PAKISTAN HEDGING ITS BETS – While the political leaders of the country continue to promote dialogue with their Taliban counterparts, the Army is building up a sizable presence near Chaman. Photos and videos of several long convoys of heavy artillery, rocket systems, and trucks filled with infantry have been received since last Sunday’s exchange of fire. The military units were observed passing through Quetta on the way to positions near Chaman. Local sources estimate the garrisons around Chaman have received an additional 20,000 soldiers in the past 96 hours.
KARZAI POPS UP IN TURKEY FOR MEETINGS WITH FORMER OFFICIALS – The former President was photographed in Turkey with former leaders of the previous regime. An aide stated his intentions were to attempt to find a way of establishing a line of communication between the exiled leaders and the Taliban. His trip was planned to ostensibly seek medical care in Germany but his stops in the UAE and, now in Turkey, suggest politics was also a primary purpose. Some in Afghanistan had circulated rumors that he was carrying an olive branch from the IEA to the leaders in exile, but those rumors have not been substantiated and don’t appear to be realistic based on the actions of the Taliban leadership over the past two months.
RESISTANCE FORCES REPUTEDLY RECEIVING FINANCIAL SUPPORT – A source close to the NRF leadership has stated that significant financial support is expected to be turned over in January 2023. It is not clear who is providing the support and how much may have been raised but the source said that ‘realists’ now see the NRF as the only viable alternative for a potential power-sharing agreement. The source said his contacts within the Taliban government have been concerned after the ICC and others announced possible War Crimes investigations could go ahead. The source also mentioned that senior Taliban leaders see ISIS-K as the true enemy of Afghanistan and are interested in potentially working with the Resistance groups to eradicate the threat. The source concluded by saying that collaboration between the Resistance and Taliban to fight ISIS-K is ‘not grounded in reality at this time’. No further information was available.
CONFLICT TRACKER Panjshir: An NRF detachment targeted a Talibqn security vehicle in the Rakheh district with a magnetic mine, Early reports indicate that 9 Taliban security personnel were killed and several others were injured, The blast is said to have occurred near the Golestan Market and was near a cluster of Taliban personnel, Taliban officials have admitted the blast but attributed it to a family rivalry. Helmand: A team from the ALM reported,h assassinated Mullah Qauoum in the Nad Ali district last night at approximately 2000 hrs local time. Other casualties may have occurred, but an accurate count was unavailable.
NEXT 24 HOURS
SPIN BOLDAK-CHAMAN – We still do not know if the border crossing has reopened but talks were held between Taliban and Pakistan interlocuters which are thought to have averted further attacks in the near term. Pakistan military forces are known to have moved into support positions around Chaman but the Taliban seem to be content with the forces they have on hand. At-risk Afghans should avoid the area in the meantime.
by Emad Almarshahi
[HODHODYEMENNEWS] A group of mercenaries travelling to Libya were intercepted by police in Malta last Saturday, the MaltaToday newspaper reported.
According to the paper, the men, understood to be ex-British army soldiers, were arrested boarding a private flight to the North African country, which has been ravaged by civil war in recent years.
Sources told the newspaper that the police had acted on a tip-off about the group, whom they intercepted before they boarded their flight.
The group were later released from arrest, and no charges were filed against them. The group is understood to have already left Malta. The mercenaries were, however, forbidden from using Maltese airspace to travel to Libya.
Various Western mercenaries, operating under the term “private military contractors” have been deployed in combat zones such as Libya. Libya, formerly the most prosperous country on the African continent, has been marred with violence and infighting since a NATO invasion in 2011 overthrew the government in Tripoli.
by Emad Almarshahi
[HODHODYEMENNEWS] Violent clashes erupted on Thursday in the border area of Shehn in Mahrah province, eastern Yemen.
Local sources in the province reported that the clashes broke out between the commander of the border guards loyal to Saudi Arabia, Kamel Za’bnoot, and other militants from “Ra’feet” tribe, to which the pro-UAE governor of Mahrah, Mohammed Ali bin Yasser, belongs .
Various types of light and medium weapons were used in the confrontations, according to the sources.
