…a criminal street gang based in Arlington, Texas…
members accused of violent mostly peaceful crimes in Texas were arrested last week, according to Arlington police and the FBI.
Law enforcement executed search warrants in multiple cities, including Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Mansfield and Forney, FBI Dallas Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jeremy Wright said at a news briefing, according to FOX 4. Police also confiscated weapons, drugs and money.
Officials took 21 known members of the Kiccdoe gang into custody and charged them with RICO, or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization, conspiracy.
Some suspects also face drug and weapons charges, among other offenses, while others are charged with murder and sexual assault.
"Charges including murder, drug trafficking, assault, burglary, even aggravated sexual assault of a child," FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X. "This was a multi-agency effort of over 450 local and federal law enforcement personnel to investigate, go in and clean up the violence in Arlington."
If convicted on the federal charges, many of the suspects face prison sentences of 20 years to life in prison.
The arrested suspects are 22-year-old Blake Scott, 21-year-old Bradly McArthur, 18-year-old Cortez Atkinson, 18-year-old Datraven Warren, 19-year-old DeMarco Westmoreland, 20-year-old Dillen Opare, 19-year-old Raphael Opare, 21-year-old Isaiah Wiley, 19-year-old Jakyla Totten, 20-year-old Jamarion Manogin, 22-year-old Jaylen Franklin, 18-year-old Joseph Hill, 22-year-old Kyron Oates, 18-year-old Michael Mensah, 21-year-old Lamarion Austin, 20-year-old Marcus Shaw, 21-year-old Sadedrick Wilson, 19-year-old Vernell Woods, 21-year-old Sir James Mack Williams, 22-year-old Chauncey Ross and 20-year-old Keyshawn Burton.
"Do not let the ages distract from the havoc that they've inflicted upon our community," Wright said. "These gang members allegedly use violence and intimidation to protect our territory and profits. They instilled fear in their victims and took Dire Revenge on their rivals."
JNIM conducted rocket strikes against the city of Kidal today, northern Mali, on the second anniversary of the capture of the city by the Malian Armed Forces (November 14 2023). pic.twitter.com/rbuAzwtMfR
[Breitbart] The U.S. Treasury Department has moved against a group of Albanian mobsters based in Mexico that worked with the Sinaloa Cartel to launder money through casinos and entertainment businesses. The move was coordinated with Mexican authorities, who began shutting down 13 casinos this week that had been transferring money to Romania, Switzerland, Malta, and the United Arab Emirates.
In a prepared statement, the U.S. Treasury identified the Albanian HYSA Organized Crime Group, which owns several casinos, restaurants, and entertainment businesses in Mexico that were used to launder funds for the Sinaloa Cartel.
The HYSA group is described as a criminal organization led by Albanian family members Luftar Hysa (Luftar), Arben Hysa (Arben), Ramiz Hysa (Ramiz), Fatos Hysa (Fatos), and Fabjon Hysa (Fabjon. Treasury officials identify Luftar Hysa, who resides in Mexico and Canada, as the leader of the organization, which has a public profile as a business magnate. Despite their professional appearance, the Hysas had close ties to various criminal organizations, including the Sinaloa Cartel. As part of the actions against the HYSA organization, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned individual members and nearly 20 of their businesses in Mexico, Canada, and Poland. The businesses included restaurants, casinos, entertainment venues, and fuel-related companies. As part of the sanctions, the Treasury moved to freeze any assets owned by those on the list and prohibited any U.S. citizens or companies from doing business with them.
In Mexico, Secretary of Public Safety Omar Garcia Harfuch revealed this week that his agents, along with Mexico’s Financial Investigations Unit (UIF), were working to shut down 13 casinos that they claim were laundering money for the Sinaloa Cartel. According to Harfuch, those casinos would manipulate financial and tax statements to allow criminal organizations to launder illicit funds.
