[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A Catholic Church-owned mountain that towers nearly a mile high near El Paso, Texas - its giant statue of Jesus Christ for decades drawing faithful to the summit - has been turned by Mexican cartels into a human smuggling stronghold where migrants are robbed, beaten and raped while chasing entry into the US.
Mount Cristo Rey sits largely on American soil - located just inside the border at Sunland Park, New Mexico, where that state, Texas and Mexico all meet along a now-perilous boundary.
The mountain is now totally controlled by Mexican cartels who use it to sneak illegal immigrants into the country - sparking warnings to any visitors.
Officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety gave the DailyMail.com a first-hand look at the peril within Mount Cristo Rey, passing out night vision goggles for a covert helicopter tour after dark - the busiest time for migrant smuggling.
They explained that any green dots we would see through the special gear were smugglers whose body heat was visible with the goggles.
Sure enough, as we looked down at the mountain's Mexican side and put the goggles up to our eyes, the terrain was absolutely crawling in green dots - reminiscent of a scene right of the Hollywood movie 'Sicario.'
With an elevation of 4,675 feet, the highest reaches of the mountain are a no-man's land, with no law enforcement presence - allowing the gang members to rob, beat and sexually assault unchecked.
On the US side, people who live at the base describe the horrors of naked migrant women showing up at their doorsteps covered in blood and begging for help.
In Texas' sixth largest city, Mount Cristo Rey (Spanish for Christ the King) is a religious shrine many of El Paso's Catholic faithful will climb at some point in their lives.
Church-led pilgrimages take place around Easter, often on Good Friday, as the faithful climb the 2.5 miles and 2.5 miles down to remember Christ's journey to Calvary where he was crucified.
The crude trails have Stations of the Cross along the way.
Hiking Cristo Rey during this time is considered safe, as the Catholic diocese provides security for the hundreds who turn out.
But as the Mount Cristo Rey Restoration Committee's official website warns, the rest of the year, 'YOU DO CLIMB AT YOUR OWN RISK!'
'Vandalism, assaults and robberies are still an ongoing problem and visitors are encouraged to visit on days when organized events are being held and security is on site. Please visit the events page to get dates of upcoming events,' the monument's website warns.
Although Border Patrol has long guarded Cristo Rey for illegal border jumpers, activity has spiked since 2021, as the border crisis has brought historic numbers of migrants to the area.
The cartels control the mountain - not US authorities - even though at the summit, the smugglers are in the US illegally.
It has become so out of control that US Border Patrol has ceded the peak to the cartels, agency sources explain.
Teenage scouts who work for the cartels are perched up high most of the day, watching for an opportunity to sneak illegal immigrants down the rugged hills and into the US.
Instead of sending agents racing up and down every time they see a smuggler - which is almost constant - the agency has decided in most cases, that it's a better use of resources to let the migrants come to them.
That's where Border Patrol believes the migrants, not the agents, have tired themselves out - and where resources can be pooled to stop any runaways.
Additionally, dispatching even a handful of agents up the mountain at night would put agents themselves in danger - with the possibility of one-on-one confrontations with cartel members who may or may not be armed.
Smugglers often guide illegal immigrants through Cristo Rey because it appears to be a shorter distance on paper, but it's filled with danger.
'They'll move them through the draws and the canyons in Cristo Rey Mountain system, but even that short trek to get down to McNutt (Road in Sunland Park, New Mexico,) Border Patrol spokesman Landon Hutchens told DailyMail.com.
'It may be linear distance not that long, but when you go over that rough terrain with no shade whatsoever and the ground temperature is 125 degrees on the rocks, it's very easy for migrants to expire in a short distance.'
Once the migrants make it closer to the bottom, agents on foot or on horseback are ready to move in to arrest the illegal border crossers.
Migrants who make it past Border Patrol agents are guided to getaway cars by the smugglers on the mountain.
'Those polleros (smugglers,) they use cell phone to guide the migrants. They tell them, "Just run,"' Hutchens said.
#3
#1 Fort Bliss, next door at El Paso, has the 1st Armored Division.
Wouldn't take much on the Executive to declare the first 3 miles from the border in unincorporated land to be a military zone, then move the necessary force in.
#4
The Texas Army National Guard now has the 3rd Squadron, 278 Armored Cavalry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division based at Fort Hood, Texas.