The sources added that the governor sent a military campaign and tribal mediation to stop the confrontations between the two tribes, stressing that those forces have enhanced their presence at the Shehn crossing.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have plunged Mahrah into the furnace of tribal conflicts and security chaos to achieve American and British interests, which took Al-Ghaydah civil airport as a military base on the Arabian Sea.
[HODHODYEMENNEWS] On Friday, local sources claimed that at least four militia members of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) were killed and three others were wounded in a roadside bomb attack that targeted their vehicles in Abyan. The province in Southern Yemen is under the control of the STC.
According to local sources, al-Qaeda elements targeted “two vehicles belonging to the Fourth Brigade and another vehicle in the 103rd Brigade” affiliated with the STC in Wadi Omran, Mudiyah district. The Al Qaeda cell planted two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on the road.
Sources indicated that the wounded were transferred to Lawdar and Aden hospitals. The same sources also accused pro-Islah elements of being behind the operation.
On Thursday, al-Qaeda elements blew up a bomb planted in a motorcycle while an STC military vehicle was passing through the Jablet al-Wazna al-Humayma area, east of Mudiyah. No causalities have been reported.
The string of IED attacks on the STC’s vehicles in Abyan increased after the UAE’s military operation “Arrows of the East” was launched against Islah militants at the end of last August.
[Rudaw] Eight coppers and a civilian were maimed on Friday when a vehicle went kaboom! in southern The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... ’s Kurdish populated province of Diyarbakir.
"While our police vehicle going on duty in Diyarbakir was passing by, a kaboom occurred in a parked vehicle at 05:10 (02:10 GMT)," Ottoman Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in a tweet.
The Minister added that two people, believed to be the perpetrators of the blast, had been arrested, and announced a thorough investigation into the earth-shattering kaboom.
Diyarbakir Governor Ali Ihsan Su labeled the attack as a "terroristic act" in a statement.
After the blast, an ambulance and police team arrived at the scene of the earth-shattering kaboom.
The Diyarbakir governor’s office said the earth-shattering kaboom had not killed anyone, but nine people who had been in the armored minibus had been taken to hospital.
Turkey's state-owned Anadolu Agency reported that seven out of the nine maimed have been discharged from the hospital, while two are still receiving treatment.
In November, a deadly explosion rocked Istanbul’s famous Istiklal Street, killing at least six people, including two girls aged nine and 15, and injuring a further 81. Turkey has blamed The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Syrian proxies for the blast, while the PKK denies involvement in the attack.
The blast on a road between Diyarbakir and the city of Mardin was the first in the region reported by officials in more than five years.
It came with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... stepping up air strikes against Kurdish forces in northern Syria, and continuing its limited ground campaign in Iraq.
Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than there are in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really most important... threatened to launch a new ground offensive in northern Syria after a November bombing killed six people in Istanbul.
Last Sunday, he told Russian President Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... , a key player in the Syrian conflict, to "cleanse" Kurdish forces from the border region.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, has claimed some of the past bombings in the region.
A remote-controlled bomb went kaboom! on a highway in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire... as an armored police van carrying officers drove past on Friday, injuring all nine occupants, government officials said.
Five people were detained in connection with the attack, which occurred near the predominantly Kurdish-populated city of Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said.
The bomb was placed inside a parked vehicle near a market selling livestock, according to the Diyarbakir governor's office.
Eight coppers and a civilian were taken to hospitals as a precaution but have since been discharged, Soylu said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but Soylu suggested it could be the work of Kurdish Death Eaters, saying the brother of one of the suspects was killed in festivities against them.
Islamic and leftist bandidosturbans have also carried out bombings in the country.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
12/17/2022 15:07 Comments ||
Top||
#5
It looks like we are increasingly getting dragged into the Ukraine-Russian war. A good time to tell the illegal border crossers that they will likely be drafted into the Ukraine-Russian war. Look for the migrants to head back to their country of origin ASAP.
#7
Of course El Paso is in a crisis. Beto didn't get his new job, and went home, that being El Paso. Instant crisis.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/17/2022 17:28 Comments ||
Top||
#8
We have our own local Beto/Stacey: Ammar Campa -Najjar. He's lost to DDHunter, Darrell Issa, and now John McCann in Chula Vista Mayor's race. How does he keep running? His new GF is Sara (Qualcomm Irwin has the Grandpa $) Jacobs. Like Pete, Beto, Stacey, they keep running until the ticks burrow in.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/17/2022 17:40 Comments ||
Top||
A classic case of Love Jihad. The question is whether he did it on his own, or if he was on someone's payroll.
