[Stars & Stripes] WASHINGTON — An independent watchdog who investigated U.S. military operations in Afghanistan said Tuesday that American forces left behind billions of dollars in weapons, vehicles and equipment and the Taliban has learned how to use some of it, including aircraft. "See that plane? We're going to make it an auger"
John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, or SIGAR, released a report outlining U.S. failures in the country after 20 years of war there. The report includes reasons why Afghan government forces fell so quickly to the Taliban when the United States withdrew in 2021 and states roughly $7.2 billion in American military equipment was left in Afghanistan.
The equipment includes at least 78 aircraft worth more than $920 million, 40,000 vehicles, more than 300,000 weapons and thousands of air-to-ground munitions.
"Some of [the equipment] was destroyed, a lot of it wasn’t," Sopko told reporters Tuesday in Washington. "Was I surprised? No. [The Pentagon] had a horrible system in place to keep track of weapons and where they were and how they were maintained."
Sopko, the SIGAR since 2012, said some of the U.S. equipment left behind was "sophisticated" — such as night vision and communications hardware — and Taliban militants have probably learned how to operate some of it by now. Yea, probably. Probably had some 'stay behinds' on contract. Never did get a good number on 'stay behinds' did we ?
"That’s a concern," he said. "We have seen and we have picked up intelligence that the Taliban are actually flying some of the helicopters and some of the planes. ... But it’s a concern. That’s a lot of hardware and a lot of weaponry."
A preliminary version of the SIGAR report, titled "Why the Afghan Security Forces Collapsed," was given to Congress last year and concludes there were several reasons why the Afghan government fell so quickly — such as government corruption, poor planning and low morale among Afghan troops, especially when the U.S. said it would pull out. Nothing to do with thousands of years of Tribal culture, religion, banditry, etc.
"This is like the house of cards. When you pull one card, you can see the next one going. Or maybe dominoes is the [analogy]," Sopko said. "When you pulled out the support for the Afghan government, the morale started to crater."
The report said Afghanistan was a failure mainly because the United States "lacked the political will to dedicate the time and resources necessary to reconstruct an entire security sector in a war-torn and impoverished country."
"The U.S. and Afghan governments share in the blame. Neither side appeared to have the political commitment to doing what it would take to address the challenges, including devoting the time and resources necessary to develop a professional [Afghan military], a process that takes decades," the report reads. "The February 2020 decision to commit to a rapid U.S. military withdrawal sealed the [Afghan military’s] fate."
#5
I'm not at all certain any thought was given to equipment left behind. All that was important was that any legacy Trump plan for AFG found it's way to a burn bag as quickly as possible.
[KhaamaPress] The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has published a new report on the collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDFS) and said that the faulty decisions of ex-president Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, ex-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. When Biden abandoned the country left with a helicopter, four cars, and part of the national treasury... led to the collapse of the former Afghan army.
The report highlighted that despite spending nearly $90 billion in the security sector, the security forces could not independently defend against the Taliban ...Arabic for students... after the withdrawal of foreign troops.
The report noted that the reasons were administrative corruption and former president Ghani’s "ethnic appointment", and frequent changes in the army", which led to the weakened chains of command, morale and trust in the ANDFS.
In addition, the Afghan government failed to develop a national security strategy following the withdrawal of US forces; as a result, the Afghan army lost its ability to resist the Taliban forces and collapsed immediately after the pullout of the foreign troops.
Moreover, the wrong decisions by the Ghani and its government, young, educated, competent, and well-trained ANDFS personnel who had grown up under the American tutelage were ostracized, and their affiliation with the US was seen as a drawback, the report added.
After the collapse of the Afghan government, more than $7 billion in military equipment was left under Taliban control. This includes at least 78 aircraft worth $923.3 million, 9,524 air-to-ground munitions worth $6.54 million, over 40,000 vehicles, more than 300,000 weapons, and nearly all night vision, surveillance, communications, and biometric equipment provided to the ANDFS was left behind.
[KhaamaPress] The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has released a new report indicating that poor planning in the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan contributed to the rapid collapse of the Afghan government.
The report released on Tuesday describes a hasty and uncoordinated pullout in 2021 without any long-term strategy. It also highlighted that since 2002, the United States had allocated nearly $90 billion in security sector assistance to the Afghan national defence and security forces (ANDFA), while the security forces could not defend independently after the withdrawal of the foreign troops.
