enabling it to spread its influence well beyond Syria and Iraq.
In recent days the Pentagon has highlighted attacks on oil-related targets that it previously had passed up or struck too lightly. For example, on Sunday it used A-10 attack planes and AC-130 gunships to destroy 116 tanker trucks in eastern Syria as they lined up near an oil facility in the open desert. On Wednesday the military said it struck two oil and natural gas processing plants near Abu Kamal in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border.
A question that has not yet been fully answered by the Pentagon is why it took so long to go after more of those oil-related targets, which are links in an oil business that Col. Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, says generates more than half of the Islamic State's revenue.
For all the attention paid to the air campaign and its shortcomings, Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the key to ultimate success will be found on the ground, not in the air.
Sufficient numbers of local fighters in Iraq and Syria will have to step forward. Iraq's Sunni Arabs, for example, need to rise up and reclaim what IS has taken from them, Carter said.
"This is one of the sad realities," he said. "They're harder to find than you would like."
Carter said in an interview broadcast Thursday that the administration would be prepared to change the rules of engagement for its air campaign, if it sees fit.
"We're getting better at this every day," he said in the interview that aired on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show. Carter acknowledged that the Defense Department had "changed tactics" to focus on strikes against fuel trucks transporting oil seized by IS.
Another reality is that the Obama administration is under political attack for what critics sees as a feckless military effort.
"Thousands of airstrikes against ISIL targets have conjured the illusion of progress, but they have produced little in the way of decisive battlefield effects," Sen. John McCain said Tuesday. The Arizona Republican favors a more aggressive U.S. approach in both Iraq and Syria.
[AnNahar] 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.... murderous Moslems are stiffening their defenses for a possible assault on their de facto capital of Raqa, as international Arclight airstrikes intensify on the Syrian city in retaliation for the Gay Paree attacks. IS fighters are hiding in civilian neighborhoods and preventing anyone from fleeing, former residents say.
The northern Syrian city's estimated 350,000 people are gripped by fear, rattled by powerful Russian and French Arclight airstrikes that shake the city daily. They are also worried they would be trapped with nowhere to go amid signs of a looming ground invasion by U.S.-allied Kurdish and Arab forces in Syria, according to the former residents who have fled to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/19/2015 00:00:00 ||
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By Staff writer, Al Arabiya News Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged on Wednesday global powers to unite without any preconditions on the fate of Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad after Russia and France killed 33 militants in 72 hours.
“It seems to me there are no longer any doubts that it is simply unacceptable to put forward any pre-conditions for joining forces in the fight against terror,” Lavrov told reporters.
Lavrov, who said there was still no agreement about Assad’s political fate after international talks in Vienna, said he had detected a change in the West’s position since the Paris attacks and the bombing of a Russian passenger plane.
Unlike the United States and other Western allies, Russia continues to say that Syrians need to decide in an election on whether Assad to stay or go.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday praised Russia’s role in talks to end the Syria crisis and offered the prospect of better ties if Moscow focused military strikes on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group.
But, he said, there were still differences over the fate of Syrian ruler, and Moscow’s current military focus on defending him.
“I hope the change in the position of our Western colleagues -- which has unfortunately only come about as the result of terrible acts of terror -- will spread to other Western partners. That the stance that the real battle with ISIS can only be resolved once the fate of Assad is clear, that this position will put to one side,” said Lavrov.
“In my opinion there can now be no doubts that it is simply unacceptable to put forward any preconditions in order to unite in the battle against so-called Islamic State terrorists.”
Meanwhile, Syria’s foreign minister Walid al-Moualem will visit Russia next week for talks with Lavrov about his country's crisis and the struggle against terrorism.
A map shown by the Russian military on state television appears to show that some Russian artillery contingents could be operating on the ground in central Syria’s Homs region.
Russia has servicemen at bases in government-held Syria helping to conduct an air campaign in support of forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad but denies it has deployed ground troops.
The detailed map shown in footage during a defence ministry briefing with President Vladimir Putin Tuesday showed acronyms for Russian contingents near areas where the regime is conducting an offensive against jihadists.
The diagram, shown to Putin on a large screen and filmed by state television, apparently showed that several 152mm-calibre Msta (2A65) howitzers of the 120th artillery brigade are deployed close to the town of Sadad, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) south of Homs.
A Syrian military source told AFP only that “there are Russian counselors in Sadad advising the Syrian army on the artillery.”
The 120th artillery brigade is based in Russia’s Kemerovo region.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday reiterated Moscow’s consistent denial that it has deployed any ground troops in Syria.
“There is a technical contingent linked to ensure the operation of the Russian air force,” Peskov said.
#1
I'm looking for a significant Russian ground invasion in the coming weeks, possibly an airborne envelopment of Raqqa. Evidence of this could be confirmed by their continued denial of 'boots on the ground' and introduction of artillery and drones.