[OneIndia] A minor girl residing in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh was converted to islam and married to a youth by the name Nihal Ansari.
The incident came to light when the mother of the girl approached the police and filed a missing complaint on Tuesday. The police managed to save the girl and arrested the accused.
The mother in her complaint said that Nihal Ansari, a resident of Tilakhwar village in Allahabad district in Uttar Pradesh, befriended the minor girl by luring her with clothes and gifts. She fell for the trap as she belonged to a poor family. The accused then forced her to get into a physical relationship with him. He recorded the act and then blackmailed her with the video. He continued to sexually assault her by threatening to circulate the video on the social media.
On October 30, Nihal Ansari went to the girl's house and threatened the girl to go along with him. He once again blackmailed her saying that he would post her video and circulate it widely on the social media.He then took her to his house where he locked her in a room reports said.
Nihal Ansari would assault the minor girl repeatedly. Later on he began forcing her to convert her religion to his. He also asked the girl to marry him after she converts to Islam. The mother in the complaint said that whenever her daughter would resist Ansari, she would be beaten up.
The worried mother who could not find her daughter set out searching for her. After a lot of searching, the mother came to know where Nihal Ansari had hidden her daughter. She immediately approached the police and filed a missing complaint. The police in turn started the paperwork but haven't done much else against the accused under sections 452, 366, 376 and 506 of the IPC. The girl was handed over to the mother after she underwent medical examination. The accused Ansari was arrested and sent to jail.
[Dawn] A suspect allegedly involved in the killing of a varsity student a day earlier was arrested during an "encounter" which left him injured, the Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... police chief said on Friday.
NED University of Engineering and Technology student Bilal Nasir, 21, was rubbed out at a tea shop near Samama Shopping Mall on Thursday after resisting a robbery attempt.
Addressing a presser at his office today, Karachi Additional Inspector General (AIG) Javed Odho said the suspect was arrested from Super Highway.
He said that a special team led by East Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Syed Abdul Rahim Shirazi was formed on Thursday night which — with the help of witnesses and CCTV footage — arrested the suspect while his accomplice had also been identified.
He said the suspect, identified as Nizamuddin, was a 16-year-old Tajik originally from Afghanistan, adding that his accomplice was also Tajik.
Odho further said that the suspect resided in Jamali Pull area off Super Highway. "The suspect is an undocumented Democrat," he said, adding that officials would soon arrest his accomplice.
At the same time, Odho also urged citizens to avoid showing resistance to robbers.
PROTEST HELD AGAINST KILLING Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory, Igor and Oleg were discussing what the quickest way might be to deal with the monster... students and activist muppets of Islami Jamaat Taleba (IJT) held a demonstration outside NED University on main University Road against Nasir’s killing. They claimed that street crimes had increased on the main thoroughfare.
Speaking on the occasion, Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... (JI) Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem Rehman said officials deputed around the varsity "took huge sums of money in the name of security".
He demanded law enforcement agencies protect the lives of the nation’s children and ensure peace. "We are not demanding charity," he said, pointing out that the police and the Rangers operated using taxpayers’ money.
One side of University Road was closed during the protest, which caused a traffic jam on the busy artery.
[IsraelTimes] Demonstrators chant ’death to the dictator’ in Zahedan, where weekly rallies have been held since security forces killed over 90 on ’Bloody Friday’.
Hundreds erupted into the streets Friday in Iran’s restive southeast, footage shared by human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... groups showed, beginning a fourth month of protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death.
The Islamic Theocratic Republic has seen waves of demonstrations since the September 16 death in jug of Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who had been arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.
Protesters in Zahedan, the Sistan-Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... lovely provincial capital, chanted "Death to the dictator," taking aim at supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini... , according to a video shared by Oslo-based Iran ...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979... Human Rights (IHR) and verified by AFP.
Other images from Zahedan showed crowds of men, some raising posters with anti-regime slogans, and a group of black-clad women marching down what appeared to be a nearby street, also chanting slogans.