The report added that after the collapse of the Afghan government, more than $7 billion in military equipment was left under Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... control. "Yet, in August 2021, the ANDFS collapsed, paving the way for the Taliban to reestablish control of Afghanistan."
According to SIGAR, which cited a March 2022 Pentagon report to Congress, the ammunitions include at least 78 aircraft worth $923.3 million, 9,524 air-to-ground munitions worth $6.54 million, over 40,000 vehicles, more than 300,000 weapons, and nearly all of the night vision, surveillance, communications, and biometric equipment provided to the ANDFS was left behind.
Due to the ANDFS’s dependency on U.S. military forces, withdrawing all U.S. military personnel and dramatically reducing U.S. support to the Afghan forces destroyed the morale of Afghan soldiers and police.
The report noted that an agreement signed with the Taliban by the Trump administration in 2020 facilitated the unravelling "resulting in the sense of abandonment" in Afghan government forces and the people. The agreement expedited the collapsing process of the Afghan cops.
According to the report, there were several shortcomings on the part of the U.S. military; below are the most critical shortcomings:
The U.S. pave the ground for the Afghan government to fall long before the August 2021 meltdown by failing to establish "an independent and self-sustainable ANDFS, despite 20 years and $90 billion of international support."
The abrupt withdrawal of the U.S. military forces led to the destruction of the Afghan soldier’s morale and police, and the Doha agreement between the U.S. and Taliban in 2020 resulted in the sense of abandonment within the Afghan government and its military and police forces, speed up the country’s collapse.
The 2020 withdrawal agreement with the Taliban limited the air strikes, which had proven to be the most "critical force multiplier" in fighting the Taliban. The ANDFS left without a key advantage in keeping the Taliban at bay.
The U.S. also decided to withdraw on-site contract maintenance from Afghanistan in May 2021, which reduced the availability of aircraft needed to move stockpiles of U.S.U provided weapons and supplies around the country. This disrupted the delivery of ammunition, food, water, and other military equipment to sustain military engagement against the Taliban.
In addition, the Afghan government failed to develop a national security strategy following the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Instead, former president Ashraf Ghani frequently changed ANDFS leaders and appointed them regularly based on ethnicity. This led to the weakened chains of command, morale, and trust in the ANDFS
Young, educated, competent, and well-trained ANDFS personnel who had grown up under American tutelage were ostracized. The report said their affiliation with the U.S. was seen as a drawback.
#1
...More than thirty years ago - while the Russians were still in Afghanistan - I read a superb summary of the situation there by James Dunnigan. He pointed out that the Soviets' biggest mistake may not have been the actual invasion, but rather the assumption that Afghanistan was something resembling a modern nation.
They have NEVER been that. They are a loose concentration of tribes, where ties of clan, family, and faith will always be more important than anything else. And one of their core beliefs is that no matter what, it's always cool to screw with the outlanders.
#3
A nation is one of those "societal constructs" that we are continually being lectured are merely patriarchal, rayciss mistakes to be expunged from the surface of the planet.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/01/2023 7:56 Comments ||
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#4
a loose concentration of tribes, where ties of clan, family, and faith will always be more important than anything else
[ShabelleMedia] The U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program, which is administered by the Diplomatic Security Service, is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the identification or location of al-Shabaab ...... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa... key leader Ali Mohammed Rage.
ALI MOHAMMED RAGE
Ali Mohammed Rage, also known as Ali Dheere, has been al-Shabaab’s chief spokesperson since May 2009 and is a big shot of the terrorist organization.
Rage was born in the Hawlwadag district of Mogadishu, Somalia in 1966 and has been involved in the planning of attacks in Kenya and Somalia.
On August 6, 2021, the Department of State designated Rage as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). That designation, among other consequences, blocks all property and interests in property belonging to Rage and may expose persons who engage in certain transactions with Rage to designation.
Furthermore, any foreign financial institution that knowingly facilitates a significant financial transaction or provides significant financial services for Rage could be subject to U.S. correspondent account or payable-through account sanctions.
