[An Nahar] When fighting in Sudan erupted in mid-April, Abdel-Rahman Sayyed and his family tried to hold out hiding in their home in the capital, Khartoum, as the sounds of explosions, shootouts and the roar of warplanes echoed across the city of 6 million people.
They lived right by one of the fiercest front lines, near the military's headquarters in central Khartoum, where the army and a rival paramilitary, the Rapid Support Forces, battled for control. Three days into the conflict, a shell hit their two-story home, reducing much of it to rubble.
Luckily, Sayyed, his wife and three children survived, and they immediately fled the war-torn city. The problem was, their passports were buried under the wreckage of their home.
Now they are among tens of thousands of people without travel documents trapped at the border with Egypt, unable to cross into Sudan's northern neighbor.
"We narrowly escaped with our lives," the 38-year-old Sayyed said in a recent phone interview from Wadi Halfa, the closest Sudanese city to the border. He said he was stunned that Egyptian authorities wouldn't let his family in. "I thought we would be allowed in as refugees," he said.
Two months in, festivities continue to rage between the two rival forces in Khartoum and around Sudan, with hundreds dead and no sign of stopping after talks on a resolution collapsed. People continue to flee their homes in droves: This week the total number of people displaced since fighting began April 15 rose to around 2.2 million, up from 1.9 million just a week earlier, according to U.N. figures. Of the total displaced, more than 500,000 have crossed into neighboring countries, while the rest took refuge in quieter parts of Sudan, according to the U.N.
More than 120,000 Sudanese without travel documents are trapped in Wadi Halfa and surrounding areas, according to a Sudanese migration official, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... because he wasn't authorized to brief media. Among them are those who never had a passport or whose passport expired or was lost during the rush to escape.
Wadi Halfa, which normally has a population of few tens of thousands, is also flooded by huge crowds of Sudanese men, women and kiddies who do have their passports but must apply for visas at the Egyptian Consulate in the town to cross the border. Getting a visa can take days or even longer, leaving families scrambling for accommodation and food, with many sleeping in the streets.
Calls are growing for Egypt to waive entry requirements. The Sudanese American Physician Association, a U.S.-based NGO, called on the Egyptian government to allow those fleeing the war to apply for asylum at the borders.
Instead, the Egyptian government last week stiffened entry requirements. Previously, only Sudanese men aged 16-45 needed visas to enter Egypt. But on June 10, new rules require all Sudanese to get electronic visas. Ahmed Abu Zaid, a front man for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, said the measures are aimed at fighting visa forgery by groups on the Sudanese side of the borders.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The Ministry of Fisheries denounced the attack on a number of Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... i fishermen by the Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... n forces during a fishing trip in Yemeni territorial waters.
The ministry said in a statement, Thursday, that the fisherman, Malik Muhammad Abdullah Jerd, from the al-Khawkhah district in Hodeidah, was maimed, while his six companions were forcibly detained in Eritrean prisons.
The Ministry affirmed that this attack and the crimes of Eritrean forces and its blatant attacks against Yemeni fishermen constitute a flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law, calling on the international community and human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... organizations to take action to stop these ongoing crimes against Yemeni fishermen.
The Ministry praised the Yemeni fishermen’s pride in their profession, and their reliance on it to provide food for their families in light of the aggression and blockade, calling on the Eritrean side to stop its violations against fishermen and respect the maritime interests in international waters.
The Ministry of Fisheries called on the international community to take a clear and frank stance to hold the Eritrean authorities accountable for their aggressive actions against fishermen in the territorial waters, stressing that Yemen will strongly defend its people and protect its territorial waters.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Houthis
#1
No mention is made of the actual location of the event. This struggle over fishing rights is now thirty years along. The Hanish Islands dispute was resoved to favor Yemen, but it may well be that Yemini fishermen are poaching in Eritrean waters.
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] Insan Rights and Freedoms Organization has revealed the crime of kidnapping and torturing an Egyptian citizen and her daughter by the authorities loyal to the Saudi-led coalition in the city of Ma’rib.
The organization stated that the Egyptian citizen, Sahar Ragab Abdulmohsen, who is married to a Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... i citizen, along with her five-year-old daughter, Sama, had come to the organization to report that she was kidnapped on December 16, 2018, while traveling from Seiyun Airport to Ibb province, her husband’s hometown, and she was six months pregnant.
According to the organization, the Egyptian citizen testified about the physical and psychological torture she was subjected to during the five years in the Political Security prison in the city of Ma’rib and the denial of communication with her family, in addition to the crime committed against the child Sama, who was born and lived in prison conditions with her mother, which is a violation of human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... .
The Insan organization quoted the Egyptian woman’s testimony about the disastrous situation that women suffer from in the Political Security prison in Ma’rib.