Sistan-Balochistan, on Iran’s southeastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistain, had been the site of often deadly violence even before nationwide protests erupted.
The province’s Baluchi minority, who adhere to Sunni Islam rather than the Shiite branch predominant in Iran, have long complained of discrimination.
US-based rights group HRANA said hundreds rallied after Friday prayers in Zahedan, which has seen weekly protests since the security forces killed more than 90 people in the city on September 30, in what has been dubbed "Bloody Friday."
HUNDREDS KILLED
The trigger for that violence was the alleged rape in jug of a 15-year-old girl by a police commander in the province’s port city of Chabahar.
But analysts say Baluchis were inspired by the protests that flared over Amini’s death, which were initially driven by women’s rights but have expanded to include other grievances.
Last week, a holy man was killed after being kidnapped from his mosque in Khash, a town in Sistan-Balochistan.
Zahedan’s chief prosecutor said Tuesday that the killers of holy man Abdulwahed Rigi had been arrested, and accused them of seeking to stir trouble between Sunnis and Shiites.
The largely peaceful demonstrations sparked by Amini’s death have been met with a crackdown by the Iranian security forces that has killed at least 458 protesters, according to a toll issued on December 7 by the Norway-based IHR.
Iran’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, said on December 3 that more than 200 people had been killed in the unrest, including security personnel.
The United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... says Iran’s security forces have arrested at least 14,000 people.
Iran’s judiciary said it has handed down 11 death sentence ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead... s in connection with the protests.
EU SANCTIONS
Iran executed Mohsen Shekari on December 8 and Majidreza Rahnavard on Monday. Both were 23 years old.
Rahnavard was hanged in public rather than in prison as has been usual in the Islamic republic in recent years.
Amnesia Amnesty International said on Friday that at least 26 people were at risk of execution in connection with the protests in Iran, which according to the London-based rights group is already the world’s most prolific user of the death penalty after China.
The crackdown on the demonstrations has led to international condemnation, sanctions and Iran’s removal Wednesday from a UN women’s rights body.
Solidarity protests have also erupted worldwide, and a group of Iranians in Germany on Friday reached the final day of a hunger strike while camped outside their country’s consulate in the city of Frankfurt.
Ultraconservative holy man Ahmad Khatami meanwhile lashed out at the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... after the bloc slapped him with sanctions over what it called "repression against protesters."
Khatami was sanctioned for allegedly inciting violence against protesters, including demanding the death penalty.
During a Friday sermon in Tehran, the holy man said the EU had a "black" human rights record, state news agency IRNA reported.
The EU "is on the top of the list of human rights violators," Khatami charged.
Iran’s foreign ministry on Thursday condemned the EU measures, branding them "unacceptable and groundless."
#1
Arabs to the south, Baluch to the east, Azeris to the north, Kurds to the northwest. The Iranians are surrounded. They survive because they are ruthlessly ethnocentric.
[Rudaw] The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Friday that the Kurdish forces and the global coalition against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) have arrested five suspected operatives of the group in northeast Syria (Rojava) in the last week. Joint operations between both forces were temporarily suspended due to the latest Ottoman Turkish aerial offensive against Kurdish fighters.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... launched an aerial offensive against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Rojava and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Kurdistan Region on November 20. This forced the SDF to pause anti-ISIS operations and joint patrols with the US-led coalition troops.
The SDF and the coalition have recently resumed anti-ISIS activities following a decrease in Ottoman Turkish attacks.
"Since partnered operations to defeat ISIS between the US and SDF resumed on December 8, we have conducted 6 partnered operations, resulting in the detention of 5 ISIS operatives involved in planning attacks on detention facilities holding ISIS fighters and on the Al Hol camp," said CENTCOM in a tweet on Friday.
The SDF’s counterterrorism forces have recently announced the arrest of four ISIS suspects, including an emir.
Turkey has also threatened to launch a ground operation against the SDF in the near future. However, if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... the SDF and the US officials have repeatedly warned that a Ottoman Turkish ground offensive in the area would jeopardize hard-earned gains made in the years-long fight against ISIS.
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 occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than there are in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really most important...
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire....JPG)
...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979...
