#14
The price of Musical Stardom.
From nothing, to # 1 and everything, then the long slow fade into the background as other over take them.
.
A fade that seldom has any periodic monument's fame,other than maybe a bit part in a movie or TV role.
Sad that many of the great ones resort to drugs, or dangerous misadventures and even fewer recover and live to old age.
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POWER OUTAGES WILL INCREASE IN KABUL, POSSIBLY OTHER PROVINCES – The national power utility announced that power outages would be extended soon as consumption has outstripped importation limits under current agreements. Power supplies have been a continuing problem for Kabul since the Taliban came to power and the regime has constantly alluded to ‘technical difficulties’ that have affected delivery to urban areas. Sources in Kabul say that Da Afghanistan Bareshna Shirkat (DABS, the national power company) is facing a lack of trained technicians and is suffering from several unqualified directors who have been inserted into the organization by the Taliban. It is not currently clear what the extended outages will look like for citizens.
TALIBAN LOBBIES HARD TO BE INCLUDED AT UPCOMING SCO MEETING IN KAZAKHSTAN – Members of the Taliban have demanded to be included in the upcoming SCO meetings in order to provide its take on the concerns about security and domestic policies. Most observers see the demand as ‘whistling in the wind’ as the SCO member states appear to have attained consensus over the necessary pre-conditions to engage with the regime. It is unlikely the Taliban will receive an invite.
CONFLICT TRACKER Kapisa: A team of Resistance fighters from the ALF say they have assassinated a Taliban official in the province for forbidding prayers to be held for a killed ALF commander (Akmal Amir) The official was identified as Mullah Zarir. No details were provided about the purported circumstances of his death.
NEXT 24 HOURS
POSSIBLE TERROR THREAT IN GHAZNI, CURFEWS MAY CONTINUE – Sources in Kabul say that a threat was received about a possible ISIS-K terror attack in the Province and that is what prompted the recently imposed curfew. The sources said the identities of several Afghan and Pakistani nationals who are involved in the plot are known and security forces are looking for the men.
[Garowe] In what would be a setback to the ongoing drawdown of troops attached to the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... Transition Mission in Somalia [ATMIS], the al-Shabaab ...... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... Death Eaters on Tuesday raided one of the newly handed over Forward Operating Base [FOB] in Somalia, a country which has been struggling with instability.
According to reports, the Death Eaters raided Gherille Forward Operating Base which was handed over to the Somali National Army [SNA] last week by the Kenya Defense Forces [KDF], who are set to leave the country after a successful tour of duty. The base is one of the seven FOBs which have been handed over to the Somali government.
But reports indicate that a fierce shootout ensued between the Death Eaters and the SNA troops on-site, forcing the snuffies to flee from the area. Gherille Forward Operating Base is located in the Gedo region of Jubaland state which is under the control of Jubaland regional troops.
The attack on the base comes at the time 2,000 soldiers attached to the peacekeeping mission are set to leave the country following the implementation of the Somali Transition Plan [STP]. By the end of September, it is anticipated that an additional 3,000 contingent of the ATMIS soldiers would have left the country on top of the initial 2000.
The drawdown is also coming at the time Somalia is plotting the final assault on the al-Shabaab in Jubaland and Southwest states where some peacekeepers will take part. Regional troops, SNA, ATMIS, and the US Africa Command soldiers are expected to help in the liberation of the remaining parts of Jubaland.
So far, the Somali National Army has not made public the number of casualties in the attempted run over but the al-Shabaab has heightened the scale of the attacks to showcase their ability to sustain operations. The Death Eaters have also been targeting military bases in recent weeks.
The government of Somalia had announced that over 20,000 soldiers had been prepared to take over security responsibilities once ATMIS soldiers leave the country. But there are concerns over the ability of the national army to fully take charge of the bases which will be handed over by December 2024.
