[ShabelleMedia] Somali forces and allied militias have pushed al-Shabaab ...... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... fighters out of a strategic town in central Somalia that the Islamist group has controlled for six years, officials 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... (AU) said on Tuesday.
Now to see if government forces can hold the place, or if it will become yet another that regularly changes hands.
The government, backed by AU troops and clan militias, said it has killed around 700 members of al-Shabaab and recaptured scores of settlements as part of a months-long campaign to loosen the al Qaeda-linked group’s control over large swathes of the country.
"This district of Adan Yabal was very important for al-Shabaab because it is the heart that connects the central regions and the south of Somalia. It was also their main base from which they manage the central regions," Mahamud told Rooters late on Monday.
He said the troops were sweeping the town, which is around 240km (150 miles) northeast of the capital Mogadishu, for mines.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said al-Shabaab’s fighters had taken residents of the town as human shields and destroyed infrastructure.
"They took with them pumps of the wells and some residents as (human) shields for fear of being bombed," he said in a televised address after the town’s capture.
Al-Shabaab’s spokespeople were not immediately reachable to comment on the town’s capture and the accusations of holding residents as human shields.
The head of the AU mission in Somalia, Mohammed El-Amine Souef, described the town as a training ground for al-Shabaab, and said the broader campaign was delivering "destructive and decisive" blows against the group.
Al-Shabaab frequently abandons areas before army offensives, but the government often fails to hold recaptured territory, analysts say, allowing the turbans to return.
"When they entered the town, al-Shabaab were not there," Absher Mudey, a shop owner in Adan Yabal, told Rooters by telephone. "Most of the people fled because they were afraid that fighting would break out."
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] Tension prevailed on Tuesday in the city of Aden, the most prominent stronghold of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) militia, following the killing of a high-ranking leader by the bullets of the bodyguards of a security official.
Southern media reported, quoting security sources, that the "security belt" forces in Aden were directed to pursue leaders in the security belt in restive Lahj ... a Yemeni governate located in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. It is the stomping grounds on the southern secessionist al-Harak movement province, including those accompanying Saleh al-Sayed.
The recent directions came after al-Syaed refused to hand over button men involved in killing the officer in the facilities protection of the security belts in Aden, Mohammed bin Afif, the personal companion of the facilities protection commander, Ahmed Mahdi al-Afif.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2022 01:51 ||
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[Rudaw] A suspected 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) jacket wallah on Tuesday killed two fighters of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) in Babil province amid an operation to clear the area of the terror group, Iraqi state media reported, citing a statement from the PMF.
The force said that they dispatched several brigades to the town of Jurf al-Nasr (formerly Jurf al-Sakhar) in northern Babil province, around 60 kilometers southwest of Baghdad after obtaining intelligence about the presence of ISIS cells in the area.
"The enemy was engaged and those in the festivities were killed as a result of a suicide bomber detonating himself," the PMF said, adding that three of its fighters were maimed during the festivities.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/07/2022 02:47 ||
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[Iraq News] Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) — The Iraqi security forces arrested on Tuesday 11 bandidosmurderous Moslems belonging to ISIS group in four governorates, according to the Iraqi News Agency (INA).
The bandidosmurderous Moslems were captured in the governorates of Babylon, Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... Nineveh and Diyala, INA mentioned.
The bandidosmurderous Moslems were arrested after the Federal Intelligence and Investigation Agency (FIIA) of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior carried out several preemptive operations, according to a statement issued by the Iraqi Security Media Cell (ISMC).
The 11 bandidosmurderous Moslems were arrested according to the provisions of Article 4 of the terrorism law, because they belong to the terrorist group of ISIS, the statement added.
The Iraqi forces are pursuing remnants of ISIS bandidosmurderous Moslems through a series of continuous military operations, most of which are concentrated in remote and border areas between the governorates used by bandidosmurderous Moslems as hideouts to plan and launch attacks.
In December 2017, Iraq announced it eliminated ISIS bandidosmurderous Moslems and imposed full control over all Iraqi territories, including the border with Syria, but some hiding ISIS bandidosmurderous Moslems are still active in some areas of the country.[Iraq News] [Iraq News]
Posted by: Fred ||
12/07/2022 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] The Israel Defense Forces says troops have detained 10 Egyptian suspects who crossed the border into Israel in a drug-smuggling attempt.
The IDF says troops and coppers are scanning the area for more possible suspects.