#2
an airborne envelopment of Raqqa an aerial bombardment of Raqqa, turning it into utter rubble might be more appropriate. Just drop lots of leaflets on Raqqa to tell all the non-combatants to get out of town and remain a safe distance away.
DAMASCUS – Warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition have pummeled at least 175 targets in the ISIS’s major oil-rich areas in a month, as Washington seeks to disrupt a key revenue source which almost brings the radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) nearly $1 million a day.
Earlier this week, 116 oil tanker trucks have been hit by the coalition forces, which is the first time Washington targets ISIS vehicles in the wake of last Friday’s deadly attacks in Paris claimed by the extremist group.
The targets, which include key oilfields, were previously not allowed to be attacked by the U.S.-led coalition in a bid to avoid civilian casualties and preserve oil infrastructure that could be needed later by a new Syrian government.
The Pentagon said in a statement that the coalition’s strikes have caused “significant damage” to ISIS’s ability to fund itself. The strikes have been focused on oil facilities near Deir ez-Zor and al-Bukamal, which provide nearly two-thirds of the group’s oil revenue.
Speaking to ARA News, Syrian journalist Muwafaq Ahmed said: “If the West continued arming moderate rebels alongside covering their backs in the battlefields, this would definitely enable them control these facilities as well as deprive the extremist group of its financial resources.”
Previously, ISIS has been able to repair some oil facilities that had been exposed to damages by airstrikes.
As its own oil trucks have been attacked by the U.S. and allies, ISIS started to use civilian trucks to transfer its oil across the group-held territory and sell it to locals who use it for power generators and vehicles, according to local activists.
“We finally blew up a bunch of oil trucks,” said former State Department counter terrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin.
Last year, striking mobile refineries had deprived the group’s oil revenues from $3 million a day to under $1 million a day, according to independent estimates. However, the group was able to repair many damaged facilities quickly, according to U.S. officials.
“The new strategy of striking key oilfields may permanently destroy oil wells along with other facilities, preventing any future Syrian government from its revenue,” a monitoring group has said, warning of the possibility of killing civilians in these attacks.
ISIS not only relies on oil revenue to fund its military operations, but also gaining much more money from ransoms paid for releasing hostages whether by individuals or organizations. Some reports say ISIS still earns tens of millions per month from oil sales, thus striking these facilities could considerably reduce the amount. According to local activists, the terror group makes most of its money from taxing, oil sale, kidnapping, ransoms, and the sale of antiquities.
Posted by: badanov ||
11/19/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
“We finally blew up a bunch of oil trucks,” clearly implying that the US has known about the oil trucks but up until now has refrained from interfering with them. A reasonable assumption beyond this is the existence of other easy targets the US has refrained from hitting for no good reason at all.
[Breitbart] Newly elected House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)58% is setting the stage this week to cave to President Barack Obama's efforts to resettle thousands of Syrian refugees across America, even in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks.
On Wednesday afternoon at 4 p.m. ET, the House Rules Committee will meet to prepare a bill from House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) that doesn't end up stopping Syrian refugee resettlement in America. Sources Congress-wide confirm to Breitbart News that McCaul's bill leaves the entire refugee program unchanged and doesn't affect funding for the program.
The bill number is H.R. 4038 and its title is the American SAFE Act of 2015. "SAFE" stands for "Security Against Foreign Enemies," and McCaul has billed the legislation in the headline of a House Homeland Security Committee press release as an act that would "Protect Americans from ISIS."
"America has a proud tradition of welcoming refugees into our country, and we lead the world in humanitarian assistance. However, we also must put proper measures in place to ensure our country's safety," McCaul said.
#2
Glenmore, you have to be Muslim. Christians need not apply.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/19/2015 13:07 Comments ||
Top||
#3
SAFE --- Support All Foreign Enemies
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/19/2015 19:44 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Naive, irreligious Samaritans
Are checking their privilege and arrogance,
Preparing to swamp 'em
With taxpayer wampum --
New underserved ISIS-Americans!
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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.
A number of young would-be Afghan migrants on Wednesday said human traffickers are going about their business freely in Kabul and no action is being taken against them.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday that the abuse of Afghans by police in Pakistan has been rampant since Pakistani Taliban launched a deadly attack on a school Peshawar last year.
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Wednesday launched a countrywide crackdown against human traffickers in a bid to control the flow of immigrants, specially to Europe.
Moscow, AFP Wednesday, 18 November 2015
DAMASCUS – Warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition have pummeled at least 175 targets in the ISIS’s major oil-rich areas in a month, as Washington seeks to disrupt a key revenue source which almost brings the radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) nearly $1 million a day.