Gov Abbott should notify National Guard Bureau that he is mobilizing elements of the Squadron in a State Active Duty Status, and put A and B Troops (the ground combat elements) in support of the US Border Patrol to restore order and clear the area. M1A1 Abrahms and Bradly Fighting Vehicles will solve this in an afternoon. Posse Commitatus issues become moot as such activation is strictly governed by state law not federal and the restrictions of Title 10 US Code do not apply. The L.A. Riots give ample proof of how the military support to civil authority role of the Guard is effective in such cases.
[ARABNEWS] A Tunisian appeals court commuted the prison sentence of a TV broadcaster from one year to eight months on Friday, his lawyer told AFP.
Borhen Bssais was initially handed a 12-month sentence under a decree punishing "spreading false information" and "defaming others or damaging their reputation."
"The Court of Appeal in the capital Tunis decided to reduce Bssais’s sentence from 12 months to eight," his lawyer, Nizar Ayed, said.
Bssais was arrested on May 11 and charged with "attacking President Kais Saied through radio broadcasts and statements between 2019 and 2022."
Tunisia’s Decree 54, the law under which Bssais was convicted, was enacted by Saied in 2022 to combat "false news."
But critics have said it has been used to stifle political dissent as the country prepares for a presidential election set for October 6.
Over the past 18 months, more than 60 critical voices have been prosecuted under the decree, according to the National Union of Tunisian Journalists.
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said on Friday she found it "alarming and distressing to witness the drastic rollback of the human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... progress that Tunisia had made since the 2011 revolution."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2024 00:00 ||
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[REUTERS] At least seven Nigerian soldiers were killed after a mine exploded on a highway in Borno state, the hotbed of a Boko Haram militant insurgency, two vigilante officers said on Friday.
Nigeria faces a raft of security challenges including a long-running Islamist insurgency in the northeast, separatist violence in the southeast, rampant oil theft in the Niger Delta and kidnapping for ransom by criminal gangs.
Shaibu Musa, a local vigilante officer helping to combat the insurgents, said a military vehicle was travelling along the road linking the villages of Monguno and Baga on Thursday when the vehicle detonated an improvised explosive device.
The military did not immediately respond to request for comment on the incident.
Another security official, Isa Bukar, said the explosion occurred on Thursday morning after soldiers on patrol triggered the mine, which killed seven of them.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2024 00:00 ||
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[LEADERSHIP.NG] No fewer than 125 Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Death Eaters and financiers have been convicted in the resumed mass trial held over two days in Kainji town, Niger State.
They were convicted of charges bordering on terrorism, terrorism financing, rendering material support, and cases relating to International Criminal Court (ICC) criminality.
The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), is superintending over the trial in conjunction with the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).
The trials, held under Giwa Project Kanji Phase Five, between Tuesday and Wednesday, were before five Federal High Court judges led by Justice Binta Nyako.
Others were Justices Joyce Abdulmalik, Emeka Nwite, Obiora Egwuatu, and Mobolaji Olajuwon.
The prosecution team was led by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) of the Federation, Mohammed Babadoko Abubakar, while the defence team was led by Mr Abdulfatai Bakre from the Legal Aids Council.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2024 00:00 ||
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[FoxNews] U.S. forces in the Middle East have destroyed Houthi drones in Yemen in the past 24 hours, the military said Friday.
Separately, forces with the U.S. Central Command destroyed three uncrewed Houthi surface vessels operating of the Yemeni coast, CENTCOM said.
"It was determined these weapons presented an imminent threat to U.S., coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region," a Centcom statement said. "These actions were taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure."
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The US-British alliance launched on Friday a new aerial aggression on Hodeidah province, western 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... .
A security source in the province said that the US British aircraft conducted four Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on the Kamaran Island.
On Thursday, the aggression aircraft bombed Hodeidah International Airport with five airstrikes.
The US-UK aggressive airstrikes on Yemen continue in clear violation of Yemeni illusory sovereignty, as an attempt to deter Yemen from its decision to prevent Israeli ships from passing through the Red Sea in support of the Paleostinian people in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip, who are facing a genocidal war by the savage Zionist entity.