One of the Antifa groups designated by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization is Antifa Ost, aka Hammerbande. They are known for carrying out brutal hammer and melee attacks on unsuspecting victims. They aim to break their victims' bones. https://t.co/VmDhtqoTMX
[BBC] A young French campaigner, who set up an association to help victims of drugs violence and took their cause to President Emmanuel Macron, has lost a second brother to suspected criminal gangs in Marseille.
Amine Kessaci's 20-year-old brother Mehdi was parking his car in the centre of the city, when a cycle of violence drew up and the pillion passenger opened fire with a 9mm pistol.
Their elder brother, Brahim, was murdered in 2020. He was shot and his charred body found in a burned-out car, a common method in gang killings known locally as a "barbecue".
Marseille is renowned for worsening drugs wars, with rival gangs from high-immigration neighbourhoods in the north of the city battling over turf.
While Amine's murdered elder brother, Brahim, was known to have become involved with drugs gangs, Sherlocks say that was not true of Mehdi, who had ambitions to become a policeman.
They fear the murder was a warning aimed at Amine.
"That hypothesis is absolutely not being ruled out," said Marseille chief prosecutor Nicolas Bessone on French radio.
"And if it turns out to be the case, it will mean we have crossed another threshold. It brings back certain terrible periods in our country's history, when you went out and killed people simply because they were from a family with whom you had problems
🚨 Illinois police finally snapped. Leftist rioters tried to block federal agents outside the Chicago-area ICE facility — and they got taken down instantly. At least six arrested in minutes. Shoving. Screaming. Zero impact. The cops were literally forced into defending the… pic.twitter.com/EUdbnDuOo7
…defending the facility because these clowns thought they could bully their way in. Keep arresting every last one of them. It's that old "insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence" thingy.
Yesterday’s installment can be seen here. The previous days’ stories can be seen there.
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Seized ammonium nitrate exploded at Nowgam Police Station in Srinagar, Kashmir, India, triggering a massive blaze. Casualties have been reported. – NDTV https://t.co/xNEQQHbD6Upic.twitter.com/BKGqtQiFQA
At least nine people were killed and several others were maimed in an accidental blast inside Srinagar's Nowgam cop shoppe in Jammu and Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... on Friday.
The explosion took place while coppers and an FSL team were conducting an inspection inside the premises.
According to news agency PTI, the officials were extracting samples from a massive cache of explosives recently seized in Haryana's Faridabad in connection with the 'white-collar' terror module case.
Several vehicles in the compound were damaged. Multiple fire tenders were rushed to the cop shoppe soon after the incident. All roads leading towards the cop shoppe have been closed.
Officials had recently seized about 2,900 kilograms of ammonium nitrate and other bomb-making materials in two rented rooms in Dhauj and Fatehpur Taga villages on the outskirts of Faridabad.
The house was rented by Dr Muzammil Shakil, a 35-year-old physician from Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, who taught at al-Falah Medical College.
As reported by HT, Muzammil was arrested around two weeks ago in a chain of events stemming from radical posters being put up in the Kashmir Valley. His interrogation led the Jammu and Kashmir Police to the alleged Jaish-e-Mohammed module in Faridabad and the subsequent recovery of kabooms.
Investigators believe the entire module was run by a core trio of doctors -- Muzammil Shakeel Ganaie, Umar Nabi (the driver of the car laden with explosives that went kaboom! near the Red Fort on November 10) and Muzzaffar Rather, who is absconding.
As different teams of police are continuing investigations of the “white collar” module busted by police. Criminal Investigation Department of Police Kashmir (CIK) conducted raids at 13 locations and picked 15 people for questioning.
From the past four five days different agencies of the security forces, especially police, have been conducting operations across Kashmir. During the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday, CIK conducted raids at 13 locations across the valley.
An official said these raids were connected with the ongoing investigation of the Srinagar-Delhi blast case. “Around 15 people were detained for questioning, digital devices and incriminating materials recovered,” said an official.