An army plane was shot down Tuesday in Sudan’s capital Khartoum as clashes characterized by artillery fire targeting several neighborhoods continued.
According to sources within the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) the pilots of the plane escaped as the plane plummeted towards the ground and were arrested by the RSF forces as soon as they landed.
The RSF has accused the Sudanese army led by Genera; Abdel Fattah al-Burhane of committing "heinous massacres" in Khartoum region in a conflict that has killed nearly 3000 people according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) which also notes that the conflict has displaced over 2.8 million people.
Witnesses also reported that the Army also "launched rockets and heavy artillery" at RSF bases in the centre and north of the capital, a witness said. Homes were damaged and civilians were rushed to one of the few hospitals still operational, another added.
In Khartoum and the western Darfur region, the fighting mainly affected densely populated neighborhoods. The streets are littered with dead bodies and houses have been targeted by missiles, witnesses said.
Trapped by the fighting, civilians have had to ration water, food, electricity and medicine for almost three months.
#1
Reuters, June 27, "Exclusive: Islamists Wield Hidden Hand..." [Another confusing expose]
"The army outnumbers the RSF nationally, but analysts say it has little capacity for street fighting because it outsourced previous wars in remote regions to militias. Those militias include the "Janjaweed" that helped crush an insurgency in Darfur and later developed into the RSF. [Curious. No one else claims this. Most see it as intra-ethnic rivalry.]
"Nimble RSF units have occupied large areas of Khartoum and this week took control of the main base of the Central Reserve Police, a force that the army had deployed in ground combat in the capital. They seized large amounts of weaponry.
But the army, which has depended mainly on air strikes and heavy artillery, could benefit from GIS intelligence gathering skills honed over decades as it tries to root out the RSF.
On June 7, fire engulfed the intelligence headquarters in central Khartoum. Both sides accused the other of attacking the building.
After Burhan and RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, carried out a coup in 2021 which derailed a transition to democracy, Hemedti said the move was a mistake and warned it would encourage Islamists to seek power. [So Hemedti, an ethnic Zaghawa, heads the RSF -- which Reuters claims is the offspring of the Janjaweed. If that is so, why is he fighting the Army's Islamist leadership which created the Janjaweed?]
BREAKING: AL-SHABAAB ambush Special Operations Group of the Kenya Police in Ogor-weyn area of Mandera North. SOG personnel fight back the attackers. pic.twitter.com/BnS9RJWR4t
[NYPOST] The bodies of four men and two women were found lying on the side of a street near the Mexican city of Monterrey with their hands tied after they were possibly tortured and then executed, officials said
The grim discovery was made around 2 a.m. Tuesday in the Residencial Palmas neighborhood in Apodaca, a suburb of Monterrey.
Prosecutors for border state of Nuevo Leon said all the victims appeared to have been shot and had their hands tied.
The men and women, all between 30 and 35 years old, had been kidnapped in two vehicles, lined up against a wall on the banks of the Topo Chico stream, and then executed with a volley of bullets, reported the Spanish-language newspaper El Financiero.
The victims were found lying in the street barefoot, with their hands and feet tied with cords.
The six might have been tortured before being finished off with gunshot wounds to the neck, a source told the outlet.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] A court in Rostov-on-Don considered the publications of Maykop resident Eduard Beshukov on the social network justifying terrorism and containing calls for extremism and sentenced him to seven years in prison.
The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don has sentenced Eduard Beshukov, a resident of Adygeya, on charges of justifying terrorism, inciting extremism and illegal possession of weapons, the press service of the court reported today.
According to the investigation and the court, in March 2021, Beshukov published video materials and comments on the social network that justified terrorist activities, as well as calls for extremist activities. He also kept firearms at his home. The court sentenced him to seven years in prison in a general regime penal colony, according to a message on the court's Telegram channel.
Earlier, the "Caucasian Knot" wrote that Kazikhan Shakhpazov, a resident of Adygea, was sentenced to a large fine on December 20, 2021 on charges of publicly justifying terrorism after comments on the Internet.