[RT] Tehran is also planning terrorist attacks at the Games, the Israeli foreign minister has claimed
Iran orchestrated last week's attacks against France’s high-speed rail network, which paralyzed traffic ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Friday.
“The sabotage of railway infrastructure across France ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics was planned and executed under the influence of Iran’s axis of evil and radical Islam,” Katz wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Katz added that he warned French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejournef that “based on information held by Israel, Iranians are planning terrorist attacks against the Israeli delegation and all Olympic participants.”
“Increased preventive measures must be taken to thwart their plot,” he wrote.
The French national railway operator, SNCF, said on Friday that arsonists set fire to signal boxes along the lines connecting Paris to several major cities, including Lille, Bordeaux, and Strasbourg. The “massive attack” disrupted traffic ahead of the Games and led to delays and cancelations, affecting 800,000 passengers over the weekend, the operator said.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said on Friday that the “acts of sabotage on SNCF facilities were carried out in a planned and coordinated manner.” He wrote on X that intelligence agencies and police were mobilized to find the perpetrators.
Sejourne reiterated that Israeli athletes are “welcome in France,” despite the tensions surrounding the war in Gaza and pro-Palestinian protests. France 24 reported that the Israeli delegation was given 24-hour security with an enhanced police escort.
According to The Telegraph, Israel will dispatch armed Shin Bet agents to Paris to provide additional security for its athletes and Olympic officials.
High-speed train traffic in France was disrupted on Friday, just hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics following a series of “malicious acts” including arson and cable theft, according to the country’s state railway operator SNCF.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the company said at least three TGV lines had been damaged, including the Atlantic, Northern and Eastern routes. A group of saboteurs set fires and stole cables at the Courtalain, Pagny-sur-Moselle, and Croisilles junctions of the high-speed network. Another attack was foiled in Verginy on the South-Eastern line.
The operator said “a large number of trains are being diverted or canceled,” while the company’s CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou estimated that at least 800,000 travelers would be affected by the disruption. In a statement, SNCF asked all travelers who can postpone their trips to do so or use the classic (non-high-speed) lines until TGV traffic is restored. Repairs have already started, but are expected to continue until at least Monday.
“It’s big. There are hundreds of wires to reconnect one by one, which control safety devices. Then we have to test. It’s a goldsmith’s work,” Matthieu Chabanel, head of maintenance at the SNCF, told Le Figaro.
Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said the attacks were deliberate, as “everything was done at the same time” with the perpetrators’ “vans” found on sites. So far, however, nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack, and no arrests have been made.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
07/27/2024 07:32 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran Proxies
[ARABNEWS] The White House will offer deportation relief and work permits to an estimated 11,500 Lebanese nationals already in the US, due to conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, US President Joe Biden said in a memo on Friday.
The measure, under an authority known as Deferred Enforced Departure, will allow Lebanese nationals to remain in the US for 18 months and could be renewed.
The announcement comes after Vice President Kamala Harris pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to help reach a Gaza ceasefire deal that would ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians, striking a tougher tone than Biden. Harris has emerged as the likely Democratic presidential nominee after Biden ended his campaign on Sunday.
Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire since Hezbollah announced a “support front” with Palestinians shortly after its ally Hamas attacked southern Israeli border communities on Oct. 7, triggering Israel’s military assault in Gaza.
Hezbollah is an Iran-backed militant group and the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon.
US Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, which is home to Lebanese Americans in Detroit and elsewhere, applauded the move and estimated it would cover 11,500 people.
[GEO.TV] Security forces killed a terrorist during an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's North Wazoo district carried out on the reported presence of murderous Moslems, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement on Friday.
"On 26 July 24, the security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in North Waziristan District on the reported presence of terrorists," said the army's media wing.
During the conduct of the operation, "Khawarji terrorist Razzaq was sent to hell" after an intense exchange of gunfire, according to the statement.
The terrorist was a "close associate of Khawarji Gul Bahadur" and was actively involved in numerous terrorist activities in the area, including the target-killing of Malik Sher Muhammad, grandson of Faqir of Ippi on January 6, 2023 as well as the facilitation of a suicide kaboom attack in North Waziristan on March 16, 2024 which resulted in shahadat of seven brave soldiers, the statement added.
The ISPR further said that sanitisation operation was launched to eliminate any other terrorist found in the area as the security forces of Pakistain remain determined to eradicate the menace of terrorism from the country.