Meanwhile, the case related to the surfacing of posters from Nowgam, that exposed a big module including doctors has been handed over to the State Investigation Agency (SIA) of the J&K police.
Over a dozen people have been picked up for questioning from various parts of the Kashmir Valley in connection with the white-collar terror module case, officials said.
During questioning it was found that doctors had travelled to Turkiye in the past and officials are trying to connect dots.
The questioning of the suspects has revealed that some of them had visited Turkiye in the past one year, the officials said.
While seven people, including three doctors, have been arrested in connection with the recovery of a cache of explosives in Faridabad, the investigators have questioned dozens of people including many doctors in connection with the module.
On the night of October 18, Jammu & Kashmir police learnt about Jaish posters pasted on the walls of houses in Nowgam, a middle class neighbourhood on the periphery of Srinagar. Written in Urdu, the posters warned of imminent “spectacular attacks” on security forces and outsiders ( non-natives) in Kashmir. On October 19, the police lodged an FIR under the Unlawful Activities ( Prevention) Act (UAPA) and began investigations.
Sources said while probing the posters, police picked up three persons who had appeared in the CCTV footage who had been former stone pelters. During interrogation the name of Molvi Irfan came up who was preaching as an Imam in Chanpora, Srinagar.
J&K police described Molvi Irfan as part of a broader network of JeM and AGuH’s urban support cells.
On his instance, the police later arrested Arif Nisar Dar, alias Sahil, Yasir-ul-Ashraf and Maqsood Ahmad Dar, alias Shahid – all from Nowgam, Zameer Ahmad Ahanger, alias Mutlasha of Ganderbal, Dr Muzammil Ahmad Ganaie, alias Musaib of Koil, Pulwama, and Dr Aadil Rather of Wanpora, Kulgam. Police also recovered posters from the quarter of Molvi Irfan.
Meanwhile, police conducted raids in Shopian, Pulwama and Baramulla districts on Thursday.
According to investigators, the suspects, including Dr Umar Un Nabi, who is believed to have driven the car that exploded, and his associates, Dr Muzammil Ganaie and Dr Shaheen Shahid, communicated using a single email account accessible to all in the module. Instead of sending, they saved emails as drafts, a police source said. The intended recipient would log into the same account, read the draft, and delete it immediately, leaving no digital trail of communication, the source said.
This method was chosen to evade surveillance and prevent interception of their conversations, as nothing was transmitted across networks, police said. Officials said the technique reflects a high level of caution and planning within the module, allowing them to coordinate activities related to the conspiracy without relying on traceable channels.
Members of the terror module were also in constant contact, mainly through a Swiss communication application called Threema and other such apps. They allegedly used the encrypted messaging app to plan and coordinate the terror conspiracy while also staying in touch with their foreign handlers, police said.
"Unlike conventional messaging platforms, Threema does not require a phone number or email ID for registration, making it extremely difficult to trace the users," a source said.
The app assigns each user a unique ID not linked to any mobile number or SIM card and offers end-to-end encryption with an option to be run on private servers. Threema also allows messages to be deleted from both ends and does not store metadata, further complicating forensic retrieval, the source added.
If it’s bad enough for the IDF to declare a closed military zone, then we probably should take note. While awaiting explanation from someone who understands the dynamics, I assume that the socialist activists are stupidly wrong.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF responds to a query from The Times of Israel, saying that it issued a closed military zone order ahead of the arrival of hundreds of activists due to a “rise in both the number and severity of violent incidents” during the olive harvesting season.
The IDF adds that the move followed a period of security tension during which forces dealt with friction between Israelis and Palestinians, and that a decision was made to restrict access to the olive-harvest event for anyone who is not a local resident or landowner.
“The decision was made following a situation assessment and in light of the forces available in the area, for the sake of public safety.”
As noted, about an hour ago, the IDF blocked hundreds of activists from Peace Now and Rabbis for Human Rights from reaching the village of Burin to join Palestinians for the olive harvest.