[AlAhram] Clashes between French police and rioters de-escalated again overnight, the government said Wednesday, eight days after the killing of a teenager by police sparked the worst urban violence in years.
17 year old French-Algerian known wolf Nahel Merzouk refused to stay pulled over while joy riding without a license with a couple of no doubt equally disreputable buddies in an entirely questionable Polish Mercedes, getting himself killed in the process.
The police remained highly mobilised with 45,000 officers patrolling the streets, the interior ministry said.
Police counted 16 arrests in the night to Wednesday nationwide, it said, of which seven were in or around Gay Paree.
At the weekend peak of rioting, 1,300 arrests were made in a single night.
Eight buildings were damaged Tuesday to Wednesday, 202 bins or other street infrastructure set on fire, and 159 vehicles torched, the ministry said.
Four cop shoppes came under attack, but nobody was injured.
French President Emmanuel Macron suggested on Tuesday that the peak of rioting had passed, although he remained "cautious".
The government has battled riots and looting since an officer killed 17-year-old Nahel M. during a traffic stop on June 27 in a Gay Paree suburb, rekindling long-standing accusations of systemic racism among security forces.
[Dawn] At least four security personnel and a child bit the dust in separate explosions in tribal districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday.
Three security personnel embraced martyrdom in a vehicle-borne suicide kaboom in the Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... area of North Wazoo, the military’s media wing said in a statement.
The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that the jacket wallah intended to target the security forces’ post, but the assailant was timely intercepted by on-duty soldiers who "prevented a major catastrophe".
It stated that 41-year-old Naib Subedar Sahib Khan, a resident of Mianwali, 40-year-old Naik Muhammad Ibrahim, a resident of Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... , and 24-year-old Sepoy Jehangir Khan, a resident of Mardan, embraced martyrdom while three civilians were critically injured in the earth-shattering kaboom. "Security forces of Pakistain are determined to eliminate the menace of terrorism and such sacrifices of our brave soldiers further strengthen our resolve," the statement read.
Police informed that the Bomb Disposal Unit (BDU) of the security forces was clearing the route for a convoy of the security forces when the suicide bomber went kaboom! himself.
They said that a child along with nine other passengers in a van also sustained injuries in the attack, adding that the injured persons were immediately shifted to Mir Ali hospital — a child, however, later succumbed to injuries.
An attendant with one of the injured persons stated that doctors were not present at the hospital neither was any medical equipment available for treatment. They added that the injured persons were later shifted to another nearby hospital.
Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, the pilot and the copilot had both hit the silk.
Jack! Cynthia exclaimed. Do you know how to drive one of these things?
Jack wiped some of the blood from his knuckles.
No, he said. Do you?... a paramilitary official embraced martyrdom and another sustained injuries when an improvised bomb (IED) went off near vehicles of the paramilitary forces in South Waziristan. Police informed that the paramilitary forces were clearing the road when the IED, planted on a roadside, went kaboom!.
[OneIndia] The Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of Kishtwar Police is carrying out raids at the houses of several terrorists, officials said today.
The houses of Manzoor Ahmed alias Tahir Inqalabi, Nazir Ahmed alia Shaheen, Shabir Ahmed alias Junaid, Mohd. Iqbal Rishi, Mohd. Amin Bhat, and Mohd Iqbal are being searched by the SIA, said an official.
He said that the searches were part of an ongoing investigation against the terror groups and the faceless myrmidons who want to disturb peace in Kishtwar.
[Rudaw] Iraq’s border guards on Wednesday were targeted by a drone in Zakho administration’s Batifa town where frequent festivities take place between The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), according to counter-terrorism forces.
The Erbil-based Directorate General of Counter Terrorism (CTD) said in a Facebook post late Wednesday that a military base of the Iraqi border guards located between Dukare and Barushka villages in Batifa district was hit by an explosive-laden drone but "did not cause any casualties."
