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Today: 71 articles and 201 comments as of 7:26.
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Area: WoT Background    Non-WoT    Opinion        Politix   
33 Civilians, 7 Regime Troops Killed
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 1: WoT Operations
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Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 10:06 || Comments || Link || [336100 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Jug? I think Carole is obviously familiar with jugs and that's no jug, it's a "vahze".
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 12/14/2011 10:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot

Elyse Knox aka Isobel Evans in "The Mummy's Tomb (1942)" aka Marian in "A Wave, a WAC and a Marine (1944)" aka Nurse Peggy Osborne in "Hit the Ice ( Abbott & Costello 1943)" aka Kate Allison in "Forgotten Women (1949)" aka Mercedes Colby in "Don Winslow of the Coast Guard (Serial 1943)" aka Pat Rogers in "Hi'ya, Sailor (1943)" aka Jerry Van Dyke in "Army Wives (1944)" aka Anne Howe in "Joe Palooka (3 movies 1946 - 1948)" (age 95)



For Gorb's Eyes Only
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 12/14/2011 11:55 Comments || Top||

#3  Shoot, I'm eyeballing two of em. :)
Posted by: Jefferson || 12/14/2011 13:20 Comments || Top||

#4  I want my mummy!
Posted by: gorb || 12/14/2011 22:24 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Bomb Attack Kills Six Civilians in Afghanistan
[An Nahar] A roadside kaboom killed six civilians, including women and kiddies, in southern Afghanistan's Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
province, local officials said on Tuesday.

The victims were traveling in a minivan in the Greshk district of Helmand when their vehicle was caught in the blast on Monday, the provincial governor's office said in a statement.

They did not say how many women and kiddies were killed, but two other women were maimed and taken to hospital.

"Six civilians including women and kiddies were martyred yesterday when their minivan hit a terrorist-planted roadside mine in Greshk district," the statement said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but roadside kabooms are frequently planted by Taliban-led Death Eaters fighting a decade-long war against NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
-led foreign troops and Afghan government forces.

Parts of Helmand remain highly unstable although picturesque provincial capital Lashkar Gah is under the control of Afghan forces and three other districts are due to transition from NATO to Afghan security control within weeks.

There are around 140,000 international troops, mainly from the United States, in Afghanistan helping government forces combat the insurgency.

The United Nations
...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country...
said the number of civilians killed in violence in Afghanistan rose by 15 percent in the first six months of this year to 1,462, with Death Eaters blamed for 80 percent of the killings.

Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336087 views] Top|| File under: Taliban

#1  why hasn't that 'tommy gun' got a magazine fitted??
Posted by: pikestaff || 12/14/2011 5:18 Comments || Top||

#2  The commenters at the Daily Kos don't ask questions like that :-)
Posted by: Steve White || 12/14/2011 8:47 Comments || Top||

#3  There are some great new magazine covers coming along these days, somebody is on a roll. I wonder if any prints will ever show up in the Rantburg store.
Posted by: Grunter || 12/14/2011 10:29 Comments || Top||

#4  I asked about the Magazine a month ago, still no answer.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 12/14/2011 11:03 Comments || Top||

#5  why hasn't that 'tommy gun' got a magazine fitted??

Would be safer for ducklings and fluffy bunnies, could be a 'single-shot' variant, or possibly the original artist drew it from a newspaper photo that had the weapon flat on a table without the 'drum' magazine attached (more probable).
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 12/14/2011 11:44 Comments || Top||

#6  Itsa .177 cal break barrel Tommy Gun -- 1200 FPS and sold exclusively at Big 5.
Posted by: Pollyandrew || 12/14/2011 14:06 Comments || Top||

#7  #1 why hasn't that 'tommy gun' got a magazine fitted??

Di Fi had the magazine prohibited because it made Tommy Guns look "too scary"
Posted by: Frank G || 12/14/2011 14:13 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
U.S. Drone Crashes at Seychelles Airport
[An Nahar] A U.S. drone crashed Tuesday at Seychelles international airport on the main island of Mahe, the U.S. embassy said.

The remote-piloted MQ-9 aircraft crashed on landing but no one was hurt, said the U.S. embassy in Mauritius, which also handles the Seychelles. The drone was operating from the Seychelles, it said.

"The MQ-9 was not armed and no injuries were reported," it said. "The runway at the airport has reopened for normal traffic. The cause of the incident is unknown and currently under investigation."

The U.S. drones began anti-piracy surveillance in late 2009 after the Syechelles and the U.S. Africa Command tested the aircraft to be used in seeking out Somali gunnies prowling the Indian Ocean.

With 115 islands scattered inside an exclusive economic zone spanning 1.4 million square kilometers, a population of only 85,000 and a military of 500, the Seychelles requested foreign assistance to stave off the pirates.

U.S. drones also overfly Somalia from an Ethiopian airbase, but Washington officials have denied media reports that the aircraft are armed and attack Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militia fighting the Western-backed Somali government.

Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336089 views] Top|| File under:


Sudan border fighting displaces 400,000 people: UN
[Pak Daily Times] About 417,000 people have been displaced in Sudan's border states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile as a result of ongoing fighting between the army and thugs, the United Nations
...the Oyster Bay money pit...
said on Tuesday.