Drugs in their possession were also seized, the IDF says.
Arrests of smugglers on the Egyptian border are fairly uncommon, as they often hurl packages of contraband over the border and flee, expecting smugglers on the Israeli side to pick them up.
The IDF says there are no special instructions for residents of the area following the incident.
#1
During the British occupation of Egypt there existed very efficient Border Patrol and Anti-narcotics police elements, but they had very little success against hashish smugglers. That continues to this day. Go to any Egyptian tric-trac parlor or hubble-bubble spot and you will find hashish for sale.
[BenarNews] A bomb explosion on a railroad track killed at least three railway workers and officials as well as injured several others in southern Thailand on Tuesday, officials said, blaming separatist bully boyz for the attack.
The bomb was planted near the site of a kaboom Saturday that had derailed 11 of 20 cargo cars without causing any casualties in Songkhla province, railway officials said.
"While the railway officials were clearing the track, bully boyz conducted another bombing a few hundred meters away from the first bomb site," Lt. Gen. Santi Sakuntanak, the army chief in the Deep South, said during a visit to the scene.
"That means the attackers calculated that there must be officials coming to inspect the scene and collect evidence after the first attack, so they set off another bomb to kill and destroy properties."
Deeden Kongsom, the chief technician for the State Railway of Thailand, witnessed the earth-shattering kaboom.
"The bomb went off as we were walking from the previous bomb site ... I saw my colleagues tossed away in different directions," Deeden told news hounds.
The bomb was planted between the Klong-ngae and Padang Besar railway stations on the fringes of the insurgency-wracked Deep South, and along a rail route that leads to the nearby Malaysian border.
No holy warrior groups have grabbed credit for these attacks so far.
Lt. Gen. Santi said the authorities had to be vigilant in protecting areas that could be soft targets during upcoming festivals.
"From now on, [we] have to keep extremely watchful in business areas because the attackers [may] take aim at tourist destinations not only in the Deep South, but Hat Yai, Satun and Surat Thani," he said, referring to an adjoining district and provinces.
Tuesday’s attack was the second one in the southern border region in recent weeks that resulted in multiple casualties.
On Nov. 22, a massive explosion from a bomb-rigged pickup truck killed a police officer and injured dozens of people in Narathiwat province. At least three children, including a one-year-old, were among the injured, officials said. The bomb in that incident targeted a compound where coppers and their families live.
Since a separatist insurgency reignited in the Deep South in January 2004, at least 7,344 people have been killed and 13,641 injured in violence across the mainly Moslem and Malay-speaking border region, according to data updated through March 2022 by Deep South Watch, a local think-tank.
The region along Thailand’s border with Malaysia encompasses Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala provinces, and four districts of Songkhla province.
Government officials and representatives of Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the largest of the rebel groups in the Deep South, began Malaysia-brokered peace negotiations in early 2020. These talks followed years of negotiations between the government and MARA Patani, an umbrella group that brought together Deep South holy warrior groups, including BRN.
The sixth face-to-face negotiation scheduled for this month has been delayed because of the Malaysian general election on Nov. 19, according to negotiators for both sides.
[Rudaw] Iran sentenced five people to hang for killing a paramilitary member, the judiciary said Tuesday, a ruling condemned by rights activists as a means to "spread fear" and stop protests over Mahsa Amini's death.
Another 11 people, including three children, were handed long jail terms over the murder, judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi told a news conference, adding the sentences could be appealed.
Prosecutors said paramilitary member Ruhollah Ajamian, 27, was stripped naked and killed by a group of mourners who had been paying tribute to a slain protester, Hadis Najafi. wanna bet he was threatening them?
Najafi was killed on September 21, five days into the wave of protests that erupted across Iran after the death of Amini, following her arrest by the morality police for an alleged breach of the country's hijab dress code for women.
Iran has struggled to quell the largely peaceful protests.
In a surprise move, Iran's prosecutor general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was Sunday quoted as saying that the morality police units –- known formally as Gasht-e Ershad ("Guidance Patrol") -- had been closed down.
But his comments have yet to be followed up by an official announcement and have drawn widespread scepticism.
Ajamian had died on November 3 in Karaj, west of Tehran, after being attacked with "knives, stones, fists, kicks" and being dragged along a street, said the judiciary spokesman.