The organization called for an immediate end to these violations, including the enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests, which are carried out by the authorities in Ma’rib and have become systematic without accountability or consideration for human values and morals.
It also called for the speedy formation of an independent international commission to investigate all crimes committed by the Ma’rib authorities, especially those committed against children, women, and detainees in their prisons.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Southern Transitional Council
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The UAE occupation has continued to tamper with the Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... i island of Socotra by plundering the natural resources and capabilities of the archipelago and transporting them via fat merchantmen to Abu Dhabi.
Sources familiar with the Yemeni island of Socotra said the fat merchantmen through local and Emirati investors, during the past weeks, transported hundreds of tons of coral reef stones, Otherwise known as rocks
which were thrown by the sea to the coast of Socotra, during stages of hurricanes and tides that the archipelago has been exposed to recently.
Environmental protection experts warned of the absurd practices of the UAE, which pose a threat to marine life, especially in light of the continued transfer and export of the archipelago’s wealth, and the possibility that it may reach the extraction of coral stones from the depths of the sea in the future.
According to observers, the UAE, which is viewed by the local population of the island and Yemenis in general as an occupying power, has stolen perennial trees, quantities of coral reefs, rare birds and other unique components of the island, since the first day of its control of the Socotra Archipelago in April 2016.
The environmental destruction operations that Socotra Island is exposed to take place in the shadow of the silence of the "government" loyal to the Saudi-led aggression.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Houthis
[An Nahar] A federal judge in Argentina ...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita... has called on Interpol to detain four Lebanese citizens, so they can be questioned for their suspected role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center that killed 85 people.
"Regarding these individuals, there are well-founded suspicions that they are collaborators or operational agents of the ... armed wing of Hezbollah," judge Daniel Rafecas wrote in a resolution dated June 13 that the News Agency that Dare Not be Named obtained Thursday.
Argentine prosecutors have long alleged that Iranian officials used the Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... -based Hezbollah to carry out the deadly attack. Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today 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. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... has long denied any involvement in the incident.
Both the United States and Argentina have designated Hezbollah as a "terrorist" organization.
Most of the Lebanese citizens now being sought by Rafecas have ties to the porous tri-border region that connects Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay and that the United States has long said is a hub for "terrorism" financing.
Rafecas has called for the detention of Hussein Mounir Mouzannar, who has a Paraguayan national ID and could be living either in Paraguay or Brazil, as well as Farouk Abdul Hay Omairi, a naturalized Brazilian citizen whose last known address was on the Brazilian side of the tri-border region.
The other two people who are sought for questioning are Ali Hussein Abdallah, a naturalized Brazilian citizen who has both Brazilian and Paraguayan passports, and Abdallah Salman, who is believed to be living in Beirut.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
In the final years of the Stroessner kleptocracy Paraguay's so-called embassy in Beirut was handing out Paraguayan passports at $5,000 up (and for services rendered often having to do with narcotics trafficking). It was one way to keep Stroesner's Colorado Party people happy and paid-off. The consequence was the emergence of hundreds of Islamic thugs and the regional criminality that dominates eastern Paraguay in the tri-border region. And there they remain to this day.
A 22-year-old former Army soldier has pleaded guilty to trying to help ISIS attack and kill American soldiers in the Middle East.
Cole James Bridges from Stow, Ohio, also known as Cole Gonzales, faces 40 years in prison for 'attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization' and 'attempting to murder U.S. military service members.'
Bridges, who was arrested in January 2021, pleaded guilty on Wednesday before US District Judge Lewis J Liman.
The active-duty soldier was arrested in Georgia after speaking to an undercover FBI agent he thought was a member of ISIS online about plots to blow up New York City's 9/11 Memorial and attack service members in the Middle East.
US Attorney Damian Williams said Wednesday: 'As he admitted in court today, Cole Bridges attempted to orchestrate a murderous ambush on his fellow soldiers in service of ISIS and its violent mostly peaceful mostly peaceful ideology.'
Williams called Bridges' acts a betrayal of his country and thanked prosecutors and the FBI's New York Joint Terrorism Task Force.
'Bridges's traitorous conduct was a betrayal of his comrades and his country. Thanks to the incredible work of the prosecutors of this Office and our partners at the FBI and the U.S. Army, Bridges's malign intent was revealed, and he now awaits sentencing for his crimes, he added.
Bridges was charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and attempting to murder U.S. military service members, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Bridges joined the US Army in September 2019 and was assigned as a cavalry scout at Fort Stewart.
Before his arrest, the then 20-year-old was with the Third Infantry Division out of Georgia when he thought he was communicating with ISIS online about the terrorism plots.
Unbeknownst to Bridges, a federal agent was in on the chat as Bridges provided detailed instructions on tactics and manuals and advice about attacking the memorial and other targets in New York City, Nicholas Biase, a spokesperson for Manhattan federal prosecutors said in 2021.