On February 18, 2022, the UN Security Council’s Somalia Sanctions Committee added Rage to its Sanctions List pursuant to paragraph 43(a) of resolution 2093 (2013) for engaging in or providing support for acts that threaten the peace, security or stability of Somalia. The UN designation requires UN Member States to impose an arms embargo, including related training and financial assistance, a travel ban, and an assets freeze on Rage.
AL-SHABAAB
Al-Shabaab is responsible for terrorist attacks in Kenya, Somalia, and neighboring countries that resulted in loss of life, including of U.S. citizens. The terrorist group continues to plot, plan, and conspire to commit terrorist acts against the United States, U.S. interests, and foreign partners.
The Department of State designated al-Shabaab as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist in March 2008. In April 2010, al-Shabaab was also added to the 1844 Sanctions List by the UN Security Council’s Somalia Sanctions Committee pursuant to paragraph 8 of resolution 1844 (2008).
[Garowe] The US spends a fortune in training and equipping Danab Special forces, State Department has revealed, in what gives a clear picture of America's commitment to helping Somalia effectively defeat al-Shabaab ...... Somalia's version of the Taliban ...Arabic for students... , functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... Lions of Islam and other violent mostly peaceful bad boy groups in the country, in a bid to restore sanity and stability.
Somalia has been reaching out to stakeholders and partners in her quest to flush out violent mostly peaceful bad boy groups, with al-Shabaab being the biggest threat to the country's stability. The group, which swore allegiance to al-Qaeda, controls large swathes of rural central and southern Somalia according to the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... But in recent weeks, al-Shabaab has been losing strategic towns across Somalia, with the most recent being Gal'ad and Haradhere towns in central Somalia. The Somali National Army [SNA] has intensified operations against the group with help of the US Africa Command and the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... Transition Mission in Somalia [ATMIS] forces.
The New York Times
... which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reveals that State Department has been using close to $80 million annually to train, equip, feed, and fuel the Danab Special Forces, a contingent of SNA forces responsible for sophisticated operations against al-Shabaab and other dangerous groups such as IS-Somalia.
Danab forces train in the Balidogle Army base in Lower Shabelle and have often been the target of al-Shabaab. In 2019, the Lions of Islam attempted to storm into the secured base but lost the battle after American soldiers intervened, a recent report revealed, while noting the contribution of US forces in Somalia.
President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem machine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family, the guy who bungled Afghanistan... authorized the reinstatement of American troops to Somalia last year over 12 months after their unprecedented withdrawal which was sanctioned by former President Donald Trump ...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat The Smartest Woman in the World in the general election... . There are close to 500 US Africa Command soldiers in Somalia whose responsibility is to train and equip Danab Special Forces.
Additionally, the State Department noted that $300 per head is given to the Danab Special troops as monthly bonuses, making them the most-paid security officers in the country. Unlike other contingents in the SNA force, the Danab Special forces are given preferential treatment given their role in the al-Shabaab crackdown.
Some critics say current operations against al-Shabaab are too dependent on Danab, the elite brigade of the Somali military, arguing that there is also a need to train more soldiers. Apart from the US, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund... also trains Gorgor soldiers and the United Kingdom also shapes the skills of the Somali army in Baidoa.
The Danab Special forces work closely with US Africa Command and in recent weeks, the team has managed to kill over 600 al-Shabaab bad boys. The US is also supporting Somalia by giving rewards to the people who can help identify al-Shabaab revenue sources as part of the strategy to cripple the group financially.
[AlAhram] At least 22 Syrian migrants colonists detained for more than five months in Libya began a hunger strike Monday to demand their release, a Libyan rights group said.
The group of migrants colonists included three minors and have been held in a prison in the western town of Zawiya in appalling conditions, the group Belaady said. They were detained in October in the town of Ajaylat, which is some 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of the capital of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , said activist muppet Tarik Lamloum.
A front man for the government in Tripoli didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The migrants colonists arrived in Libya last year on a flight by private Syrian airline Cham Wings which operates routes to eastern Libya, Lamloum said. "They entered the country legally and have all needed documents and stamps on their passports," he said.
