[ShabelleMedia] Save for a handful IED attacks targeting security agents mainly in operation areas in North Eastern and parts of Coast, 2023 saw much-reduced terror incidents, but not for lack of trying by the terror groups.
A report by counter-terrorism agencies seen by the Star shows that police foiled up to 30 terrorism incidents that would have turned deadly in the year.
The foiling of the possible attacks was done through pre-emptive intelligence-led counter-terrorism operations.
The thwarted attacks were planed by al-Shabaab ... an Islamic infestation centering on Somalia attempting to metastasize into Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and similar places, all ofwhich have enough problems without them... and ISIS terrors cells and their offshoots.
ISIS activities within the country have mainly been contributed by the affiliates operations within the region like 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.... in Somalia (IS — Somalia), Allied Democratic Forces ...established in the early 1990s through an agreement between portions of Uganda’s Salaf Tabliq Islamic sect and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU), who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies. At the time, the rebels staged deadly attacks in Ugandan villages and the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred. A Ugandan military operation later forced the ADF into eastern Congo. The ADF has since established ties with the Islamic State group. The ADF has received funding from the Government of Sudan, which has also provided supplies and training. The ADF may also have received funding from the illegal mining and logging industries of the DRC.... (ADF) alias Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... (DRC) and Islamic State in Mozambique (IS — Mozambique).
Their activities traversed from local operations to regional logistical activities involving movement of funds, recruits/operatives and media propaganda, especially using the various online platforms.
The report says the attacks were planned against citizens, critical national infrastructures, security establishment and foreign interests.
Some 59 suspects were arrested during the various operations and arraigned in court, and are facing various terrorism-related charges.
Some of the listed foils include the discovery of an IED planted along the Kiunga — Ishakani route on January 2, 2023. The security personnel were patrolling the Ishakani area.
On January 17, 2023, the report says, a joint clearance patrols along Welmerer-Elein-Ruqa route, discovered items belonging to forces of Evil among them five AK 47 rifles, a knife and water bottles. A week later on January 25, 2023, a patrol team discovered an Improvised explosive emplaced along Sarira-Kolbio route.
A month later on February 25, another joint security team recovered foodstuffs stored in 20-litre jerry cans and black powder contained in a five-litre jerry can.
Another intelligence-led operation on May 22, 2023, saw security team recover assorted weapons, sim cards, memory cards, notebooks and assorted foodstuffs.
On the same day, another raid team captured one krazed killer and recovered assorted weapons in Garissa.
Yet another team on July 19, 2023, recovered buried jerry cans containing rice, sugar, water, cooking oil and gun oil, IEDs making materials comprising of cycle of violence battery, detonators and dry cells in Garissa, possibly smuggled from Somalia. Five days later, security operations at Kilia Dam recovered two points, the team recovered 18 and 58 20-litre jerry cans respectively full of water.
The report also lists discovery of another cache of IEDs on September 11, 2023.
Three days later on September 14, 2023, three RPGs, three AK47, assorted ammo and foodstuffs were recovered.
On October 16, 2023, KDF patrolling officers discovered two IEDs emplaced on the road between Baure and Milimani. Assorted foodstuffs and a collapsible water tank containing 25,000 litres of fresh water also got discovered on the same day.
Another security team recovered assorted foodstuffs comprising of sugar, maize flour and fresh water. On October 29, assorted medical supplies, IED making materials, assorted personal effects, training manuals and a list of suspected recruits got discovered in an operation.
Further, the report lists the conviction of terrorist Victor Odede Bwire and his sentencing to 20 years in jail in 2023, for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.
He had been arrested on January 24, 2019, for his role in providing the al-Shabaab with information on KICC.
Moreover, the report details how the security agents thwarted cross border attacks planned by al-Shabaab into the country. It said it achieved the fete by "dismantling al-Shabaab facilitation networks, recruitment and radicalisation networks trying to sprout in the country."
"The intelligence led security operations in North Eastern, Nairobi and Coast region, resulted in the arrest of several terror operatives who were planning to carry out attacks. The refined investigative capabilities of Kenyan security agencies coupled with information from the arrested suspects, unearthed other networks and individuals leading to subsequent arrests," it said.
It said 2023 saw "increased al-Shabaab activities in sourcing for military grade equipment, logistical items and technologies to advance terrorism attacks within the region."
Several people were arrested in Nairobi who were responsible for assisting the group buy improvised explosive devises making materials and drones that the group previously used to gather information on security agencies, particularly in areas along the border with Somalia as well as the Kenya Defense Forces under ATMIS in Somalia.
The report also says media agents of the terror group got arrested in Nairobi, accused of distributing materials that furthered the group’s narrative online.
Mohammed Abdikadir Kulow aka Jeelani was arrested in Eastleigh, Nairobi over his links to al-Shabaab media responsible for spreading propaganda.