It is not clear who carried out the aerial attack but the area is known as a war zone frequently bombarded by Turkey on the grounds of targeting the PKK fighters.
CTD described it as a "terrorist attack."
The PKK is an gang struggling for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey but it is listed as a terrorist group by Ankara.
Turkey’s armed festivities with the PKK have turned hundreds of villages in the Kurdistan Region’s border areas into war zones. A large number of them have been evacuated due to constant bombardment.
Turkey has recently upped its attacks against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region. It has also intensified its targeting of Kurdish fighters in northern Syria due to their alleged ties with the PKK.
Iraq’s border guards have in recent years increased their military bases in Duhok province in a bid to minimise the effect of PKK-Turkey festivities on civilians.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/06/2023 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Israel Prime Minister’s Office announces Elizabeth Tsurkov entered Iraq on her Russian passport in March, says it ’holds Iraq accountable for her safety’
Elizabeth Tsurkov, an Israeli Middle East analyst who also holds Russian citizenship, is being held by a radical Shiite militia in Iraq, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Wednesday. Tsurkov visited Iraq "on her Russian passport at her own initiative pursuant to work on her doctorate and academic research on behalf of Princeton University in the US," the PMO said in a statement.
She has been missing for several months, and is apparently being held by Kataeb Hezbollah, a paramilitary group backed by Iran, according to the statement. The group is a distinct entity from the Lebanese Hezbollah. The PMO added that Israel "views Iraq as responsible for her fate and safety."
Continued on Page 49
[IsraelTimes] Protesters close off Tel Aviv’s Ayalon highway; one injured as frustrated driver rams through demonstration; Ben Gvir blasts police’s Eshed for ’surrendering to the left’
The anti-judicial overhaul crowd turns their attention to another excuse to riot.
Thousands of Israelis erupted into the streets and blocked several major highways across the country Wednesday night after Tel Aviv police chief Amichai Eshed announced his resignation from the force, claiming he was removed from his post due to "political considerations" following what critics said was his soft handling of judicial overhaul protesters. The largest demonstration Monday night took place at Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway, where police clashed with protesters blocking traffic. Mounted officers sought to clear the roads and a water cannon was deployed at the scene, but police were struggling to restore order.
One driver stuck in traffic decided to plow through the demonstration, injuring at least one protester before being pulled over and arrested by police.
[IsraelTimes] Demonstrators say Har Hamor, headed by Rabbi Zvi Tau, ’symbolizes the messianic stream that is leading the regime coup’; one protester arrested in attempt to disrupt traffic
Dozens of protesters against the government’s judicial overhaul held a rally Wednesday morning in front of a Jerusalem yeshiva headed by Rabbi Zvi Tau, the spiritual leader of the coalition’s ultraconservative, anti-LGBTQ Noam party and an influential figure for many in the current government.
Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals in action.
Tau, who heads the Har Hamor Yeshiva in the Har Homa Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, is on the most religiously conservative edge of religious Zionism.
He has faced some protests directed against him specifically in recent months, as several people have stepped forward to accuse him of sexual assault. No charges have been filed.
But Wednesday’s protest was directed against Tau’s yeshiva and its ideology and influence, with demonstrators claiming it was leading Israel "in the direction of a halachic state," referring to a state governed by religious Jewish law.
"We came to protest against messianic religious Zionism that is destroying Israel," protester Tamir Levital told Channel 12 news. "The rabbis who educate teenagers here are the same rabbis supplying religious Zionism’s politicians, who are taking Israel in the direction of a halachic state of Jewish supremacism and racism."
Thought crimes must be punished.
Protesters held Israeli flags and smoke flares. One demonstrator was arrested as some attempted to disrupt traffic in the area.
