[ToloNews] German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has suggested that Berlin’s military deployment in Afghanistan should be extended beyond its expiration in March, Germany’s dpaInternational reported.
Quoted by the Funke Media Group newspapers in comments published Saturday, Maas said that the peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban ...Arabic for students... will not be completed by then.
"Therefore, we must be prepared with a parliamentary mandate for various scenarios," Maas said.
According to dpa news agency, Germany’s military can deploy up to 1,300 soldiers as part of its role in the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan.
The one-year deployment was estimated by the German government to cost 427.5 million euros, according to dpa news agency.
The discussion of withdrawing forces was prompted by a deal signed by the Taliban and the United States which foresees all foreign troops pulling out of the country by April.
The withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan is part of the February 2020 peace deal between the United States and the Taliban in Doha.
The number of US troops in Afghanistan has reached 2,500 and based on the US-Taliban agreement, they shall leave the country by May 1; however, the Biden administration officials have said that they are reviewing the agreement. US senators have said that American troops will not leave the country based on the given deadline in the Doha deal.
Quoted in by dpa, the German defense minister said that the new US administration under President Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden ...Candidate for president in 2020. I'm not working for you. Don't be such a horse's ass.... should make a partnership possible again going forward.
There is agreement "that we want to take this deployment to an end together as coalition partners in a responsible way that does not endanger the grinding of the peace processor," he said.
#2
He gets a cut of what's spent on logistics, probably.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/14/2021 2:17 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The war in Afghanistan will never end. The troops are never coming home. The war is highly profitable and the national security deep state just put their own man in office. Happy days are here again!
[KhaamaPress] Senior Commander of 207th Zafar Corps in the western zone of Afghanistan,
...most recently Farah and Herat provinces...
warned that the Taliban ...Arabic for students... are preparing for a "Major Attack" in the upcoming spring.
Abdul Rauf Arghandiwal, 207th Zafar Corps’ commander, said during the introductory ceremony of the new commander of the 1st Brigade of the 207 Zafar Corps.
He indicated that we are waiting for a "bloody war" and we must be "ready for it".
The commander warned the Taliban to violence or face the bloodiest spring ahead.
Referring to peace efforts, he said, the Taliban offensives did not only decreased but escalated in Ghor, Farah, and some part of Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... Province, he also added that 1200 Taliban were killed and 1600 were maimed in the operations conducted by the Corps this year
On the other hand, 600 Taliban attacks were repelled, Herat’s Governor, Sayed Abdul Wahid Qatali said.
According to Qatali, with the support of neighboring countries ( not exactly mentioning which country) he said the Taliban are destroying infrastructures, and spreads insecurity across the country.
[ToloNews] A survey by an Afghan news agency shows that the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... controls at least 52 percent of the country’s territory while 59 percent of the population lives in areas under the government’s control.
The survey conducted by Pajhwok Afghan News shows that the Afghan government controls 46 percent of the territory.
The survey was conducted between November 30 to February 3.
During the survey, 1,266 people were interviewed through questionnaires and telephonic conversations. The questionnaires, three papers in total, were distributed to three people in each part of the country.
The survey shows that the areas under the Taliban control are 337,000 square kilometers while the areas under the government’s control are 297,000 square kilometers, but 18,000 square kilometers is said to be under the control of none of the parties.
The findings reveal that the Taliban has full control over 27 districts while the government fully controls 64 districts. The remaining 297 districts are controlled by both, the survey indicates.
A Taliban front man has claimed in this survey that they control or have influence over 70 percent of the country’s territory, but a front man for the Interior Affairs Ministry has said that the Taliban does not have permanent presence in any part of the country.
The claim by the Taliban was rejected by National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib at a weekly briefing on Saturday.
"The Taliban claims to have control over 70 percent of the territory, but even today, they convene their meetings in Quetta (in Pakistain) where they make plan how to kill the people of Afghanistan and destroy the gains that we have achieved and destroy our infrastructures," Mohib said.
"In 422 districts of which, 24 are temporary, we interviewed three people in each district to find out their perspectives and find who controls or has influence on how many swaths of land," head of Pajhwok Afghan News Danish Karokhel said.
#3
Any way you slice that, seem like a huge waste of blood and treasure that the GOPe-Den uniparty has put us through.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/14/2021 10:57 Comments ||
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#4
Should have been a punitive expedition, give Dostum his part of the mess to run and exited after killing Osama.
On a side note, with all the military capability we committed to the place, what gives the ruling caste any idea that they can control America if a good part of those 72 million inhabitants decide they don't and won't.
#5
#4 Should have been a punitive expedition, give Dostum his part of the mess to run and exited after killing Osama.
Yep
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2021 15:22 Comments ||
Top||
#6
/\ "Butcher and Bolt" a tradition of the Victorian British Army where every generation they had to mount a Punitive Expedition over the frontier, often into Afghanistan, to suppress the native's casual sport of banditry.
[LibyaReview] After four decades of Muammar Qadaffy ...Proof that a madman with money will be politely received for at least 42 years until his people get tired of him and kill him... ’s rule in Libya, he was ousted and killed in the 2011 uprising, but several of his family members survived. A decade on, what has happened to them?
Three of Qadaffy’s seven sons were killed in the 2011 civil war. Mutassim was killed by rebels in his home town of Sirte on 20 October 2011, the same day as his father.
Continued on Page 49
If only everyone just accepted that Egypt is the natural leader of the Muslim Middle East, and did as they were advised!
[AlAhram] Cairo is busy recalibrating its diplomatic choices.