They then moved to western Libyan where they were detained as part of a crackdown on migrants colonists. A court in Ajaylat ordered their deportation after paying a fine of 600 Libyan dinars (around $125) each, according to a document obtained by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
Rights group Belaady said the Correction and Rehabilitation Institution in Zawiya, known as Jodeddaim Prison, is overseen by the Justice Ministry, unlike other detention centers for migrants colonists run by the Interior Ministry.
The group, which visited the prison twice this year, said the detainees have suffered from scabies and other skin diseases.
Belaady called for the release of the migrants colonists from prison and that they not be deported to Syria, where civil war has raged for over a decade.
Thousands of African and Middle Eastern people arrive every year in Libya which has become a major transit point for migrants colonists seeking a better life in Europe. The North African nation descended into chaos following a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... -backed uprising that toppled and killed long-time dictator Qadaffy in 2011.
Human traffickers have benefited from the lawlessness in Libya, smuggling in migrants colonists across the country’s lengthy borders with six nations. The migrants colonists are then packed into ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels and set off on risky sea voyages.
[NPASyria] An alleged member of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) ’Beatles’ cell is facing trial in the UK over terrorism charges on Monday.
The 38-year-old Aine Davis
...formally Aine Lesley Davis, the “Paul“ of the Beatles, was jailed in Turkey in 2017. Mr. Davis is a former druggie/drug dealer who converted to Islam, then joined ISIS to get away from temptation. He was arrested after landing at Luton airport last August on a flight from Turkey, where he’d been imprisoned for terrorism…
will face the judges at the Old Bailey criminal court in London over two charges related to providing money for terrorist purposes and one of possessing a firearm for a purpose connected to terrorism.
Davis was arrested in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund... in 2015 and sentenced in 2017 to seven and a half years for his membership in ISIS. After his release in July last year, he was re-arrested by the British authorities at Luton Airport in the UK on a flight from Turkey.
He now faces charges of being involved in "guarding, torturing and beheading prisoners for the terrorist group."
’The Beatles’ are a four-men British ISIS cell made up of ringleader Mohammed Emwazi (known as Jihadi John), Aine Davis, Alexanda Kotey, and El Shafee Elsheikh.
The quartet is accused of kidnapping and murdering dozens of foreign hostages in Syria between 2012 and 2015.
Two of the Beatles, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey, have stood trial and received life sentences in the US.
The fourth in the group, executioner Mohammed Emwazi, was killed by a US drone in Syria in November 2015.
[Rudaw] Twitter was accused in the US Supreme Court ...the political football known as The Highest Court in the Land, home of penumbrae and emanations... Wednesday of closing its eyes to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group as judges struggled to determine whether social media sites could be held liable for acts of terror.
In a two-hour hearing, the nine justices of the top US court heard accusations that Twitter should be on the hook for "aiding and abetting" terrorism by failing to stop content created by holy warrior groups.
"There is an allegation of willful blindness here ... You knew that ISIS was using your platform," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, using an acronym for Islamic State while addressing the lawyer for Twitter, the defendant in the case.
The case was brought by the family of a victim of a 2017 attack by the group, which is also known by the acronym IS, on an Istanbul nightclub.
The family allege that Twitter's failure to take down and stop recommending IS tweets constituted aiding an act of terror.
The hearing came a day after a similar case against YouTube was put to the same nine justices. That case involved a US victim of the 2015 Gay Paree attacks, also claimed by the IS group.
Twitter, backed by a wide swathe of big tech players, insists that the mere fact of being a platform used by tens of millions users worldwide does not prove "knowing" assistance to a terrorist group.
At the heart of both cases, which should be decided by June 30, is the broad legal immunity conferred to tech platforms through a decades-old law that makes lawsuits on content matters virtually impossible.
Tech companies see the US law, known as Section 230, as a fundamental text of the internet that helped give birth to the social media revolution by saving websites from an avalanche of legal proceedings.
The Twitter case would in theory depend on the judges rewriting the basis of Section 230, an eventuality that seemed uncertain after the justices on Tuesday expressed some doubts over changing the law.
That unease continued into Wednesday as justices put a long series of hypothetical situations to lawyers in an effort to establish how liability in terrorism cases could apply to social media platforms.