Around the same time, Bridges allegedly began researching online propaganda promoting jihadists, and expressed his support for ISIS and jihad on social media.
In October 2020, Bridges began communicating with the undercover FBI agent posing as an ISIS supporter in contact with ISIS fighters in the Middle East.
During these exchanges, according to the US Justice Department, Bridges 'expressed his frustration with the U.S. military and his desire to aid ISIS.'
Bridges then allegedly began to supply the undercover agent with instructions for purported ISIS fighters on how to attack US forces serving in the Middle East, and went so far as to diagram specific military maneuvers to maximize the lethality of the attacks.
In the weeks before his arrest, Bridges sent the bogus ISIS supporter video of himself in body armor standing before a flag often used by ISIS fighters and making a gesture symbolic of support for the terrorist organization.
He later sent a second video in which he used a voice manipulator to narrate a propaganda speech in support of the anticipated ambush by ISIS on US troops, according to the federal prosecutors.
Bridges 'further provided advice about the best way to fortify an ISIS encampment to repel an attack by U.S. Special Forces, including by wiring certain buildings with explosives to kill the U.S. troops,' according to the Justice Department.
Bridges is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Liman on November 2, 2023, at 2:00 p.m.
The case will be handed by the Office’s National Security and International Narcotics Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sam Adelsberg and Matthew Hellman are in charge of the prosecution, with help from Trial Attorney Michael Dittoe of the Counterterrorism unit.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
If he blew up the 9-11 memorial, would we need a memorial to the 9-11 memorial?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/17/2023 12:40 Comments ||
Top||
#2
If they blow up the 9-11 Memorial, they should do it on May 7th.
That way it would be the 5-7 9-11 memorial memorial. And a blow for the liberation of odd numbers everywhere.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/17/2023 14:21 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Surprised the FBI didn't tell him to call them back later they might have a job for him.
[NPASYRIA] Jordanian army announced that they downed a drone carrying weapons coming from Syrian territory on Friday.
A military source from the General Command of Jordanian Military Forces said the officers at the border in coordination with the military security services monitored a drone that was trying to cross the border from Syria to Jordan illegally and they downed it inside Jordan.
The Jordanian Ammon news agency reported that after the downing of the drone, the Jordanian army discovered that it was carrying kinds of weapons.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran Proxies
[NPASYRIA] The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Friday they captured two ISIS members in the southern countryside of Hasakah in northeastern Syria.
The operation was launched by the SDF’s Anti-Terrorism Units (YAT), the Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG) of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and the US-led Global Coalition forces.
The operation was conducted on June 14, targeting one of the ISIS "terrorists" in the village of Sabkha in the south of Hasakah, the SDF said in a statement.
"Based on precise information, the joint forces raided the place where the terrorist cell was hiding and arrested two of them," the statement read.
The SDF added that the operation resulted in arresting two ISIS members who were responsible for smuggling members of the group and supplying them with weapons "to conduct terrorist acts targeting our forces and civilians."
The forces confiscated several weapons and military equipment during the operation.
The SDF concluded that their forces are committed to continuing their joint security operations against ISIS terrorist cells in the region until they eradicate ISIS terrorism and bring safety and security.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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[NPASYRIA] Ottoman Turkish forces shelled on Friday the center of a town in the northern countryside of Aleppo, resulting in human and material losses.
Local sources told North Press, "The Ottoman Turkish forces shelled the center of the town of Tel Rifaat in Aleppo northern countryside with many shells."
The sources added that a number of maimed were recorded among residents of the town because the shelling hit a residential area and also targeted the hospital of the town.
The same sources noted that the shelling resulted in material damages to the residents’ properties.
Ambulances were heard rushing to the targeted sites, and the number of maimed has not been known yet, according to the sources.
Since June 12, different areas in northern Syria have been witnessing new Ottoman Turkish military escalation.
Efrin News 24 website said, "A Ottoman Turkish drone targeted a Russian personnel carrier on a route linking between the villages of Herbel and Maarat Umm Hawsh in the northern countryside of Aleppo.
As a result, a Russian soldier was killed and three others were maimed.
The Ottoman Turkish shelling during this week also hit government posts, killing four soldiers and wounding five others in a Ottoman Turkish drone attack in a village in Sherawa region in the countryside of Afrin, northwest Syria.
The town of Tel Rifaat, 35 km north of Aleppo city, has been a shelter for Afrin displaced people since 2018 following the Ottoman Turkish invasion of Afrin and its countryside which resulted in the displacement of about 300.000 of the original inhabitants.
Tel Rifaat and other villages and towns of Aleppo northern countryside, also known as Shahba region, witness Ottoman Turkish bombing and shelling on almost a daily basis.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[NPASYRIA] On Friday, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS, formerly al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front) launched an arrest campaign in the village of Kafarya and the town of al-Fu’ah northeastern Idlib, northwest Syria, following protests that were organized at noon today against the HTS policy in the region.