Jelani was established to download, edit and distribute radical content from al-Shabaab media outlets.
He was also accused of conducting online madrassa lessons and operates a makeshift studio associated with al-Shabaab in his residence. Mohammed admitted to being an al-Shabaab adherent who strongly supports the group’s ideology, the report says.
[AmericanThinker] China’s Belt and Road Initiative ("BRI") was a brilliant concept: China would go to cash-strapped countries around the world and offer to build infrastructure for them. It would loan them funds for the projects, provided that the countries looked to China for both labor and materials. This would give China a military and economic foothold in these countries, provide labor for the Chinese people, and send money back to China. However, the BRI is proving to be more problematic than China imagined. This doesn’t mean that China hasn’t expanded its sphere of influence, but the BRI is not making China the global behemoth it envisioned.
...China’s reach has been impressive, but there is such a thing as overextending oneself. Also, when China brings its infrastructure abroad, it also brings with it problems inherent in its domestic infrastructure. One of these is the fact that, despite being a global player, China continues in many ways to be an insular culture. While America may have gone overboard with cultural sensitivities, China hasn’t even gotten on board.
...Chinese actors typically approach BRI deals with two contradictory assumptions: First, the political leadership with whom they are dealing is either too weak or too venal to challenge contract terms that decidedly favor China; and, second, these same leaders will be strong enough to fend off resistance to ambitious infrastructure projects by opposition politicians and civil society groups while also mobilizing the financial resources necessary to sustain expensive, long term projects.
...Another problem plaguing Chinese projects is that, unless it’s having thousands of people perform in unison for military parades or Olympic spectacles, the Chinese do lousy, slipshod work, as the WSJ wrote last year:
Today, thousands of cracks have emerged in the $2.7 billion Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant,
...Rantburg’s civil engineering group attribute that to too much fly ash in the mix...
government engineers said, raising concerns that Ecuador’s biggest source of power could break down. At the same time, the Coca River’s mountainous slopes are eroding, threatening to damage the dam.
...the same thing happened to one of their big dams back home, which was interesting to watch in real time...
[snip]
It is one of many Chinese-financed projects around the world plagued with construction flaws.
[snip]
... China’s lending practices have been criticized by foreign leaders, economists and others, who say the program has contributed to debt crises in places like Sri Lanka and Zambia, and that many countries have limited ways to repay the loans. Some projects have also been called mismatches for a country’s infrastructure needs or damaging to the environment.
Now, low-quality construction on some of the projects risks crippling key infrastructure and saddling nations with even more costs for years to come as they try to remedy problems.
Taking these issues into consideration, it’s not surprising to read the Epoch Times’s massive, deep-dive report explaining that China’s BRI, which has cost it $1 trillion so far, just isn’t working. Corruption, failure to understand local issues, construction failures, and many nations’ uneasy feeling that they’re being made into cogs in China’s massive military infrastructure are seeing them start to pull out, as both Italy and the Philippines have recently done.
None of this means that China or its BRI is a spent force. It does mean, though, that Xi doesn’t necessarily have the Midas touch and that China is vulnerable. And while I don’t wish the Chinese people ill, I certainly do not want a world in which China, a totalitarian nation that views America’s downfall as necessary to its ascension, is the most powerful country in the world.
[ZERO] In 1996 in the Tazmanian city of Port Arthur a man by the name of Martin Bryant killed 35 people using semi-automatic rifles in what would later be known as the Port Arthur Massacre. This singular event was quickly used as a rationale for the banning of most firearms for Australian civilians, but the new regulations were not a product of Port Arthur. Rather, anti-gun politicians had been pushing for restrictions and confiscation for many years prior; Port Arthur simply gave them enough public panic to get their legislation passed.
This is the modus operandi of the typical anti-gun lobby — Wait for a tragedy and then exploit it to punish all law abiding citizens for the crimes of a handful of deranged people. It doesn't make much sense unless you realize that gun control laws are not meant to thwart criminals, they are meant to thwart good people who might object to government trespasses.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/14/2024 9:41 Comments ||
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#3
We need to go further. No political or military entanglements with countries that try to disarm or disenfranchise their citizenry. Looking at you, Australia, NZ, Canada, etc.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/14/2024 10:02 Comments ||
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#4
Australia has been known as Nuevo California for years.
If things in Cal are at level 10, the Aussies are at 11 and NZ is at 12. Great people as long as it's just on tv.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/14/2024 18:32 Comments ||
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[WSJ] The good news is the probability of a recession is down sharply, according to The Wall Street Journal’s latest survey of economists. The bad news is that, for a lot of people, it is still going to feel like a recession.
Business and academic economists surveyed by the Journal lowered the probability of a recession within the next year, to 39% from 48% in the October survey.