Libya, Paleostinian-Israeli talks, Paleostinian reconciliation, Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , and the Grand Æthiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) have each been addressed in a series of meetings — the Hurghada meeting on the Libyan constitutional track on Tuesday, the extraordinary session of the Arab Council of Foreign Ministers on Monday, with sideline talks conducted by both President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri, the Paleostinian factions talks in Cairo, also on Monday, and on Saturday, remotely, the AU summit — to which Egypt was party.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/14/2021 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic Defenders Front
#1
"Clearly the fact that Trump is out of the picture with his notorious deal of the century is a factor. What counts for us now is that Egypt is again standing on the side of Paleostinian rights and is trying to help with the situation in Gaza," said the source from Gaza.
"And a pony!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2021 8:58 Comments ||
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[OneIndia] The interrogation of a Jaish-e-Mohammad ...literally Army of Mohammad, a Pak-based Deobandi terror group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000, after he split with the Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. In 2002 the government of Pervez Musharraf banned the group, which changed its name to Khaddam ul-Islam and continued doing what it had been doing before without missing a beat... terrorist has revealed that the outfit had carried out a reconnaissance at the Sardar Patel Bhawan and other top areas on the basis of his handlers from Paksita.
Last week, the security forces had arrested Hidayat-Ullah-Mallik a resident of Shopian and he said that he had carried out a reconnaissance of the office of National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval. Following this input, the security at the office of the NSA has been heightened. The NSA has been on the target of Pakistain based terror groups for long and the threat perception only went up following the surgical strikes after the Uri attacks.
Hidayat had taken a flight from from Srinagar to New Delhi in May last year to record a video of the NSA's office. He also said that he had recorded a vide of the office of the CISF and passed on the same to his Pakistain based handler.
After recording the video, he returned to 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.... , following which he conducted a reconnaisance of the Samba border area. He also said that his handler in Pakistain was known as Doctor. He said that he had did not have more details on the handler and said that he shared all the information on WhatsApp.
#1
No worries. The man's unafraid, he's lived a good life, and he's getting very old. There are at least four others waiting to take his place, and the domestic fight to another level. If anything were to happen to him, their entire community would rue the aftermath.
#3
Press: Muslim behaviour at best!
Deception and playing dead stressed
As generous spirit --
"More peace talk? Let's hear it!" --
Greets forelash from next life's unrest.
[DailyTimes.pk] The speakers were unanimous in their views that the US interest in Pakistain, which has mostly been through the lens of security, will diminish in the coming years, saying there is no chance of either regression or progress in Pakistain-US relations.
They said this on Saturday as the Centre for Strategic Perspectives (CSP) at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) hosted an in-house meeting on the ’Future of Pakistain-US Relations under the Biden administration’ with the research faculty from Institute of Regional Studies (IRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... The speakers said that the United States is not only ending its priority on the war on terror, it is also pulling its troops out of Afghanistan, Iraq and the region, and that will diminish Pakistain’s relevance for the US.
They said that US-China competition will continue to intensify, and Pakistain might be pressurised by the US to choose sides.
They said that Afghanistan will continue to be an important factor in Pakistain-US relations under Biden.
In the background of the US strategic relationship with India, the Biden administration will move to deepen its ties with the former rather than putting pressure on India with regard to its policies in Indian occupied 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.... While there is no chance of regression, there are no chances of progress either in Pakistain-US relations, they said. They said that Pakistain will have to be cautiously optimistic in furtherance of its relations with the US, and it is imperative that Pakistain conducts its foreign policy in a manner in which the US remains engaged with Pakistain.
[IsraelTimes] Military releases annual intelligence assessment for coming year, sees Iran shifting focus to Yemen and Iraq as possible launchpads for attacks on the Jewish state.
The Israel Defense Forces does not anticipate the outbreak of a large-scale war in the coming year, but does expect that Hezbollah and other terror groups will likely initiate more limited rounds of violence, according to its annual intelligence assessment.
In recent months, the Israeli military has come to believe Hezbollah is increasingly emboldened and is operating under the assumption that it can launch attacks on IDF targets without this leading to full-scale war, as it previously assessed.
Continued on Page 49
at the moment the Houthis don't have a drone that can carry a 50# bomb that far
about 300 miles from western Iraq to Israel, but the fact that Iran is trying so hard to establish a capability in southern Syria implies that they don't think they will have another way to threaten Israel with a deniable weapon
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/14/2021 10:46 Comments ||
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[LibyaReview] On Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) revealed that The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... is preparing to send a new group of Syrian mercenaries to Libya.
This comes amidst international calls for the removal of all imported muscle from Libya.
In a statement, the SOHR indicated that the current Ottoman Turkish preparations for sending a new group of mercenaries to Libya comes a few days after cancelling the return of another group of 140 mercenaries from Libya to Syria. The reasons for this remain unknown.
The observatory also noted that the recruitment process was taking place through brokers in the Syrian Idlib region and the northern countryside of Aleppo and Afrin. Recruits are offered financial incentives with a monthly salary of up to $400, under the pretext of securing facilities in Libya.
I seem to recall Turkey was offering considerably more — $1200? — last time round.
Last week, reliable SOHR sources confirmed that a state of anger is prevailing among the Syrian mercenaries in Libya, as a new group of them had their repatriation journey to Syria cancelled. This ignited greater discontent among the mercenaries who had already packed up and were ready to return.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/14/2021 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
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.
...Candidate for president in 2020. 
...Arabic for 
[LibyaReview] After four decades of 
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it .jpg "Kashmir")
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