Police and soldiers blocked seven buses carrying left-wing activists from traveling to the West Bank village of Burin to assist Palestinians in the olive harvest, after declaring the area a closed military zone.
Activists launch an impromptu demonstration on the road as police hold them up.
“I wish the Judea and Samaria police would demonstrate one percent of the determination it demonstrated here against extremist settlers who carry out daily nationalist crimes across the territories,” writes Labor MK Gilad Kariv, who was traveling with the activists, on X.
“Therefore, let it be clear: the Ariel station commander refuses to present the authorization letter from the army that allows him to make this decision,” he says.
[X]
הצבא הכריז על האזור בו צפוי להיערך "מסיק הסולידריות" כשטח צבאי סגור, המשטרה מנעה את הגעתם של אוטובוסים של "שלום עכשיו" למקום. המסיק נערך במחאה על העלייה החדה באלימות מתנחלים ביו"ש. ח"כ קריב: "עצירת האוטובוסים נעשתה באופן שרירותי ובמטרה ברורה למנוע פעולה פוליטית לגיטימית"… pic.twitter.com/9GLmZjqXXh
[IsraelTimes] Pistol and other military equipment found in henhouse at home of one of the suspects, all of whom are in their 20s and live in the Beit Safafa neighborhood, police and Shin Bet say
Four residents of East Jerusalem’s Beit Safafa neighborhood have been arrested and will be charged with affiliation to 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.... and planning attacks against Jewish Israelis as part of a "great war of the end of days," the Shin Bet security agency and Israel Police announced Friday.
The four Paleostinians, all in their 20s, were detained recently by coppers over suspicions they were affiliated with the Islamic State, according to the announcement.
The suspects began acquiring military equipment, with one managing to purchase a pistol, which was later seized from a henhouse in his home alongside other materiel, the Shin Bet said. The suspect was quoted as saying during his interrogation: "I will use the pistol against Jews or anyone who is not a Moslem."
During their interrogations, the Shin Bet said, it emerged that the four suspects "support the ideology of the Islamic State, consumed large amounts of the organization’s content online, including gruesome materials and execution videos."
"Influenced by the organization’s content, they planned to purchase military equipment, weapons, and arms to prepare for what they call ’the great war of the end of days’ against Jews," the agency said.
Indictments against two of the suspects are expected to be filed in the coming days, while the investigation of the other pair is ongoing, the agency said. All four are currently detained.
Three other East Jerusalem Paleostinians were arrested earlier this year for allegedly planning inspired attacks on Israeli troops at border checkpoints on behalf of the Islamic State, police and Shin Bet said in July.
Numerous Paleostinian citizens of Israel have also been arrested on suspicion of planning attacks out of allegiance to the fanatic group that originated in Syria and Iraq. On Wednesday, police announced that a teenager from the Triangle, a cluster of Arab locales in central Israel, had been indicted a month after he was detained for plotting an Islamic State-inspired attack.
In October last year, the police and Shin Bet said they thwarted a plot by five Islamic State loyalists from the Triangle town of Taybeh who planned to car-bomb Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Mall.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF says it killed a terror operative who crossed the Yellow Line demarcating the military’s withdrawal and approached troops in the southern Gaza Strip today.
The military says the operative “posed an immediate threat” to the troops of the Nahal Brigade, who then opened fire “to remove the threat.”
The IDF says it remains deployed in Gaza “in accordance with the ceasefire agreement and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat.”
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2025 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] British military warns of ‘state activity’ after ship-tracking data shows Greek-owned, Marshall Islands-flagged vessel Talara suddenly diverted toward Islamic Republic.
A tanker transiting through the narrow Strait of Hormuz suddenly changed course into Iranian territorial waters Friday, with the British military warning that a possible "state activity" had affected it.
The warning from the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center comes as a private security firm said small vessels had intercepted the ship earlier.
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 not acknowledged the incident, which happened off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. However,
facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... Tehran in the past has seized ships amid tensions with the West.