A day earlier, forces killed a terrorist in yet another IBO conducted in Balochistan's Hoshab district where they engaged in a shootout with the terrorists, the ISPR had said.
Earlier this week, security forces killed three terrorists, thwarting their attempt to infiltrate Pakistain via the Afghanistan border in district Dir of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), as per the ISPR.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2024 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Pak Taliban (TTP)
[IsraelTimes] IDF says drone intercepted by ship-mounted Iron Dome; unclear if unmanned aircraft was intended for surveillance or attack; separately, home damaged in rocket strike
A Hezbollah drone launched from Lebanon and believed to be heading toward offshore gas infrastructure in northern Israel was shot down by the Israeli Navy over Israel’s territorial waters on Saturday morning, the military said.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, one of the Navy’s Sa’ar 6-class corvettes intercepted the drone at a significant distance from the Karish gas field, and there was no threat to the critical infrastructure there amid the incident.
The drone was shot down by the ship-mounted Iron Dome system known as C-Dome.
The IDF said it was still investigating if the drone was used by Hezbollah for surveillance purposes or was laden with explosives.
In the past, the Lebanese terror group launched surveillance drones at the Karish gas field.
No sirens sounded amid the incident as no communities were threatened by the attack.
The terror group has launched more than 300 drones at Israel amid the ongoing fighting, many of them laden with explosives but also some used for surveillance. According to the military, only half were intercepted. Around 30 of the explosive drone impacts caused damage or casualties.
The group has demonstrated improved surveillance capabilities with its drone technology, having recently filmed footage of sensitive Israeli sites, including an Israeli Air Force airbase located some 50 kilometers from the border.
Also on Saturday morning, a rocket launched from Lebanon at the border community of Arab al-Aramshe damaged a home.
Another four rockets were fired at the Misgav Am area, according to the IDF.
There were no injuries in the attacks.
Incoming rocket sirens had sounded in several communities near the border with Lebanon amid the incidents.
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 12 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 18 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 377 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 68 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, released on Thursday video footage showing their fighters targeting Zionist enemy vehicles on the axes of incursion in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2024 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
their fighters targeting Zionist enemy
And immediately becoming civilians (every dead Gazan is a civilian)
What odds they’re human shields for yet another Hamas tunnel entrance, dear Reader?
[GEO.TV] After weeks of Israeli bombardment left them with nowhere else to go, hundreds of Paleostinians have ended up in a former Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... prison built to hold murderers and thieves.
Yasmeen al-Dardasi said she and her family passed maimed people they were unable to help as they evacuated from a district in the southern city of Khan Younis towards its Central Correction and Rehabilitation Facility.
They spent a day under a tree before moving on to the former prison, where they now live in a prayer room. It offers protection from the blistering sun, but not much else.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2024 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hamas
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/27/2024 6:05 Comments ||
Top||
#3
So the Gazooks have gone from living in the "virtual prison of Gaza" to living in a prison in Gaza. How delightfully ironic! I'm telling ya, the Universe is made of irony. All those protons and things are just a distraction.
#4
For decades Khan Yunis has known to be the location for the craziest of Gaza's crazy. Why it has taken Israel so long to level the place is mysterious. Perhaps all hostages are held there.
Posted by: IS ||
07/27/2024 9:27 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Is Hamas still polling 65%+ now with the Gazans?
All 180,000 of whom were not killed by Israel, so they should be grateful instead of whining about it.
[GEO.TV] More than 180,000 Paleostinians have fled fierce fighting around the southern Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... city of Khan Yunis in four days, the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... said Friday.
Recent "intensified hostilities" in the Khan Yunis area, more than nine months into the Israel-Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... war, have fuelled "new waves of internal displacement across Gaza", said the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA.
It said "about 182,000 people" have been displaced from central and eastern Khan Yunis between Monday and Thursday, and hundreds are "stranded in eastern Khan Yunis".
The Israeli military on Monday ordered the evacuation of parts of the southern city, announcing its forces would "forcefully operate" there, including in an area previously declared a safe humanitarian zone.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2024 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
Globalists are the real enemy (of the Humankind) - Muslims/Illegals are just (that they imagine) their tools.
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.
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
...
Wazoo
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
