Pirates who seized a Comoros-flagged oil tanker have released the ship without conditions, an official says.
Security official Ahmed Mohamed said the pirates have left the ship, which is now heading to Bossaso port, the region’s commercial hub. He says the release occurred after negotiations by local elders and local officials with the pirates, who seized the tanker on Monday.
Did the check clear or did the Puntie navy let slip the dogs of war?
Naval forces and the pirates clashed earlier Thursday.
The hijacking of the Comoros-flagged tanker Aris 13 was the first such seizure of a large commercial vessel off Somalia since 2012.
The Aris 13 on Monday reported being approached by two skiffs, John Steed with the organization Oceans Beyond Piracy said. The ship had been carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, he said. Eight Sri Lankan crew members were reported aboard.
An official in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland said more than two dozen men boarded the ship off Somalia’s northern coast, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and members of the al-Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab.
The ship was anchored off the town of Alula, said Salad Nur, a local elder.
‘The ship is on the coast now and more armed men boarded the ship,’ he said by phone.
An official based in the Middle East with knowledge of the incident said that no ransom demand had been made.
Just days after capturing an oil tanker near Somalia, a group of Somali pirates handed over the ship and the hostages without receiving a ransom. The pirates said they had captured the vessel to protest illegal fishing.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/17/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Not violent kids.
But be warned, All Pirates may DIE.
Do not peruse this event. Family got it under control. It's a Lego block here.
Fighting between Puntland anti-pirate forces and armed pirates on Thursday broke out in Alula district in Bari region of northern Somalia. District Commissioner of Alula Ali Shire Mohamud Osman confirmed to the media that the confrontation happened.
Puntland authorities said earlier that they will send forces to the oil tanker kidnapped by pirates at the coast under its administration.
Local media reported there were casualties on the part of the Puntland forces, but could not identify the number.
It remains early to comment on the situation and the captives of the ship, but pirates threatened that they will defend themselves from everyone who attempts to force them.
Not clear that this relates to the seized ship.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/17/2017 00:00 ||
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from Al Arabiya - bet you won't hear any of this on network news or from WAPO or the NYT
Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince has hailed United States President Donald Trump as a "true friend of Muslims" and says he does not believe Trump's controversial immigration ban targets Islam specifically.
A spokesperson from bin Salman's delegation to the United States said he expressed his "satisfaction with the positive attitude and clarifications he heard from President Trump about his stance on Islam".
"President Trump has an unprecedented and serious intention to work with the Muslim world and to achieve its interests and Prince Mohammed considers his Excellency as a true friend of Muslims," Bloomberg quoted the senior adviser to Prince Mohammed as saying.
According to reports, the meeting between the Saudi deputy crown prince and Trump appeared to signal a meeting of the minds on many issues, in a marked difference from Riyadh's often fraught relationship with the Obama administration, especially in the wake of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Meanwhile, the White House has announced that the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and United States President Donald Trump have discussed potential economic projects worth $200 bln.
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/17/2017 00:00 ||
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#3
Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince has hailed United States President Donald Trump as a "true friend of Muslims" and says he does not believe Trump's controversial immigration ban targets Islam specifically.
Crown Prince, please direct your comments to U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson (Hawaii), U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang (Maryland) and the 9th Circus (cough, cough political hacks).
#4
A Saudi attacked us on 9/11, the recently declassified portion of the 9/11 report provided evidence that some of Osama's soldiers here in the US were financially supported by Prince Bandar and his wife. The only reason this portion of the report remained classified was political - Bush protecting the Saudis...to what end? Many, many ISIS soldiers are Saudi along with their funding stream. Trump should consider them the enemies that they are.
#5
turns out both the WAPO and NYT had something on this but with their own spin
their version is that the Saudis snookered Trump into a bad deal (but we don't know what the deal was).
Now,with respect to the Saudis.
1. TN is correct about the pre 9-11 situation, but it is almost certain that Prince Bandar did not know about the terror attacks being planned.
2. Also TN is correct that many Saudi citizens have provided funds to ISIS - some voluntarily, others via extortion or other similar means
3. The Saudis have changed a bit since 9-11. They became afraid of Al Q first and later they became fearful of the Moslem brotherhood and ISIS, and of course, as Iran has built up its missile capability and began funding Shiite insurgencies, they have become more afraid of Iran.
thus my opinion is that while the Saudi govt is made up of corrupt, islamic supremacist autocrats, there are areas where we have common interests.
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/17/2017 10:34 Comments ||
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#6
A sensible approach, lord garth.
The Saudis find themselves with no choices, it seems to me. Their coffers will soon be bare; once they sell off the assets acquired during the OPEC years, that will be the end of their powr and influence. Their pet jihadis are are retreating on many fronts or fighting among themselves. Russia is aligned with the Iran axis, and is in the process of seducing Turkey and Egypt, while China, per Spengler, has started reducing Saudi oil purchases in favour of supply from Iran.