Fighting broke out between Sudan's army and SPLM-North rebels in June in South Kordofan which borders newly-independent South Sudan. Violence spread to the neighbouring northern border state of Blue Nile in September.

About 82,000 people have decamped both northern states to South Sudan or Ethiopia to escape fighting, U.N. officials told news hounds in the capital Khartoum. Some 35,000 people from South Kordofan have decamped to Khartoum to stay mostly with relatives.

The humanitarian situation was deteriorating, especially in areas controlled by the SPLM-North, as UN and aid agencies were still being denied access, said Peter de Clerq, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan.

"We have made many interventions with the government in terms of going back to South Kordofan and Blue Nile, so far we have not yet been successful in accomplishing that," he said. "We are in no position to verify the actual needs on the ground as we are simply not there we have little information," he said.
Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan


Africa Subsaharan
10 Dead in Bomb Blast, Gunfire in Northeast Nigeria
[An Nahar] A powerful kaboom targeting soldiers followed by gunfire rocked the troubled Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Tuesday, with at least 10 people killed, an official and a hospital source said.

Residents claimed soldiers reacted to the bombing by shooting indiscriminately and burning homes, with troops having been accused of such abuses following previous attacks after alleging residents were complicit.

A military front man denied the accusations.

The violence began when two men in a sedan drove towards a military post and sought to throw a bomb at soldiers in the restive city, which has been the epicenter of violence blamed on the Islamist sect known as Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie...
Military roadblocks and outposts have frequently been targeted by the hard boyz in Maiduguri, located in northeastern Nigeria.

"The bomb detonated in his hands, killing him on the spot, while his comrade decamped, abandoning the car," said Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Mohammed, front man for a military task force in Maiduguri.

"We discovered ammunition in the car. No other life was lost and nobody was injured in the attack."

Residents said the blast was followed by sporadic gunfire. They alleged soldiers then stormed through the neighborhood, firing their weapons and setting houses on fire.

"After the blast, everybody moved indoors, but later I began hearing screams and commotion and saw billows of smoke covering the sky," one resident said.

"I realized soldiers were moving door-to-door setting houses on fire. I scaled over the fence of my house and ran out of the area barefoot while soldiers set fire to my house."

Another resident also alleged soldiers were carrying out the abuses and said people had decamped the area. A hospital nurse said at least 10 people were killed in the day's violence.

"So far we have received 10 dead bodies ... and 30 others injured, some critically, and from the state of some of the injured, the corpse count may rise," the nurse told Agence La Belle France Presse on condition of anonymity.

"Some of the bodies brought to the hospital have gunshot wounds while others have burns."

Mohammed, the military front man, said "nobody was shot and no homes were burnt by soldiers."

The military has come under harsh criticism over its actions in Maiduguri, with some local leaders calling for the task force operating there to be withdrawn.

Thousands of people have decamped Maiduguri out of fears of further violence.

Boko Haram has been blamed for scores of attacks, mostly in northeastern Nigeria, though the group also grabbed credit for the August suicide kaboom of U.N. headquarters in the capital Abuja that killed at least 24 people.

There has been intense speculation over whether the group has formed links with outside bad boys, including al-Qaeda's north African branch. It is believed to have a number of factions with varying aims.

It launched an uprising in 2009 put down by a brutal military assault which left some 800 dead, then went dormant for about a year before emerging with a series of liquidations.

Bomb blasts have since become frequent and have grown in sophistication.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation with some 160 million people, roughly divided between a mainly Mohammedan north and predominately Christian south.

Tuesday's blast occurred ahead of President Goodluck Jonathan
... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau...
's presentation of his 2012 budget before parliament in Abuja, but it was unclear if there was any link.

Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram


Arabia
Yemen holds six Al Qaeda suspects
[Emirates 24/7] Yemeni security forces placed in long-term storage six alleged Al Qaeda hard boyz on Tuesday for plotting attacks on foreign and local targets, the new unity government said.

The announcement came a day after a jail break in which security sources told Rooters seven al Qaeda prisoners had beat feet, highlighting Yemen's patchy record against the orc group.

They were among 16 who tunnelled their way out of a prison in Aden, although an interior ministry official denied any Al Qaeda link.

The United States and neighbouring Soddy Arabia fear the network is exploiting political upheaval that has weakened central government control over swathes of Yemen.

The government, formed after outgoing President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
signed a deal last month to hand over power after months of protests, is simultaneously facing an emboldened separatist movement in the south and Shi'ite Moslem rebels in the north.

The state news agency Saba carried mug shots of the alleged Al Qaeda members, included the suspected leader of a cell that attacked Sanaa airport in 2009.

"These elements were conducting surveillance (on) targets they wanted to conduct terrorist operations against, including leaders and prominent state figures as well as government facilities and Arab and foreign missions," Saba quoted a security source as saying.

Those placed in long-term storage are also accused of recruiting youths to fight along with hard boyz in other Yemeni provinces.

DIPLOMATIC BOOST

Ambassadors of the five UN Security Council members and Gulf Arab diplomats on Tuesday met government officials and a committee overseeing a ceasefire in Yemen's commercial capital Taiz, where fighting had raged in recent weeks.