In 1997, "CNN ...the organization formerly known as the Cable News Network. Now who knows what it might stand for... did an interview of the late Osama bin Laden ...... who is now beyond all cares and woe...... , a very famous interview of him ... Could under your theory, CNN have been sued for aiding and abetting the September 11 attacks?" asked Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In another question, Justice Clarence Thomas asked a lawyer for Twitter if a gun was lent to "a friend who was a mugger, a murderer and a burglar, but other than that he was a good guy ... could (that) be aiding and abetting?"
Some justices on Tuesday complained that changes to Section 230 would be more suitably handled by US politicians and fretted over the potential of destabilizing the economy if they unilaterally modified its provisions.
However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... US Congress is deeply divided politically and efforts to retool Section 230's legal shield have failed to reach a vote.
#1
Twitter files, deplatforming conservatives & Trump, censoring valid scientific info on Covid, all show that you are not a common carrier but rather an editor. That defense was forfeited a long time ago.
#2
On that 1997 Bin Laden interview. It could be argued that Bin Laden was an un-indicted co-conspirator in the first Trade Center bombing. That would be countered by the argument that the State Department (under Susan Rice) refused to accept the offer of the Government of Sudan hand-over of the known radical. So the water could be muddied, and just the way the Twitter and CNN people like it.
The earthquake is not related to the War on Terror, but when Syrian refugees from that war prefer to go home rather than on to Europe, it seems to me that’s meaningful.
[Rudaw] Ottoman Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Tuesday that over 40,000 Syrian refugees have returned to their country since the recent quakes, denying there has been a fresh influx of Syrians to his country.
A disastrous 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the Kurdish city of Kahramanmaras in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... on February 6, with its impact also ripping through neighbouring Syria. Another quake followed in both countries hours later. Several strong earthquakes as well as thousands of aftershocks have occurred since then. The natural disaster has killed over 50,000 people in both countries.
Akar visited the quake-hit province of Hatay on the Syrian border on Tuesday, saying around 42,000 Syrians, who fled their country to Turkey in the last decade due to civil war, have returned to their homes since February 6. He denied claims that a new wave of Syrians have entered Turkey recently.
Millions of Syrians fled to Turkey when a civil war between rebels and the Syrian regime erupted following the 2011 uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... A large number of these refugees lived in Turkey’s quake-hit southern provinces, according to official estimates.
Akar elaborated that many Syrians returned to their country because they have lost their relatives or houses in the natural disaster.
Adana, Adiyaman (Semsur), Diyarbakir (Amed), Gaziantep(Dilok), Hatay, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, Sanliurfa (Riha), and Elazig provinces were affected by the tremors.
Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than there are in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really most important... earlier this month promised to construct nearly 200,000 permanent houses in quake-hit provinces, adding that the new buildings will not exceed four stories.
[Rudaw] Canada on Sunday sanctioned 12 bigwigs from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and security forces for "gross and systematic human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... violations", the country’s foreign ministry announced.
The sanctions list included 12 officials from the IRGC and Iranian Law Enforcement Forces "who have participated in gross and systematic human rights violations in Iran, including through the lethal suppression of demonstrations across Kurdish areas of Western Iran," read the foreign ministry’s statement.
The statement added that the list of sanctioned officials included but was not limited to Morteza Mir Aghaei, commander of the IRGC’s Basij paramilitary forces, Governor of Kurdistan province Esmaeil Zarei Kousha, IRGC General Seyeh Sadegh Hosseini, and Commander of the Law Enforcement Forces Rahim Jahanbakhsh.
"The Iranian regime continues to brutally oppress its people and to deny them their fundamental rights and freedoms. We hear the pleas of the Iranian people and we commend them for their bravery and resilience. Canada will not stop advocating for Iranians and their human rights," Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said regarding the sanctions.
The IRGC and Iranian security forces are accused of the murder of hundreds and arrest of thousands since protests started last September across the country, sparked by the death of young Kurdish woman Zhina (Mahsa) Amini while in the custody of the morality police.
In their latest report on February 20, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said that at least 530 protesters, including 71 children, have been killed and over 19,700 have been arrested since the protests began.
Several Iranian officials and institutions have been sanctioned by the West ever since.
Earlier this month, the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... imposed asset freezes and visa bans on Iran’s Ministers of education and culture, along with 30 other Iranian politicians, judiciary authorities, and prison authorities.