He belonged to the Basij, a state-sanctioned volunteer force that is linked to Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
- PROTESTERS AGAIN DEFY CRACKDOWN -
The five sentenced to death were convicted of "corruption on earth" -- one of the most serious offences under Islamic sharia law in Iran.
The other 11, including a woman, were convicted for "their role in the riots" and received lengthy prison terms, said Setayeshi.
The rulings bring to 11 the number of people sentenced to death over the protests.
They were condemned by Norway-based non-governmental organisation Iran Human Rights.
"These people are sentenced after unfair processes and without due process," IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam told AFP. "The aim is to spread fear and make people stop protesting."
Despite a crackdown that has killed hundreds, images posted online showed shops closed in cities across the country on Tuesday, the second day of a strike that culminates Wednesday on Student Day.
"Freedom, freedom, freedom," dozens of students from Tehran's Allameh Tabatabai University were heard chanting in a video published by IHR.
At least 448 people have been "killed by security forces in the ongoing nationwide protests", the Oslo-based rights group said in its latest toll issued on November 29.
Iran, which accuses the United States and its allies Britain and Israel of fomenting the rest, said on Saturday that more than 200 people have been killed since the protests began. A general had put the figure at more than 300 last week.
- CAMPAIGN OF ARRESTS -
Iran currently executes more people annually than any nation other than China, Amnesty International says.
The London-based rights group said on November 16 that, based on official reports, at least 21 protesters had been charged with crimes that could see them hanged in what it called "sham trials".
The crackdown has also seen thousands of people arrested, including 40 foreigners and prominent actors, journalists and lawyers.
Among them are a dozen alleged members of an unnamed European-linked group accused of planning acts of sabotage.
The Revolutionary Guards in Markazi province, southwest of Tehran, said Tuesday they had arrested "a network with 12 members with links abroad".
They had been "under the guidance of counter-revolutionary agents living in Germany and the Netherlands" and had "attempted to procure weapons and intended to carry out subversive acts".
The Guards, referring to the nationwide protests, said that the "riots project has failed".
It warned acts of sabotage would continue, however, and appealed for the "vigilance of loyal people... especially shopkeepers, students and workers" to foil them.
Iranian lawmaker Hossein Jalali called on the authorities to send women who fail to observe hijab text messages threatening to block their bank accounts, Shargh newspaper said.
Meanwhile police in Britain said a fire broke out overnight next to the London office of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) opposition group. There was no evidence so far that it was a deliberate attack.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/07/2022 02:48 ||
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[Rudaw] Shops across the Kurdish cities in western Iran ...The nation is noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence... (Rojhelat) went on strike on Tuesday as nationwide protests sparked by the death of a young Kurdish woman approach their three month mark.
General strikes were declared in Sanandaj, Saqqez, Divandarreh, Baneh, Javanroud, Kermanshah, Piranshahr, Ilam, Urmia, Mahabad, and Paveh, among others. Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported that 21 Kurdish cities were on strike.
The watchdog added that security forces sealed off the shops in Ravansar on Tuesday that had participated in the strikes two days before. Employees at a petrochemical company in Sanandaj have also been on strike for two consecutive days.
Protests also continued in other parts of Iran, including outside the notorious Evin prison in Tehran where families of the detainees gathered, demanding the release of their loved ones.
The strikes come after videos on social media showing security forces redeploying in the Kurdish city of Saqqez.
Protests broke out across Iran on September 16 over the death of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini while in police custody in Tehran. The Kurdish areas of the country have been the epicenter of the protest movement.
US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) placed the countrywide corpse count at 473 protesters, including 64 children. It added that 61 members of the security forces were also killed.
On the sidelines of the J Street National Conference, US Congressman Gerry Connolly told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda on Monday that he believes "it is a long overdue that Iran moves towards liberalization and towards providing democratic freedom, especially for young population throughout the country."
The Iranian regime has on several occasions referred to the nation-wide protests as an agenda of the west, especially their foes US and Israel.
The commander of the IRGC late last month labeled protesters as "disbelievers" a day after Lord High Potentate and Supreme Leader of All He Surveys Khameni warned protesters to bring the movement to an end and green lighted further crackdown against them.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/07/2022 02:47 ||
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Unidentified attackers infiltrate a military post of the Syrian government forces in east of #Syria’s #Homs, sparking clashes which led to the killing and injuring of government soldiers. https://t.co/oZMu4V2THo
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.
...... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
...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 
...The nation is noted for 