"They said they would support the national unity government's efforts to tackle the impact of the festivities in Taiz," said Abdullah Noman, an opposition leader who attended the meeting. "The ambassadors focused on the future, on reconstruction efforts".

Saleh loyalists and opponents began withdrawing from the streets of Taiz last week after a fragile truce was agreed to put an end to street battles in which dozens were killed.

Under a plan brokered by Gulf Arab states with the help of a UN envoy, members of Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) and opposition parties divided cabinet posts between them to form a cabinet that will lead the country to presidential elections next February.

The UN envoy who helped clinch the power transfer deal visited the northern province of Saada on Tuesday in a bid to talk northern rebels known as Houthis into cooperating with the new government, which was sworn in on Saturday.

"In the case of Yemen there are many stakeholders and if one or two stakeholders have the perception that they are excluded they will become spoilers of the process," said Jamal Benomar after meeting the self-proclaimed governor of the province and Houthi representatives.

His visit to Saada, the first by an international official since 2004, came as fighting continued between the Shi'ite Houthi rebels and Sunni Salafi fighters. Both sides reported dozens of deaths in festivities this week.

"What is needed is for the Houthis to participate as a political party, a political force and not as a militia or an insurgency," said Benomar.
Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336084 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia


Yemen: New Information Minister Makes Immediate Changes
[Yemen Post] Immediately after the new Yemen government was sworn in on Saturday, Minister of Information, Ali Amrani, told Abdu Ganadi, former government spokesperson not to talk on behalf of the new government.

Critics say that Ganadi's main goal over the last year was to spread hatred among all factions in Yemen and this is why he had to be released.

Ganadi was one of the strongest supporters of President-for-Life Saleh
... exemplifying the Arab's propensity to combine brutality with incompetence...
and the most outspoken.

Ali Amrani stressed that the new government is for all the Yemenis and no hatred should be allowed if success is to be seen.

"We need security and stability to ensure that peace enters every Yemen residence," said Amrani.

Amrani announced his resignation from the ruling General People Congress party after it stood behind the March 18 massacre, which killed more then 50 unarmed protesters.

He is one of the respected figures in Yemen and is calling for reforms in the media sector.
Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336086 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Sudden Jihad Syndrome: 4 Dead, 75 Hurt in Belgium Shooting Spree
[An Nahar] A lone gunman armed with grenades opened fire on a square packed with children and Christmas shoppers in the eastern Belgian city of Liege Tuesday, killing three people and wounding 75.
Hmmm... Firearms aren't that readily available in Belchium, and grenades considerably less so...
Somebody must have guns, given how many Belgian veal inspectors are shot while examining the fatted calves for excessive hormones.
Officials named the gunman -- who was himself also killed in circumstances that are not yet clear -- as Nordine Amrani, 33, a known criminal who had been summoned by police that morning but who never showed up.
Was the late Nordine a Phlegm or a Walloon?
Among the three passers-by killed when Amrani went on his shooting spree near the city's courthouse was a 15-year-old boy who died instantly and a 17-year-old boy and 75-year-old woman who died later in hospital.

The lunchtime attack sent terrified residents running through the streets for their lives, fleeing into churches and shops as the gunman fired on a crowded square.

"We heard two huge deafening noises and then lots of kabooms, people were running everywhere," a baker named only as Patricia said on RTL-TV.

"We closed the door, turned off the lights and hid behind the counter with the customers."

The country's federal crisis center said it was neither a terrorist incident nor linked to a pending criminal trial.

"It's very difficult to determine the reasons for the attack, but we're investigating all avenues," the center's Benoit Ramacker told Agence La Belle France Presse.

King Albert II and Queen Paola rushed to the scene as did newly-named Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and Belgium's Home Affairs Minister Joelle Milquet broke off European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
talks and too was headed for Liege.

"It's uncertain yet whether he (Amrani) killed himself or whether his weapons went kaboom!," public prosecutor Danielle Reynders told a news conference.

"He left his home this morning with his backpack and his arms," she said, adding that he climbed on to the roof of a bakery shop "and fired and then threw three grenades".

Hours later groups of people sat weeping on sidewalks amid the screech of ambulance sirens and the roar of helicopters. Pools of blood lay on the streets.

The shooting took place around noon on Saint-Lambert square, home to the courthouse and located near a busy Christmas market in the town of 196,000 people.

Some initial reports said it was a foiled bid to rescue a suspect from the courthouse.

Police had raided Amrani's Liege home recently seeking cannabis plants but had found weapons instead. In 2008 he was sentenced to almost five years behind bars for illegal possession of arms and growing cannabis.

Reynders said although the gunman had a record for drugs dealing, arms possession and holding stolen goods, there had never been a sign he was unbalanced in any way.

There was much initial confusion over the shooting as events unfolded, with initial reports of more than one gunman.

Journalist Nicolas Gilenne told AFP he had just left the courthouse where he was covering a trial when the attack began.

"I saw a man wave his arm and throw something at the bus shelter. I heard an kaboom. He turned around, picked something else up, pulled the pin. I started to run. He was alone and seemed very much in control.