The UK has imposed 50 new sanctions in response to the human rights violations by the Iranian government against protestors.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/01/2023 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[Rudaw] Ottoman Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu Monday reaffirmed his country’s decision to block Sweden’s NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... bid if the Nordic country fails to meet Ankara’s conditions.
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... has raised objections, accusing Sweden of supporting groups it labels as terrorists, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In June, Ankara, Stockholm, and Helsinki signed a memorandum in which Sweden and Finland said they would address Turkey’s concerns, including extraditing suspected members of the PKK and other groups.
Cavusoglu said during a joint presser with his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto that the position of his country about both Nordic countries’ NATO bids is "clear and transparent," reported state media.
"There are pledges (by Sweden and Finland) to NATO membership. It is not possible for us to say 'yes' to Sweden's NATO membership without seeing these steps," he said, referring to actions against the PKK activities and incidents of burning of the copies of the Holy Koran in Sweden.
Turkey, Sweden and Finland have held two rounds of talks regarding the NATO bids, and Cavusoglu said on Monday that the next round will be held on March 9.
"Everyone should see clearly that Sweden, particularly, is not fulfilling its obligations. That's the reason why we said 'yes' for the meeting to be held in Brussels," he added.
Turkey was severely hit by twin quakes on February 6 and several other strong tremors and thousands of aftershocks have occurred since then, killing over 44,000 people. The neighbouring Syria was also stricken by the natural disaster which caused the death of thousands of people in the country.
Sweden will host a donor conference in March to mobilize funds for the people of Turkey and Syria after the earthquakes.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/01/2023 00:00 ||
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[7 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
#1
I expect Sweden's Earthquake Division will have something to say about that.
[AlAhram] Paleostinians in the occupied West Bank on Monday counted the cost of deadly violence and arson by Israeli settlers targeting a town where two Israeli brothers were killed.
Dozens of Israeli settlers set homes and cars ablaze in the northern town of Huwara overnight Sunday, after a day of Israeli-Paleostinian talks in neighbouring Jordan aimed at quelling a surge of violence in the Paleostinian territory.
More than 350 Paleostinians were maimed, most suffering from tear gas inhalation, the Paleostinian Red Islamic Thingy Society said.
Continued on Page 49
[BenarNews] Ali Fauzi Manzi, a former terror convict whose brothers were behind the 2002 Bali bombings, shed tears as he delivered a speech during commencement at a university in Malang last week. The repentant former bomb-maker for the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah had just received his doctorate in Islamic education for his research subject, "Religious moderation for former terrorism convicts."
A 2020 IPAC report said 11% of terror convicts in the country become repeat offenders.
Ali, 51, says meeting with the Bali bombing survivors and the victims’ families made him dedicate his life to helping former murderous Moslems like himself reintegrate into society.
"This is the happiest day of my life," he said to loud applause in front of more than 2,000 other graduates at the University of Muhammadiyah Malang.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Interesting. "Ali spent three years in the 1990s fighting alongside the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the southern Philippines. He returned to the southern Philippines in 2002 to lead a holy warrior camp, the same year Jemaah Islamiyah murderous Moslems carried out the bombings in Bali — the country’s worst terrorist attack."
JI was for years directly funded by Osama Bin Laden's brother-in-law, an Al-Qaeda moneyman. It was very active in Indonesia until the money spigot was closed. Then JI in Indonesia metamorphosed: They became 'religious moderates.' Nevertheless, to this day the JI continues to fight on in the southern Philippines.
#2
#1 With or without cartel competition?
Posted by: Procopius2k 2023-03-01 09:55
...Possibly Iran subcontracting things out to the cartels. Weapons and trained guys are already here, and how hard will it be for them to fade into the mass of illegals?
#3
How many dedicated or aligned Iranian assets have entered our uncontrolled border since Bidet took office is unknown. I suspect by now there are well developed nodes with targeting folders and logistics caches throughout the nation. Somehow, I have very low confidence that DHS/FBI/NSA/CIA has a good visibility of the threat.
The trigger for action may well be an Israeli strike on Iranian nuke facilities, a more extensive conflict in the Middle East, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, or even some NATO-Russian flare-up.