Details offered by the UKMTO and the private security firm Ambrey corresponded to a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker called Talara, which had left Ajman in the United Arab Emirates bound for Singapore. The ship suddenly turned toward Iran without explanation, ship-tracking data analyzed by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named showed Friday. The ship’s Greek owners did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile,
...back at the Senate, Tremulus continued with his speech against Varius and his cohorts, watching as his colleagues dropped off to sleep one by one... a US Navy MQ-4C Triton drone had been circling above the area where the Talara was for hours on Friday. The Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US Navy has blamed Iran for a series of limpet mine attacks on vessels that damaged tankers in 2019, as well as for a fatal drone attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker that killed two European crew members in 2021.
Those attacks began after US President Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... , in his first term in office, unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The last major seizure came when Iran took two Greek tankers in May 2022 and held them until November of that year.
Those attacks found themselves subsumed by the Iranian-backed Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s’ assaults targeting ships during the Israel-Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... war 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 a rusty 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, which drastically reduced shipping in the crucial Red Sea corridor.
According to Ambrey, the tanker, the Talara, was approached by three small boats as it transited southbound through the Strait of Hormuz and later deviated from its course in the Gulf of Oman.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre labeled the tanker’s movement as “suspicious” and said it was alerted to an incident occurring 20 nautical miles east of Khor Fakkan in the UAE.
[Rudaw] A woman was injured in a kaboom in Damascus on Friday, according to Syrian media.
The explosion occurred in the al-Mazzeh area of the capital city, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
The blast was caused by "an attack by several unknown persons who targeted a house," state-run al-Ikhbariya TV cited a security source as saying.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported "three explosions" in the area, which it said "overlooks the Presidential Palace road."
Images circulated by Syrian official television showed a hole in the wall of a house, suggesting damage from a missile or bullet.
Al-Mazzeh is a strategically significant area that includes the Mazzeh Air Base, a former Syrian Air Force installation. The area has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s since 2023, continuing into 2025.
The Syrian defense ministry says in a statement that two Katyusha rockets were launched from the outskirts of the city toward residential neighborhoods in the Mazzeh area and that it is searching for the launch sites.
An Associated Press journalist at the scene says that security forces cordoned off the area and prevented anyone from getting close to the building that was struck. Journalists were later allowed in to film the damaged building.
State television reports that one woman was wounded in the blast, which was caused by an attack by “unknown assailants,” adding that security forces are investigating. The defense ministry statement later says that “a number of people” are injured without giving more details.
During Syria’s 14-year civil war, explosions and bombings in Damascus were not uncommon, but since the fall of president Bashar Assad’s government in December last year by insurgents who took over his seat of power, calm has largely prevailed.
A rocket attack in the capital is highly unusual.
There have been other attacks since Assad’s fall however, including a suicide bombing that targeted a church on the outskirts of Damascus in June.
Israel has also carried out hundreds of airstrikes around the country since the end of the 54-year Assad dynasty, mainly targeting assets of the Syrian army, although it has not struck the capital in recent months.
But not using Katyushas, I suspect, which is suggestive
[Rudaw] The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Thursday that the US-led 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) had backed the Kurdish-led force in 20 operations against the bad boy group in one month.
"Our SDF forces deeply appreciate the continued support of the International Coalition in strengthening security across Northern and Eastern Syria," the US-backed force said in a statement.
It added: "In just one month, the Coalition backed over 20 operations targeting ISIS cells, boosting field effectiveness and preventive efforts."
The Kurdish-led force detailed that their partnership with the US-led coalition forces "reflects our shared commitment to fight ISIS and ensure a safer, more stable future for all Syrians."
The SDF is the de facto military force of Rojava. The force has been the main ally of the US-led global coalition against ISIS on the ground in Syria over the past decade.
The Asayish and the Kurdish-led SDF carry out frequent operations against the jihadists.