"He wanted to hurt as many people as possible. I heard four kabooms and shots during about 10 seconds."

Residents had earlier told local television that shots were fired across the square by gunnies posted on the rooftop of a bakery and grenades hurled at bus shelters and into the courthouse.

Reports had also said that two to three gunnies armed with either explosive flash grenades or killer defensive grenades were involved.

"The city center is completely cordoned off. People are sheltering in shops or in buildings. Police are in position," said a town hall employee contacted by AFP who asked not to be identified.

"Luckily the mayor had postponed the opening of the Christmas market due to bad weather and high winds. Otherwise many more would have died," the employee added.
Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336098 views] Top|| File under: Global Jihad

#1  Why do I suspect a 'group' of armed attackers has been downgraded to 'one' armed attacker solely because he was the only one, a dead one at that, the police recovered?

I also suspect that he was frequently screaming "Allahu Akbar!", but that doesn't imply he was a jihadist or Muslim or anything. Maybe he was just having an attack of sneezing that sounded like that.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 12/14/2011 8:55 Comments || Top||

#2  The guy was a criminal. The cops wanted to see him. Work place violence. Case closed.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 12/14/2011 13:30 Comments || Top||

#3  from bbc account,

"...Amrani was born in the Ixelles district of Brussels on 15 November 1978, of Moroccan extraction...He had, among other things, a vice conviction in 2003...When he was arrested in 2008, police found 2,800 cannabis plants he was growing in a warehouse. They also found 10 guns and 9,500 gun parts...."

Apparently an appeals court let him out early from his 2008 five year sentence.

The arsenal included a Law rocket launcher, an AK-47 assault rifle, a sniper rifle, a K31 rifle, a Fal assault rifle and hundreds of cartridges, Le Soir newspaper reports.
Posted by: Lord Garth || 12/14/2011 16:47 Comments || Top||

#4  D *** NG IT, BELGIUM ISN'T SUPPOSED TO GO MUSLIM = MAJORITY-MUSLIM UNTIL 2020 OR AFTERWARD!

I distinctly recall MEMRI Artics inferring that Muslims need only have lots of sex + kiddies + legal Sharia [Political-Legal Jihad] to take over the US + Europe.

> IIRC Germany by 2040-2050.
> US by 2070.

DEFENSE-LESS IRELAND, SURRENDER-HAPPY FRANCE TO SAVE EUROPE.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/14/2011 22:17 Comments || Top||

#5  {PHILIPPINES EX-USCG CUTTER(S) VS, CHINA'S VARYAG = "SHILENG" CV, TYPE 095 SUBS here].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/14/2011 22:20 Comments || Top||


Swiss charge three men in nuclear smuggling case
[Pak Daily Times] Three Swiss engineers - a father and his two sons - have been charged with breaking arms export laws by aiding a Pak-led nuclear smuggling ring that supplied Libya's atomic weapons programme, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The men's formal indictment follows almost a decade of politically-charged investigation that lifted the veil on one of the most successful international intelligence operations to stop nuclear proliferation to rogue states.

Urs Tinner, 46, his brother Marco, 43, and their father Friedrich, 74, are suspected of providing technology and know-how to the nuclear smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the architect of Pakistain's nuclear weapons programme, the federal prosecutors office in Bern said in a statement.

"Based on the results of the inquiries, offences of forgery, money laundering and pornography - in the case of one person only - were investigated," prosecutors said. "The criminal proceedings were further expanded to include a fourth person suspected of offences against the War Material Act, although this person played only a subordinate role."

Prosecutors said the Tinners have agreed to request a shortened legal procedure that could ensure politically sensitive aspects of the investigation aren't discussed in court. The unidentified fourth defendant will be charged in separate legal proceedings with breaking Swiss arms exports laws, prosecutors said.

The Tinners, from eastern Switzerland,
...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, banking, and William Tell...
have been under investigation by Swiss authorities for almost a decade over their involvement in the Khan smuggling ring. Khan sold key equipment such as centrifuges for uranium enrichment to various countries until his operation was disrupted in 2003.

Urs Tinner, who was released on bail in December 2008 after almost five-year in investigative detention, claimed in a 2009 interview with Swiss TV station SF1 that he had tipped off US intelligence about a delivery of centrifuge parts meant for Libya's nuclear weapons programme. Their father had been earlier released in 2006, according to prosecutors.

Marco and Urs lodged a claim with the European Court of Human Rights over the lengthy period behind bars but the Strasbourg court ruled in April that their rights had not been violated.

The shipment was seized at the Italian port of Taranto in 2003, forcing Libya to admit and eventually renounce its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

The CIA has declined to comment on the Tinner case. But the agency has said in the past that "the disruption of the AQ Khan network was a genuine intelligence success, one in which the CIA played a key role."

A book by US investigative news hounds Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, titled "The Nuclear Jihadist" and based on interviews with sources in the US intelligence community, backs Urs Tinner's claim that he was recruited by the CIA as early as 2000.

Swiss prosecutors said in their statement on Tuesday that the question of the Tinners' cooperation with the CIA remained unresolved, because the Swiss government denied a request to open a criminal investigation into the issue.