All the Saudis have is America (and hopefully Israel when the time comes, but that can't be too openly acknowledged). So whatever they think privately, in public they will only admit to be charmed and delighted by the current president, while privately hoping he is less disastrous to their long term survival than his predecessor.
#7
The Saudis find themselves with no choices, it seems to me. Their coffers will soon be bare; once they sell off the assets acquired during the OPEC years, that will be the end of their powr and influence. Their pet jihadis are are retreating on many fronts or fighting among themselves. Russia is aligned with the Iran axis, and is in the process of seducing Turkey and Egypt, while China, per Spengler, has started reducing Saudi oil purchases in favour of supply from Iran.
"We'll pluck that black rock from its socket,
Send same to the Sun on a rocket
Along with King Jabba,
Then knock down the Kaaba.
What's next, madam clerk, on the docket?"
Diplomacy has failed and it’s time to “take a different approach” to North Korea, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said here Thursday, as the North Korean Embassy in China warned that American military threats were bringing the region to the brink of nuclear war.
Tillerson’s comment — that 20 years of diplomacy have been unable to persuade the regime in Pyongyang to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons — will fuel fears in the region that military options might be on the table to deter North Korea. That could prove devastating for Seoul, where more than 20 million people in the South Korean capital region live within range of North Korean artillery.
Blackmail of the worst sort, and it's worked for the past fifty plus years.
And in a sign of mounting tensions, the North Korean Embassy held an extraordinary news conference in Beijing to issue its warning of nuclear war while vowing to continue with its own nuclear testing program as a legitimate form of self-defense.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/17/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Oh hell. Do it the fun way. Repurpose the asteroid redirect mission of NASA in 2 ways.
1) Don't bring a small piece of the asteroid back rather put an old Project Nerva nuclear engine on a very large chunk of it and
2) Redirect the chunk to impact NKor.
[IsraelTimes] Amid referendum campaign to expand his powers, Turkish leader finds himself in worsening relations with Germany and Holland.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/17/2017 09:33 ||
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France is talking about eventually lifting the national state of emergency that has been in force since the November 2015 Paris terror attacks.
Is the emergency over?
French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas said during a speech on March 15 that the country had “created the conditions that make it possible to exit the state of emergency, without weakening ourselves or remaining helpless in the face of the threat of terrorism,” The Associated Press reported.
Urvoas did not give a date or time frame for ending the emergency.
Parliament has extended the state of emergency several times, the last time for a 6-month period to cover the spring presidential and legislative elections. The extension ends July 15.
Critics say the exceptional legislation has harmed individual freedoms.
The Nov. 13, 2015 attacks, claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), left 130 dead.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/17/2017 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Defense minister says Paleostinian National Fund, ultimately controlled by Abbas, pays bully boyz and their families ’tens of millions of shekels’ every month.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman declared the Paleostinian National Fund to be a terrorist organization on Thursday, accusing the Paleostinian Authority-linked organization of providing "massive support" to bully boyz and funneling "tens of millions of shekels" each month to Paleostinian security prisoners and their families.
"The fund has a crucial role in the financial support for Paleostinian terrorist operatives imprisoned in Israel, and it is used as the most significant route for transferring money," Liberman said in a statement.
Continued on Page 49
[IsraelTimes] Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi, also known as Khalti and Halati, was an accomplice in the 2001 Sbarro suicide kaboom; State Department wants to try her over death of 2 Americans in the blast. Jordanian law forbids the extradition of its nationals.
[AnNahar] 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... is passing through a financial crisis and is calling on its supporters for financial contributions after Iran shrank down financial aid it provides for the party, the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa daily reported on Thursday.
Billboards have spread in the southern suburbs of Beirut calling upon citizens for financial donations for the benefit of Hizbullah under the banner of "training a mujahid", said the daily.
The step was interpreted by informed political circles as a "reflection of the suffocating financial crisis experienced by the party because of the reduction of Iranian financial aid and its involvement in regional conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Bahrain, in addition to the results of US and international sanctions imposed on it recently.
The crisis has led Hizbullah to launch "this aid campaign to get contributions from wealthy Shiites, supporters, politicians, businessmen and merchants in various Lebanese regions," according to the daily.
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.
Pirates who seized a Comoros-flagged oil tanker have released the ship without conditions, an official says.
Fighting between Puntland anti-pirate forces and armed pirates on Thursday broke out in Alula district in Bari region of northern Somalia. District Commissioner of Alula Ali Shire Mohamud Osman confirmed to the media that the confrontation happened.
France is talking about eventually lifting the national state of emergency that has been in force since the November 2015 Paris terror attacks.
[AnNahar] 