The protest organizers said they chose the location because Har Hamor "symbolizes the messianic stream that is dangerous to the state and leading the regime coup." They charged that if a halachic state is formed, "it won’t include rights for women, LGBTQ people or other minorities — it will include annexation of territories and apartheid. We won’t let this happen."
They argued that Tau and his equally hardline disciples such as Yigal Levinstein were the "spiritual leaders" of a series of senior politicians and ministers in the current government who have been promoting the overhaul, including far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, and the sole Noam party MK Avi Maoz.
At one point, a member of the yeshiva came out and chided the protesters, citing the death last night of IDF soldier David Yehuda Yitzhak during the final stages of Israel’s major counter-terrorism operation in the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp.
"There is a family this morning that became a bereaved family," the person said, according to Channel 12. "You have no boundaries. You have no God."
However, you can observe a lot just by watching... several protesters justified holding protests at this timing, citing the continuation of the overhaul’s legislative efforts and even speculating that the entire Jenin operation could have been intended as a diversion from that legislation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition says the overhaul is needed to rein in an overpowered and biased judiciary. Critics say it will remove crucial checks on government powers and undermine Israel’s democratic foundations, as well as leaving the rights of minorities unprotected.
[IsraelTimes] No injuries caused in shooting attack in northern West Bank; IDF hunts for assailants
Paleostinian button men opened fire from a passing vehicle at a police cruiser and a nearby store in a small Samaritan community in the northern West Bank on Wednesday, the military said.
The shooting attack took place in the Mount Gerizim area, just south of Nablus, and close to the Jewish settlement of Har Bracha. The area is home to a tiny community of Samaritans, known as Shomronim in Hebrew.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it had launched a manhunt for the suspects who carried out the attack and had fled.
Surveillance camera footage without sound showed a white Kia Picanto driving past the store and police vehicle, before people began to flee.
Other videos from the scene showed a shattered window in the store. The IDF said a vehicle in the area was also damaged.
No physical injuries were reported, Israeli medics said.
During the past year, Paleostinian button men have repeatedly targeted military posts, troops operating along the West Bank security barrier, Israeli settlements and civilians on the roads.
The attack came hours after the IDF pulled back from Jenin following a two-day-long incursion targeting terror groups in the Paleostinian refugee camp adjacent to the West Bank city.
[ABC] The U.S. military released dramatic video of a tense encounter on Wednesday over the skies of eastern Syria as Russian fighter jets were seen "harassing" three American military drones carrying out a mission against the Islamic State group, an official said.
In a statement, the U.S. Air Force general in the Middle East labeled the run-in "unsafe and unprofessional behavior" and called on Russia to stop what he called "reckless behavior" that has been carried out by pilots flying over eastern Syria where the U.S. still has 900 troops assisting in anti-terrorism efforts.
The conduct "threaten[s] the safety of both U.S. and Russian forces," he said.
Wednesday's incident is the latest in a string of dozens of what officials describe as provocative Russian flights over eastern Syria, which prompted the U.S. to send F-22 Raptors to deter flights above American military bases there.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
07/06/2023 08:07 ||
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#1
Nobody respects Biden.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/06/2023 12:45 Comments ||
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#2
Why should they?
Posted by: Tom ||
07/06/2023 16:14 Comments ||
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Two members of a medical staff were injured in Turkish shelling of the outskirts of #Kobani city, northern Syria, while they were en route to check for injuries caused by an earlier Turkish shelling. https://t.co/pidYnFf7p7
— NORTH PRESS AGENCY - ENGLISH (@NPA_English) July 5, 2023
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2023 00:00 ||
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Clashes renewed between Syrian government forces and gunmen in the town of Tafas in western #Daraa, resulting in the death of one person.https://t.co/tnMK3gMeqS
— NORTH PRESS AGENCY - ENGLISH (@NPA_English) July 5, 2023
Posted by: Fred ||
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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.
...... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
[NYPOST] The bodies of four men and two women were found lying on the side of a street near the Mexican city of 
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