In 2007, the Swiss government ordered evidence in the case destroyed, citing national security concerns. The decision prompted outrage in Switzerland and accusations the government had acted under pressure from Washington.

Prosecutors said they were able to recover copies of some of the files, but others - including all electronic records - have been "definitively lost."
Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336094 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


India-Pakistan
Seminary raid: Police registers case against five suspects over torture
KARACHI: Gulshan-e-Maymar police have started the paperwork but haven't done much else against five suspects for torturing and illegally confining at least 68 people, including children, in the basement of their seminary situated in Gadap Town.

An FIR (273/11) was lodged against five suspects namely Qari Usman (placed in durance vile), Mufti Daud, Qari Abdullah, Qari Qudratullah and Maulana Fakharuddin under sections 342, 344, 506-B, 337-1/34 as raids for the arrests of absconding suspects were being carried out.

Needless to mention, some 68 people, including 14 children, were recovered from a seminary known as Jamia Masjid Zakaria Kandhelwi Madrasa Arabia situated in Afghan Basti in a raid conducted by the Gulshan-e-Maymar police late Monday night.

Most of those salvaged belonged to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
and Punjab whereas a few hailed from Afghanistan with their families living within the city. The people, aged between 12 to 55 years, were either chained up or had torture marks. In a development on Tuesday, their relatives reached the cop shoppe claiming that they had sent them to the seminary on their own accord as they were either drug addicts or involved in criminal activities. Some older men were staying in the seminary on their own will besides children who were refused to be brought up by their parents.

Most of the recovered men blamed the seminary's administration for torturing them. They had been jugged for last several months being subjected to torture and malnutrition.

The men were kept in a 150 square yards basement beneath the seminary spread over 2,000 square yards. A signboard was also placed outside which read: 'Drug addicts are treated here'.

Most of the recovered men said that they saw the sky after a long period. They said they were given scanty rusk in the breakfast besides some insipid food in lunch and dinner and sometimes nothing to eat.

Detained Qari Usman said that he joined the seminary two months ago rebuffing its involvement in any criminal activity. He said the administration charged Rs 3,000 to Rs 15,000 from the guardians in the heads of treatment, food and Islamic studies besides free of cost rehabilitation for some deserving men.
Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336084 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan


Policeman, five terrorists killed in Peshawar encounter
[Pak Daily Times] A policeman and five bad boyz were potted during a shootout at Badabar area here on Monday, police sources said. The encounter started when beturbanned goons equipped with automatic arms started firing at a police party at Aziz Market on Frontier Road, killing constable Hayat Khan. In retaliation, five beturbanned goons were also reportedly killed, whose bodies were taken away by their aides. Police cordoned off the area and started investigation.
Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336089 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Terrorists blow up girls school in Tank
[Pak Daily Times] Unidentified beturbanned goons on Tuesday blew up Government Girls High School in village Amakhel in Mulazai jurisdiction, however, no casualty was reported. DSP Basheer Khan told media the beturbanned goons had planted an bomb on the outer-wall of the school and detonated it with a remote-control device, causing damage to the structure of the building. Later, police cordoned off the area and defused another bomb. Police have started the paperwork but haven't done much else against unidentified outlaws and started investigation.
Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under: TTP

#1  Do they pre-wire those Girls Schools?
Seems every one is "Blown Up".
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 12/14/2011 11:09 Comments || Top||

#2  You have to be a special kind of bad guy to blow up a girls school.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 12/14/2011 16:35 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Abbas raises Palestinian flag at UNESCO, eyes more
[Pak Daily Times] President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
symbolically hoisted the Paleostinian flag at the headquarters of the UN cultural agency on Tuesday calling it the first step to international recognition for Paleostine.

Some 50 diplomatic guests watched as Abbas lifted the flag while the Paleostinian national anthem was played at UNESCO's headquarters in Gay Paree, through biting wind and pouring rain. "It is moving to see our flag raised and for it to be flying in this beautiful city of Gay Paree among all the other states. This bodes well for Paleostine becoming a member of other international institutions," Abbas told UNESCO ambassadors.

The Paleostinians won admission to the United Nations
...Parkinson's Law on an international scale...
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in October, a move that prompted the United States to cut off funding to the agency. Abbas said they intended to apply to 16 other international institutions for full membership. The UNESCO vote was a diplomatic victory for Abbas, who in the absence of peace talks with Israel has pushed for recognition of a Paleostinian state at the United Nations, a move opposed by the Jewish state and by Washington. "Israel regrets that an organization responsible for education and science was at the heart of making a decision based on science fiction by integrating an entity that has no legal status as a state," the Israeli embassy in Gay Paree said.

In a move that has split the UN Security Council, Abbas is pressing for statehood without waiting any longer for a breakthrough in negotiations with Israel on a peace treaty to end the 63-year-old Middle East conflict. "We welcome any step that bolsters the Paleostinian entity and demand the international community break its silence on the Israeli occupation, end its bias and recognize the full rights of the Paleostinian people," said Ismail Haniyeh
...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank...
, head of the Hamas administration in Gazoo which is a rival of Abbas' Fatah.
Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336083 views] Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority


Southeast Asia
Thai terrorists attack military outposts
Terrorists Insurgents launched bomb and gun attacks on two military outposts in Narathiwat province early yesterday but caused no injuries.