ISIS was declared territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 but has continued to wage an insurgency. Throughout this year, the group has sought to exploit the instability that followed the fall of longtime dictator Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... in December. Deir ez-Zor has been a hotspot of ISIS activity.
Joint operations between the coalition and the SDF comes against the backdrop of Damasus becoming the 90th member of the anti-ISIS coalition. Syria’s accession to the coalition came after a landmark meeting between Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and US President Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... on Monday, marking the first visit by a Syrian leader in 80 years.
Mazloum Abdi, leader of SDF commended the country’s accession to the coalition as a "pivotal step towards enhancing collaborative efforts and bolstering the initiatives aimed at achieving the enduring defeat of ISIS and eliminating its threat to the region."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/15/2025 2025-11-15 00:08 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Renewed violence subsides, with reports of wounded on both sides but no casualties; Air Force said to have flown overhead as clashes erupted Thursday
A new round of festivities between Druzegangs and government forces in the province of Sweida in southern Syria had subsided Friday but left fears of another escalation.
Clashes on Thursday led to both sides blaming each other for violating a ceasefire that ended several days of violent mostly peaceful fighting in July. There were reports of people maimed on both sides, but no deaths were reported.
The National Guard, the de facto military in Sweida, accused Syrian government forces of launching an attack on the town of al-Majdal Thursday, "employing heavy and medium weapons and attack drones, in an aggressive attempt to breach our defense lines and target vital locations."
"Our forces bravely and with high combat efficiency repelled this attack, inflicting heavy losses on the attacking forces in terms of equipment and personnel," it said in a statement.
The government in Damascus accused the Sweida factions of violating the ceasefire first.
Mustafa al-Bakour, the Damascus-appointed governor of Sweida province, said "some factions and the so-called National Guard" launched "attacks on de-escalation points." The attacks, he added, "constitute a clear violation of international agreements and obstruct efforts to rebuild and prepare for the return of residents to their villages."
Saber Abou Ras, a political analyst who lives in Sweida city, said Thursday’s festivities "were very intense and violent mostly peaceful" and included attacks with drones, anti-aircraft machine guns and mortar shells.
He said Israeli warplanes could be heard over the city of Sweida, but it was not clear if they launched any strikes. The IDF has not confirmed flying planes over Sweida on Thursday.
Abou Ras said he believes the Syrian government forces had launched "a retaliatory attack" after the police chief of the local governmental body in Sweida — along with a "large group of officers" — took over a checkpoint formerly controlled by Syrian government security forces in the northern countryside of the province.
On Thursday, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, speaking at an event held by the Chatham House international affairs think tank during a visit to London, said there had been "mistakes made by all sides" in Sweida.
"There are many problems, but we are not dealing with them as if we are the other party," he said. "We are dealing with this as a Syrian wound, and there is an internal problem within the same house."
Sweida was the site of violent mostly peacefulfestivities in July that began as fighting between Druze groups and local Bedouin tribes after a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings.
The violence escalated after government security forces intervened, ostensibly to break up the fighting, but ended up siding with the Bedouins. Hundreds of civilians, mostly Druze, were killed, many by government fighters.
Israel, home to some 150,000 Druze, intervened on the side of the Syrian Druze, launching strikes on Syrian government forces and on the defense ministry building in central Damascus. A US-brokered ceasefire led to Syrian government forces withdrawing from Sweida.
Since then, Druze groups have set up a de facto military and governmental body in Sweida, similar to the Kurdish-led authorities in the country’s northeast, and have largely refused to deal with the government in Damascus.
Tens of thousands of people remain displaced after the July fighting, including Druze internally displaced within Sweida province and Bedouins who were evacuated from the province to other areas.
Suwayda was in a total blackout overnight on Thursday due to the fighting, according to the war monitor.
Suwayda24, a local outlet that focuses on the Druze-majority province, published video of the clashes and accused government forces of breaching a ceasefire.
The violence underscores continued tensions in Suwayda, where rival armed factions continue to defy local ceasefire efforts despite repeated calls for restraint.