"A recession in the year ahead seems less likely than it appeared at the start of 2023, since interest rates are trending lower, gas prices are down from last year, and incomes are growing faster than inflation," said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank
.
Still, economists on average expect the economy to grow just 1% in 2024, about half its normal long-run rate, and a significant slowing from an estimated 2.6% in 2023.
More at the link.
Posted by: The Walking Unvaxed ||
01/14/2024 08:56 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[26 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
interest rates are trending lower, gas prices are down from last year, and incomes are growing faster than inflation
People are borrowing less.
Gas prices are manipulated for the election.
Incomes are growing because people have run out of savings and are taking 2nd jobs.
#3
That makes it all better.
The fact is that they've manipulated the the numbers and fudge factors to the point that they can 'pencil whip' a recession into or out of existence.
But they would never do this for political ends. Never, never never. Pinky swear.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/14/2024 18:29 Comments ||
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[American Thinker] The mainstream media is assiduously ignoring a fascinating story: German farmers are doing what Dutch farmers did last year; namely, rising up in a massive protest against their country’s globalist, climate change policies. With luck, these protests will have the same outcome, which was a massive shift to conservativism in the Dutch government during the last election.
Modern Germany is, in some ways, a very weird country thanks to the legacy of WWII. Its citizens have grown up in the shadow of their collective guilt for the Holocaust, along with the 80 million or so other deaths the Nazi war sparked. They are, in many ways, a very self-apologetic, self-loathing people.
In part to make up for their collapsing birth rate and in part to atone for their sins in the 1930s and 1940s, Germany has been inviting Muslims in since the 1960s, starting with relatively Westernized Turks and now including barely civilized Middle Easterners and Afghanis. They’ve always seemed blind to the irony of atoning for the Holocaust by inviting in the only people who hate Jews more than the Nazis did.
#1
What started in Canada matured in Holland. If Germany falls to populism, the globalists are in for a drubbing everywhere is the purportedly free world.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/14/2024 9:47 Comments ||
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What many have suspected has now been confirmed by this newspaper and a few courageous Canadians: pro-Paleostine — and, increasingly, pro-Hamas ...a regional Iranian catspaw,... — protestors are being paid to protest. To block highways and roads. To intimidate and threaten Jews and non-Jews. To cause chaos.
In years past, anti-Israel protests were typically small, disorganized and ineffective. Not many people came out. Since Oct. 7, when 1,200 Israeli men, women, children and babies were slaughtered, and hundreds taken hostage, the protests have been dramatically different.
Hundreds, sometimes thousands, participate. They’ve got professionally-rendered signs and banners. They’ve got transportation, and food and drink. And they’ve got organizers who wear uniforms and control the crowds.
And who distribute the cash.
This week, this newspaper was alerted to the fact that a Victoria, B.C., organization was distributing thousands of dollars to anti-Israel protestors. The Plenty Collective, as it calls itself, created what it called a "Solidarity Fund" for Victoria-area "folks or groups" to pay for "costs related to supporting or organizing actions in solidarity with Paleostine and Paleostinian people."
Said the Plenty Collective: "This fund is to help cover costs incurred when organizing or participating in local actions. This can include, but is not limited to, the costs of lost wages, supplies, items for fundraising, paying speakers, etc."
Priority was given to Paleostinian, Black or Indigenous people. And thousands have been paid out for weeks now — typically close to $20,000 every month. The Plenty Collective did not respond to multiple attempts to seek comment.
Ian Ward, a municipal councillor for Colwood on Vancouver Island — along with local activist Charles Bodi — discovered the pay-a-protestor payment scheme. And he’s seen the effectiveness of the paid-protests up close. Says he: "They are highly organized. I’ve watched them. A van pulls up, and they’ve got flags, signs, and they’ve got organizers from the Plenty Collective wearing orange vests controlling the crowds."
"And they have control because they are holding the cash for the protestors."
Much of the money is being generated locally, says Ward, who was the first to break the news that Victoria City Councillor Susan Kim — along with Ontario MPP Sarah Jama — had signed on to a pro-Hamas letter that denied Israeli women and girls were sexually assaulted on Oct. 7. But some of the money, he says, seems to be coming from elsewhere: "We don’t see them being this organized, and this well-funded, without offshore money."
It’s not just happening in Victoria, B.C. In the U.S., there is now confirmation that anti-Israel — and often anti-Semitic and violent mostly peaceful — protestors are getting paid to protest.
A multi-millionaire tech mogul, Neville Roy Singham, has — along with his wife Jodie Evans — been bankrolling pro-Paleostinian protests since last year. Their "People’s Forum" has organized multiple anti-Israel protests since Oct. 7 — including a number of efforts designed to "shut down" public and private sector offices. On Nov. 24, they posted on X: "Are you ready to disrupt business as usual? No celebrating in peace while genocide takes place!"