The first attack took place at the office of the Suvaree tambon administration organisation (TAO), which houses a military outpost. An improvised bomb, planted near the wall of the TAO, went off at 2 a.m. Nearby, another bomb exploded at the same time.

The assailants then threw a grenade onto the roof of the office. This caused the soldiers to return fire. The attackers retreated. There were no casualties.

The explosions left two holes in the wall and damaged the TAO office and equipment. Pieces of metal and batteries were found scattered around the area.

Soon afterwards, another group of attackers in a pickup truck fired an M79 grenade into another military outpost, about 2 km from the first outpost, but the grenade missed the target. A roadside rubber tree was felled to block the route, about 1.5 km from the second military outpost.

Police said the attacks were believed to be by members of the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK) terrorist separatist movement.

A police investigation revealed that 40-50 heavily armed RKK terrorists insurgents split into three groups to carry out the attacks. One of the groups planted two bombs near the wall of the TAO. Police believe the attackers wanted to use the explosions to damage the wall before they stormed the outpost. Since the impact of the explosions was strong enough, the attackers threw a grenade into the outpost.

Another group of terrorists insurgents attacked the second military outpost to prevent authorities from sending troops to help those in the first outpost.

Pol Col Sathanfa said the attacks were well planned. He believed they might have been carried out by the same group of terrorists insurgents who raided a military base in Narathiwat on Jan 19. Four soldiers were killed and six others injured in the raid.

In Pattani province, resident Wirat Bamrungwong, 43, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting yesterday morning. He was attacked by two men on a motorcycle while on his way to work.

Also in Pattani, Sompob Yuseng, 45, a fish trader, was discovered dead with bullet wounds to the head and body on a local road on Monday evening. His relatives said he left home on a pickup truck about 3 a.m. on Monday to buy fish at the market. His vehicle had been stolen.

Thailand's cabinet yesterday extended the executive decree on public administration in emergency situations in the three southernmost provinces for another three months to March 19. The current emergency decree, which permits authorities to arrest and detain suspects without court approval, expires next Monday.
Posted by: ryuge || 12/14/2011 00:27 || Comments || Link || [336083 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran UAV Will Not Expose Latest Technology
The crash of a stealthy RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aircraft in Iran is revealing details about U.S. intelligence monitoring of that increasingly bellicose and isolated nation.

Among these clues is evidence that Washington has been conducting intelligence-gathering overflights with both stealthy and nonstealthy unmanned aircraft to observe Tehran’s military developments. That a Sentinel was involved is important because the Lockheed Martin-built flying wing currently carries a full-motion video (FMV) payload

FMV is the key to activity-based intelligence analysis, the same discipline that revealed Osama bin Laden’s hiding place. Both the CIA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) see activity-based intelligence as the path to better monitoring of Iran, and they are busy expanding that capability.

Early on, officials said the crashed aircraft was possibly the Lockheed Martin Sentinel. That initial hesitation by the U.S. to confirm the downed unmanned aircraft as an RQ-170 indicates there are other aircraft monitoring Iran as well. Moreover, the intelligence community indicated that missile testing in eastern Iran was at least one of the targets of interest for Sentinel when it carried a different payload.

Yet there appears to be no panic in the military or aerospace industry about any loss of stealth or advanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) technology in the crash.

“The Iranians don’t have the ability to reverse-engineer it, and there was no fancy [ISR] technology on board,” says a veteran intelligence specialist with insight into the program. “There could be a bit of a problem if the Russians or Chinese get the [airframe].”

Video released by the Iranian government shows the airframe intact, but with the landing gear and bottom of the Sentinel hidden. Specialists say the aircraft was not shot down because there is no blast or fire damage. The lack of crash damage would indicate the standard UAV flight-termination procedure after an airborne mishap of going into a flat spin. The video also shows an F-117 type grill work over the engine intake to avoid radar reflections from moving parts on the face of the engine. A Lockheed Martin stealth specialist contends that it’s still an acceptable idea if the size of the aircraft is constrained and it has “big, fat, round leading edges” to further attenuate radio-frequency reflections.The RQ-170, equipped with a full-motion video sensor, was a key element in the Osama bin Laden raid in Pakistan. Perhaps the most important detail that emerged from the raid was how much its planning relied on activity-based intelligence. Bin Laden was never seen, but the coming and going of important people revealed that he was there. Much of the critical information was gathered by the FMV sensor system and the data was analyzed by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The need for even more sophisticated activity-based intelligence is being emphatically touted by NGA.

“We’re moving into more of an anticipatory [style of operations],” a senior agency official says. “We look at key intelligence questions and bring as many pieces of information together as we can by using multi-intelligence fusion and nontraditional sources.” The bin Laden residence was identified by “pattern of life activity, and [the NGA] worked with the assault team to look at the best way to get there,” the official says. Information developed from the data included flight path and acoustics modeling, line-of-sight analysis, landing-zone surveys and calculating the heights of walls, as well as the locations of entryways, windows and doors.