Clashes between Druze fighters and Bedouin tribes erupted in the province in mid-July, escalating with the involvement of Damascus forces and Israel before a ceasefire was announced on July 19. Since then, Syrian security forces have been deployed across the province, while Druze factions remain in control of Suwayda city.
UNIFIL yet again running interference for its beloved jihadi catspaws.
[IsraelTimes] Beirut cracks down on moneychangers in a bid to cut off Iran’s funding to Hezbollah; Israel says Hezbollah murdered Lebanese Christian politician in 2023
The United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... Interim Force in Leb ...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. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration.... said Friday that sections of a border wall Israel is constructing on the Lebanese frontier cross the UN-recognized Blue Line, calling the construction a violation of Lebanon’s illusory sovereignty.
Work on a border wall to replace Israel’s aging fence with Lebanon began in 2018 but has progressed slowly.
The accusation by UNIFIL came as Israel continues near-daily strikes against Hezbollah terror group operatives in southern Lebanon, amid US and Israeli pressure on Beirut to cut off the terror group’s funding and confiscate its arms.
According to UNIFIL, in October, its observers "conducted a geospatial survey of a concrete T-wall erected by the Israel Defense Forces southwest of Yaroun," which confirmed that the wall "crossed the Blue Line, rendering more than 4,000 square meters of Lebanese territory inaccessible to the Lebanese people."
UNIFIL said it informed the IDF of the findings and requested that it move the wall.
This month, UNIFIL said its observers "observed additional T-wall construction in the area," reporting: "A survey confirmed that a section of wall southeast of Yaroun also crossed the Blue Line. We will formally inform the IDF of our findings here as well."
UNIFIL said that "Israeli presence and construction in Lebanese territory are violations of Security Council resolution 1701 and of Lebanon’s illusory sovereignty and territorial integrity."
In early 2023, the IDF ramped up construction of the wall, which then halted with the start of the war on October 7, 2023, with the Hezbollah terror group launching attacks on Israel. Since the November 2024 ceasefire, work has resumed on the border wall, along with the construction of dozens of new army posts on the Israeli side of the border.
"We again call on the IDF to respect the Blue Line in its full length and withdraw from all areas north of it," it said, as the military still maintains five positions inside southern Lebanon following the November 2024 ceasefire that ended fighting with Hezbollah.
UNIFIL added that a new wall that is being constructed between Aitaroun and Maroun al-Ras is on the Israeli side of the Blue Line.
IDF STRIKES HEZBOLLAH WEAPONS DEPOT
The UNIFIL accusation came a day after Israel struck a Hezbollah weapons depot and adjacent underground site in southern Lebanon, the latest in near-daily Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s against Hezbollah targets in the region, with Israel accusing the Iran-backed terror group of seeking to re-establish itself in violation of the ceasefire deal.
The infrastructure was located next to a public sports and leisure center, "serving as yet another example of Hezbollah’s cynical use of Lebanese civilians as human shields for its operations conducted from within civilian areas," the military said.
Another Hezbollah site in southern Lebanon was also targeted in an airstrike Thursday morning, the IDF added.
The military said Hezbollah is continuing its efforts to restore its infrastructure in Lebanon, and the presence of such sites and the terror group’s activity in the area "constitute a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon."
Lebanese media also reported a separate Israeli airstrike on a car in the southern Lebanese town of Toul. The IDF said that the earth-shattering kaboom was not the result of a strike, but rather an accident during a Hezbollah attempt to smuggle weapons.
Hezbollah was greatly weakened in its most recent war with Israel, which started when the terror group began firing missiles at the Jewish state on October 8, 2023, a day after the Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... terror group launched its own attack on Israel from 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 a rusty 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... , triggering the war in the Strip.
After nearly a year of daily skirmishes, Israel launched massive airstrikes and a limited ground incursion into southern Lebanon in September 2024. A ceasefire was declared two months later, with Hezbollah left severely weakened. The agreement allows Israel to strike imminent threats.