The level of chaos possible is far greater than anything in our past since the Civil War. Targeting poorly defended civilian infrastructure like the electrical grid, energy, water and retail food delivery systems would create nationwide civil unrest in days, not weeks, over whelming national emergency management resources and decision-makers. It feels a lot more like 1453 than 2023 these days!
[IsraelTimes] Former reformist politician claims 400 students have fallen ill, raises possibility domestic murderous Moslem group launched attacks with aim of forming Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... -like regime.
Over the past three months, hundreds of maiden of tender yearss attending different schools in Iran
Continued on Page 49
1 girl has reportedly died and 400 others are said to be suffering from the effects of a poisoning campaign that has affected several cities. The girls were reputedly targeted for potential ties to the protest movement.
[NPASyria] Jonathan Hall, the UK government’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism, warned that ISIS camps in northeast Syria could become "Britannia’s Guantanamo," referring to an illegal US prison for terrorist suspects on Cuba.
Not illegal, actually. Just unpleasant to contemplate for those who have some slight connection to someone who might end up there... or did.
Over 10.000 ISIS-related foreigners languish in northeast Syria’s prisons and camps. Since 2018, the international community (not including Iraq) has repatriated at least 2.586 of them, according to the Rojava Information Center, a local research group.
The UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism estimates that around 900 British citizens traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. Many returned independently or were killed, though around 60 remain in jug in northeast Syria.
Even among its European peers, Britannia’s pace of repatriation has been slow. Since 2018, the country has only returned 11 citizens — all of them but one were minors.
Hall warned that, at this pace, the Hawl and Roj camps, which hold foreign ISIS members, would risk turning into "Britannia’s Guantanamo".
"For UK-linked children, the less time spent being incubated as ’Cubs of the Caliphate’, an active Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... program, the better," Hall said in a speech on Monday. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which runs the camps, as well as international NGOs, have long warned of the risk of radicalization for children who grow up in these camps.
"Allied to this," Hall continues, "managed return, with proper preparation, reception committees, police with risk management plans in place, local authorities primed to undertake safeguarding, wider family members engaged, is better than chaotic return."
The UK has struggled to prosecute its citizens who joined the jihadist outfit due to the high bar on criminal liability. Instead, the UK government has preferred to strip those who traveled to Syria and Iraq of their citizenship where possible.
Priti Patel, former UK Home Secretary, argued against bringing the UK terror suspects back on Monday, saying, "As long as an individual is a threat to our country and citizens, it’s right that they cannot be brought back."
On Feb. 22, a UK judge ruled against restoring the citizenship of Shamima Begum, a British-born woman who traveled to Syria at age 15. The UK Home Office had stripped her of her citizenship in 2019. Since that year, she has been held at AANES-run camps.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/01/2023 00:00 ||
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Lots of words, but I’m not aware that the American team has done much to protect the Syrian Kurds from Turkish depredations. Have I missed anything?
[Rudaw] The ongoing threat of a fresh military incursion into northern Syria is extremely concerning and threatens to detract Kurdish-led forces from the enduring fight against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS), a senior US official said on Tuesday.
In a virtual press briefing attended by Rudaw English, Major General Matthew McFarlane, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force — Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) and Dana Stroul, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, provided an update on the ongoing mission to defeat ISIS as well as Washington’s partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria (Rojava).
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/01/2023 00:00 ||
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[Rudaw] Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog found uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% in Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site, a report seen Tuesday by The Associated Press said.
The confidential quarterly report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency distributed to member states likely will renew tensions between Iran and the West over its program.
The IAEA report, which only speaks about “particles,” suggests that Iran isn’t building a stockpile of uranium enriched above 60% — the level it has been enriching at from some time.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/01/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
Posted by: ACA JOE ||
03/01/2023 17:49 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
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.
[Stars & Stripes] WASHINGTON — An independent watchdog who investigated U.S. military operations in Afghanistan said Tuesday that American forces left behind billions of dollars in weapons, vehicles and equipment and the Taliban has learned how to use some of it, including aircraft.
...former chancellor of Kabul University, ex-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. When Biden abandoned the country left with a helicopter, four cars, and part of the national treasury...
...... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa...
...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem machine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family, the guy who bungled Afghanistan...
[AlAhram] At least 22 Syrian 
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund...
...the political football known as The Highest Court in the Land, home of penumbrae and emanations...
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than there are in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really most important...
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