Posted by: || 12/14/2011 14:27 || Comments || Link || [336113 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Iran PRESENTLY may indeed not have the technological proficiencies to "reverse engineer" the captured drone, but as an MAJOR OPEC/OIL STATE IT CERTAINLY HAS THE $$$ TO HIRE FOREIGN PERTS THAT CAN + WILL.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/14/2011 19:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Posted by: Sgt. Hicks || 12/14/2011 20:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

But they may have moved it! Whatever shall we do . . . .
Posted by: gorb || 12/14/2011 22:27 Comments || Top||

#4  "disperse for maximum effect"
Posted by: Frank G || 12/14/2011 22:33 Comments || Top||

#5  USB port on side marked " download Kim Kardasian sex tape here" still powering up. Warning NSFM - not safe for mosque
Posted by: Capsu78 || 12/14/2011 23:59 Comments || Top||


Blast Hits Gas Pipeline in Homs
[An Nahar] An kaboom destroyed a gas pipeline near the town of Rastan in Syria's flashpoint Homs province, the official news agency SANA reported Tuesday, blaming the overnight incident on "terrorists."

"An armed terrorist group in Homs bombed the gas pipeline near Rastan which caused kabooms and fires in the pipeline at the point of bombing," the English-language report said, adding that "no human casualties were reported."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the kaboom and cited an activist in Homs as asserting that "neither the revolutionaries nor the (army) deserters are behind the blast."

Homs, one of the main hubs of the unprecedented demonstrations against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
's regime, has been besieged by security forces and loyalist militias for months.

It has also seen violent festivities between regular troops and army deserters who defected after refusing orders to fire on unarmed protesters.

The Britannia-based Observatory said the pipeline hit by the blast carried gas between the towns of Rastan and Talbisseh in Homs, a region seen as staunchly opposed to Assad's rule.

The kaboom is the fourth reported attack on energy infrastructure since the outbreak of the pro-reform protest movement in mid-March.

On December 8, SANA said armed "terrorists" blew up an oil pipeline west of Homs, but the Local Coordination Committees, which organizes anti-regime protests accused Assad's government of deliberately destroying the pipeline to punish local residents for their dissent.

On July 13, activists said a gas pipeline went kaboom! in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, home to Syria's oil and gas fields.

And on July 29, SANA reported an attack by a subversive group against an oil pipeline also near Homs.

According to an industry expert in Damascus
...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations...
, Syria's oil output has slumped to 120,000 barrels per day from 340,000 bpd before the unrest due to narrowing exports in line with sanctions against Assad's regime.

Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  I'm sure Fred would not post a duplicate of yesterday's article, which noted it was the second boom in a week. So this must make blast #3. But #2 was also near Rastan...
Posted by: Bobby || 12/14/2011 6:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Bobby, yesterday's story ultimately came from Rooters, via the Jerusalem Post. Today's ultimately came from the SANA news agency. Multiple sources for the same story is a good thing, increasing the odds that it actually occurred as reported. Also, this story gives a lot of detail not present in yesterday's.
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/14/2011 9:47 Comments || Top||


Opposition Says Syrian Forces Killed Saudi-Turkish Citizen
[An Nahar] Syrian security forces killed a Saudi-Turkish citizen during a crackdown on an anti-regime protest in northwest Syria Tuesday, local Syrian opposition sources said.

The dead man, Mohammed Munir Dolar, was traveling in his vehicle in Kafr Yahmul, a town of Idlib province close to Turkey, when he was shot by security forces, who opened fire on protesters at around 1100 GMT, the sources told Agence La Belle France Presse on condition of anonymity.

The man was not attending the demonstration, sources said without elaborating.

The Turkish foreign ministry was not immediately able to confirm the information. But the Turkish embassy in Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
was trying to reach Syrian authorities to get more information after Syrian Orient TV reported that a Turkish citizen had died, a Turkish diplomat said.

A Turkish truck driver has already come under gunfire on Monday in Syria before he returned to Turkey, the diplomat said.

The incidents come as ties between Turkey and Syria are strained after Ankara urged an end to the Syrian authorities' bloody crackdown on protesters and asked Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
to step down.

Syria on the other hand denounced the infiltration of "terrorists" into Syria from Turkish soil.

Meanwhile Syrian state-run SANA news agency said Tuesday border guards rubbed out two "terrorist" infiltrators who were attempting to enter Syria from Turkey.

Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336084 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


33 Civilians, 7 Regime Troops Killed
Army defectors on Tuesday killed seven members of Syria's security forces in retaliation for an attack that cost the lives of 11 civilians, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as the Local Coordination Committees said Syrian forces rubbed out 33 civilians across the country on Tuesday.

The LCC, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces rubbed out 20 people in the northwestern province of Idlib, seven in the central province of Hama, four in the central region of Homs and two in the southern province of Daraa.

"Seven security force members were killed in an ambush by deserters on a convoy patrolling the Idlib-Bab al-Hawa road in response to the martyrdom of 11 civilians this morning," the Observatory said in a statement received by Agence La Belle France Presse.

Security forces backed by pro-regime Shabiha hard boyz killed 11 people and maimed dozens of others in two villages of northwestern Idlib province, the Observatory said in an earlier statement.

"Eleven people were killed and dozens others maimed Tuesday by gunfire from security forces and the Shabiha in the areas of Maarret Masrin and Kfar Yahmul," the Britannia-based group said.