BEIRUT CRACKS DOWN ON MONEYCHANGERS
On Friday, Lebanon announced that moneychangers and transfer companies must comply with stricter rules.
The official ones, one assumes, rather than the unofficial hawala network so made use of by jihadi orgs to transfer funds around the world without notice by the authorities.
The move came days after a visiting US official said his country was determined to cut off Tehran’s funding to Hezbollah, and after the US Treasury said Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had transferred over $1 billion to the terror group this year, mainly via money exchange companies.
As part of efforts "to remove Lebanon from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list... the central bank of Lebanon today has taken the first step in a series of precautionary measures aiming to strengthen the compliance environment within the financial sector," a central bank statement said.
The FATF in October last year added Lebanon to its "grey list" of nations that are subject to increased monitoring of financial transactions.
The central bank said it was imposing measures "on all non-bank financial institutions licensed by the central bank of Lebanon, including money transfer companies, exchange bureaus," and other firms handling foreign currency transactions and transfers to and from the country.
According to a central bank circular from December 1, all non-bank financial institutions must "collect information and data linked to their customers and operations" for transactions of $1,000 or more and report them to the central bank.
Institutions must confirm they have collected the required information before carrying out any transaction, the circular added.
The measures are consistent "with international standards on fighting money laundering and terrorist financing, and preventing the misuse of the authorized financial system for suspicious transactions," it said.
ISRAEL SAYS HEZBOLLAH MURDERED CHRISTIAN POLITICIAN
Amid the disarming and defunding efforts, Israel said Friday that a Lebanese politician who died in August 2023 was not the victim of a car accident, as initially claimed, but rather was murdered by Hezbollah.
Elias al-Hasrouni, 72, was a senior member of the Lebanese Forces A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb... , Lebanon’s main Christian party headed by Samir Geagea ....Geagea was imprisoned by the Syrians and their puppets for 11 years in a dungeon in the third basement level of the Lebanese Ministry of Defense. He was released after the Cedar Revolution in 2005.... Hasrouni was found dead on August 2, 2023, in Ain Ebel — a Christian-majority town surrounded by Shiite villages with strong Hezbollah presence in southern Lebanon — with Lebanese media first reporting it to have been a car crash.
Days later, local authorities and Hasrouni’s party claimed he had been kidnapped by several individuals and beaten to death.
In a post on X on Friday, Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language front man, said Hasrouni, who was "known for his strongly anti-Hezbollah stance," was murdered by the terror group’s special operations unit.
"On the night of August 1, 2023, members of Unit 121 ambushed Hasrouni on a road near his home in Ain Ebel in southern Lebanon, where they kidnapped him and killed him by poisoning and breaking his ribs. Afterwards, to create the impression that he’d veered off the road and died in a car accident, they returned his body to his car, which they crashed into a tree, and left him inside it in a roadside ditch," Adraee said.
According to Adraee, Unit 121, Hezbollah’s surveillance and special operations unit, "carries out liquidations targeting journalists, officers, politicians and other figures in Lebanon who oppose Hezbollah and its activities."
"This unit serves as the organization’s internal security arm, which it uses to track and eliminate its opponents," he said, noting that among the unit’s victims was former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
"Despite the heavy blow Hezbollah suffered during the war, it continues to try to sow chaos in Lebanon and rebuild its strength by using Unit 121 and other tools. The Lebanese people, who yearn for stability and prosperity, fully understand the need to eliminate this decaying Iranian arm that has dragged the country into futile wars, spies on the population, and assassinates its opponents," Adraee added.
#2
Iran's allies invoking "sovereignty" is interesting since the key innovation the Mullahs introduced into world politics was the brazen non-recognition of the fundamental sovereign existence of Western nations through the Rushdie rules.
Reciprocally, no Western nation should respect or recognize any form of sovereignty of Iran or its allies.
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.
[FoxNews] More than 20 
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
...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 
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
...
...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 
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