Security sources told North Press, "The arrest campaign was launched in the village of Kafarya and the town of al-Fu’ah northeastern Idlib and targeted eight people, including two old men and a woman in her forties."
The sources added that the arrests were carried out "under the pretext of incitement for protesting and threatening security in the region in favor of external parties."
The HTS also raided other houses in search of five other wanted people, however, some of the wanted managed to flee to Afrin in northern Syria, according to the same sources.
The protestors demanded that detainees in the HTS prisons under pretext of incitement and sowing disorder are released.
Days ago, the HTS arrested notables, who were displaced from the city of Hama, a defected officer, and leaders from the Ottoman Turkish-backed factions of the Syrian National Army (SNA) under the charges of involvement and fuel the protests against the HTS.
Lately, various areas in Idlib and Aleppo countryside have witnessed protests against arrests carried out by the HTS.
The HTS, founded in 2017, controls the city of Idlib and the western countryside of Aleppo, using the Salvation Government as a political and administrative umbrella since.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (al-Nusra)
As security chaos has been continuing since the government forces took control over #Syria's #Daraa in 2018, this week four killing cases have been recorded in the governorate. https://t.co/z8R6tgK7a3
— NORTH PRESS AGENCY - ENGLISH (@NPA_English) June 16, 2023
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] The MPs of the opposition forces have announced that ex-minister Jihad Azour remains their presidential candidate, in the wake of a 12th electoral session that failed to produce a new president.
"The electoral session has proven, without doubt, that the vast majority of the Lebanese people’s representatives clearly reject the candidate imposed by the (Axis of) Defiance camp, seeing as despite the rallying efforts and all the pressures that were exerted in the past days, he only managed to get 51 votes, in the face of 77 MPs who voted against this nomination, among whom 59 voted for the centrist candidate Jihad Azour," 31 opposition MPs said in a statement.
"An additional number of MPs and blocs had openly announced their intention to vote for him in the second round," the statement noted.
It added that the "approach of obstruction and imposition" was dealt a "resounding blow" in Wednesday’s session, noting that the voting result "practically ended the chances and possibility of imposing the Defiance camp’s candidate on the Lebanese."
"We stress our continuation of calling on everyone to converge on Jihad Azour’s nomination ... and we reiterate that he is the candidate that the opposition intends to intersect on with the aim of leading him to the presidency and launching the needed rescue journey," the MPs added.
The statement was signed by the MPs of the Lebanese Forces A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb... , the Kataeb Party and the Tajaddod bloc, Change MPs Waddah al-Sadek, Michel Doueihi and Mark Daou, and independent MP Bilal Hocheimi.
In addition to the opposition MPs and some independents, the blocs of the Free Patriotic Movement Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic... and the Progressive Socialist Party also voted for Azour in Wednesday’s session.
And as some PSP MPs have reportedly said that Azour’s nomination cannot continue, the FPM’s stance on him remains unclear.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... has escalated drone attacks on Kurdish-held regions of north and northeast Syria this week, killing 16 people including one civilian in a single day, a war monitor said.
The strikes mostly targeted Kurdish-held Tal Rifaat and Manbij in the country's north near the Ottoman Turkish border, areas Ankara has repeatedly threatened to attack.
"Turkey has significantly escalated its dronezaps since the start of the week," with 16 killed on Wednesday alone, said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
The Ottoman Turkish defense ministry meanwhile said its forces had "destroyed terrorist targets" and "neutralized 16 terrorists," referring to Kurdish-led fighters.
Four fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed when "a Ottoman Turkish drone targeted a military vehicle" in Hasakeh province, which is run by a semi-autonomous Kurdish administration, the Britannia-based Observatory said.
The U.S.-backed SDF is the Kurdish administration's de facto army, and its fighters spearheaded the battle 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.... group in Syria, driving it from its last stronghold in the country in 2019.
Ottoman Turkishdronezaps in northern Syria's Aleppo province killed six fighters from the Manbij Military Council, which is affiliated with the SDF, according to a statement from the council.
Four were killed as they were trying to transport children who were maimed in a ground attack to hospital, the Observatory said.
One civilian working for the Kurdish administration was also killed in a strike in the Manbij area, added the Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources on the ground in Syria.
In the mostly Kurdish-held Tal Rifaat enclave, five Syrian soldiers died following "a Ottoman Turkishdronezap on a regime military position", according to the war monitor.
The enclave has Ottoman Turkish-controlled areas to its north and regime-held territory to its south.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2023 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
A 22-year-old former Army soldier has pleaded guilty to trying to help ISIS attack and kill American soldiers in the Middle East.
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang 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 