And state-run SANA news agency said guards rubbed out two "terrorist" infiltrators who were attempting to enter Syria from across the northern border with Turkey.

"Border guards' forces in Idlib today foiled an infiltration attempt by an armed terrorist group into the Syrian lands through Ain al-Bayda site of Badama, Idlib" province, said SANA.

"Border Guards' forces clashed with 15 terrorists... killing two of them and wounding the others," said the report in English.

Syria on December 6 reported its forces thwarted a similar infiltration bid by "armed terrorist groups" in the same area, saying an unspecified number of the 35 gunnies were maimed and the rest decamped back to Turkey.

Turkey says that around 7,500 Syrians have decamped across the border with its southern neighbor in the face of a bloody protest crackdown the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
estimates has killed more than 5,000 people since mid-March.

Colonel Riyadh al-Asaad, who heads the Free Syrian Army, is based in a Turkish border camp and, unlike some other dissidents, has called for foreign air strikes.

Posted by: Fred || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336127 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Violence in Syrian border province leaves 28 dead
BEIRUT: Syrian security forces fired on a funeral procession in a restive northwestern border region, killing two people and raising Tuesday's death toll to at least 28, activists said.

The flare-up of violence in Idlib province highlighted how Syria's uprising, which earlier this year involved mostly peaceful demonstrations in small towns and cities, has become a virtual insurgency in the countryside along the Turkish border.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and other Syrian activists said thousands of people were taking part in the funeral in the city of Idlib of civilians killed there earlier in the day when the gunfire erupted.

Regime forces swept through villages in the area near the Turkish frontier and attacked infiltrators at the border, and anti-regime fighters staged a retaliatory ambush and assassinated a senior officer earlier Tuesday, the reports and Syrian media said.

Military defectors known as the Free Syrian Army have found shelter alongside thousands of Syrian refugees on the Turkish side, making use of mountainous terrain, local smuggling networks and support among villagers on the Syrian side to stage cross-border attacks.

President Bashar Assad's forces have responded with stepped-up border patrols and reprisal raids on villages where anti-regime protests have been frequent.

The deadliest incident in the past two days took place in two villages near the Turkish border early Tuesday, after security forces entered and shot two civilians dead, said Rami Abdul-Rahman of the British-based Syrian Observation Center.

Residents of Maaret Musreen and Kfar Bahmoul responded by closing a main road to the Syrian troops, who then opened fire at random, he said, killing 11 civilians died and wounding 26.

The observatory said security forces also killed three other people in the provincial capital of Idlib and two in the central province of Homs. The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, gave a similar death toll.

Later in the morning, army defectors retaliated by attacking a security convoy in the nearby town of Bab el-Hawa, killing seven troops, Abdul-Rahman said.

Syria's state media, for its part, reported that border guards intercepted 15 gunmen trying to infiltrate from Turkey on Monday night. It said two were killed in the ensuing firefight and others were injured. It was the second such infiltration attempt from Turkey in a week.

SANA also reported that "armed terrorists" -- its usual term for regime opponents -- shot and killed Brig. Gen. Ghanem Ibrahim Al-Hassan, who teaches at the Assad Military Engineering Academy in the town of Saraqeb in Idlib.
Posted by: Steve White || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:


US-born Syrian blogger jugged
In Damascus Tuesday, a prominent US-born Syrian blogger and press freedom campaigner was charged by Syrian authorities with trying to incite sectarian strife. The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression in the Arab World said Razan Ghazzawi also was charged with spreading false information and weakening national sentiment — a charge often leveled against those who challenge the Syrian regime.

The charges could carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years. The statement issued Tuesday by the SCM, where Ghazzawi worked, said she denied the charges. She was arrested Dec. 4 at the border while on her way to Jordan for a conference on press freedom.
Posted by: Steve White || 12/14/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336085 views] Top|| File under:



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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.
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In no particular order...
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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2011-12-14
  33 Civilians, 7 Regime Troops Killed
Tue 2011-12-13
  Mexican Army bags 11 bad guys in Tamaulipas state
Mon 2011-12-12
  Mysterious explosion kills 7, injures 16 in Iran
Sun 2011-12-11
  Syrian Opposition Reports Deputy Defense Minister Killed
Sat 2011-12-10
  Rival Yemeni forces said to quit streets of Taiz city
Fri 2011-12-09
  Twenty trucks torched in attack at Nato terminal in Quetta
Thu 2011-12-08
  Yemen's unity government announced
Wed 2011-12-07
  New coalition government formed in Yemen
Tue 2011-12-06
  Afghanistan: Kabul shrine attacks 'kills 34'
Mon 2011-12-05
  France Reduces Tehran Embassy Staff after Attack on British Mission
Sun 2011-12-04
  Iran police arrest 12 over embassy rally
Sat 2011-12-03
  US Hands Over Camp Victory to Iraq
Fri 2011-12-02
  Syria Sanctions Target Assad Brother, 16 Other Senior Figures
Thu 2011-12-01
  UK expels Iran diplomats after embassy attack
Wed 2011-11-30
  Egypt's elections go smoothly amid protests

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