Some of the anti-Israel funding has seemingly been right out in the open. On Craigslist, a now-deleted November ad read: "We are looking for 5-7 actors or activists to hold panels and distribute flyers in front of a venue as a peaceful, legal protest. Needed for November 24th, evening, 2-3 hours, paying $30/hour."
Nov. 24 was the same day, of course, as the pro-Paleostine "shut down" protests, where 34 were arrested trying to disrupt the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and Black Friday sales.
"They’re paying for protestors to try and lend credibility to their movement," says Ward. "Oct. 7 was just stage one. These carefully-crafted and controlled protests are a public relations campaign, and I think are the real objective."
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[WND] Talk is heating up again about "Big Mike" Obama being the Democrats' choice to replace Joey the Scapegoat when they finally pull the plug on his sham presidency. Arguments against that possibility always seem to focus on Michelle's glaring lack of qualifications, but they miss the point that that IS the point — everyone will know that it's all a charade to put Barack back in the White House (in person this time and not via his drooling avatar, Joe.) It also won't hurt "her" chances among the Groomer generation of Dem voters that the Joan Rivers "curse" still casts transgender shade on the former first lady. BUT her true role in 2024 would be as Barack's shoehorn past the Constitution — and the more obvious that strategy is, the better the Dem turnout will be (the actual turnout, not the true blue cemetery vote that's always 100%).
If they were to be honest in their political ads (ha!), they'd come right out and say it: "A vote for Michelle is a vote for Barack, the only Democrat with a realistic chance of beating Donald Trump."
I've always recognized that Joe Biden was Obama's puppet, moved into front-runner status as the best of bad options after Trump creamed the entire field of Dem primary candidates in February of 2020, including the designated winner, Pocahontas Warren. I predicted Biden would get the nomination just a few hours after the Democratic Primary debacle that blatantly cheated Bernie Sanders out of the nomination — for the second time! — the first time in 2016 triggering Bernie-Bot Seth Rich to give the establishment Dem secrets to Wikileaks, which led to his assassination, presumably by the Clintons.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/14/2024 10:19 Comments ||
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#2
I'm beginning to think Jojo won't make it much longer, either through a stroke or just mpossible to paper-over dementia. That put Kamala-lala in the Presidency, and I'm pretty sure she won't move aside willingly. If she doesn't, even if you move Big Mike to VP, the prospect of two black incompetent, angry women running the country just cannot sell, even to the most clueless morons of the remaining base. Perhaps they might see the only path post-Biden is a national emergency sufficient to postpone an election, , but that still won't sell for long. My greatest fear is further, accelerating systemic entropy across the broad spectrum of our banking, justice, healthcare, energy and transportation infrastructure.
#4
I think if they try to postpone the election, it's going to go kinetic less then 12 hours after the announcement. I don't care what they claim, it'll get fugly really damn quick.
I'm not advocating, just prognasticating. I have no information beyond what I suspect.
#1
Good way to be sued out of existence. I'll give it to the Chinese who deal with post disaster findings concerning lack of quality control with executions of company owners.
#8
When they moved the headquarters from Washington state (where the factories are) to Chicago it meant the sales guys had won. You now see the result.
The HQ move to DC means they've thrown in the towel on civilian product, and want to concentrate on mil equipment. The only real reason they continue to make civilian aircraft is they've got so much sunk into the development and production lines. Look for them to try to spin off the civil side over the next ten years or so.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/14/2024 13:13 Comments ||
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#9
#7 above, I'm confident that on display is the DEI/GAY/Feminist amalgam that has supplanted meritocracy for the brief moments before the bankruptcy of Spirit Aerospace. Enjoy the prancing girls until you get your pink slips.
#10
Recent performance calls to mind MAD magazine's old parody of Aeroflot: The only airline that sells half-way tickets to any destination.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/14/2024 14:24 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Per my statement earier about Boeing giving up the civil market, I would ask naysayers, "When was the last time you saw a brand new Lockheed airliner?"
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/14/2024 18:35 Comments ||
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#12
And didn't the US gov't bail Boeing out in the '70's or buy a bunch or its stock or something. Sigh....
Of course, Airbus is getting all kinds of orders now.
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.
...established in the early 1990s through an agreement between portions of Uganda’s Salaf Tabliq Islamic sect and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU), who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies. At the time, the rebels staged deadly attacks in Ugandan villages and the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred. A Ugandan military operation later forced the ADF into eastern Congo. The ADF has since established ties with the Islamic State group. The ADF has received funding from the Government of Sudan, which has also provided supplies and training. The ADF may also have received funding from the illegal mining and logging industries of the DRC....
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka 
[American Thinker] The mainstream media is assiduously ignoring a fascinating story: 
...a regional Iranian catspaw,...
