[IsraelTimes] A former British soldier whose audacious escape from a London prison spurred a dayslong search is convicted of passing on sensitive information to the Iranian intelligence service.
Daniel Khalife,
…more fully Daniel Abed Khalife, the son of a Lebanese father and an Iranian mother who took the queen’s shilling at age 16, he escaped from jail by tying himself underneath a food truck, then was captured four days later on a canal tow path…
23, is found guilty by a jury in Woolwich Crown Court on violations of Britannia’s Official Secrets Act by collecting information useful to an enemy — Iran. He is cleared of a charge of planting fake bombs in his military barracks.
Prosecutors said Khalife played a "cynical game" by claiming he wanted to be a spy after he had delivered a large amount of restricted and classified material to Iran, including the names of special forces officers.
No way of knowing whether the information he handed over was real or invented until the Mossad gets into Iran’s files again…
Khalife testified that he had been in touch with people in the Iranian government but that it was all part of a ploy to ultimately work as a double agent for Britannia, a scheme he said he got from watching the TV show "Homeland."
"I wanted to utilize my background to further our national security," he told jurors.
A noble and romantic thought. But spies do not operate alone — they require handlers from the beginning to ensure their information gets to those who should have it, and that they efforts do not compromise others on the team.
Khalife joined the Army at 16 and was assigned to the Royal Corps of Signals, a communications unit that is deployed with battlefield troops, as well as special forces and intelligence squads.
He was told he could not join the intelligence service because his mother is from Iran.
At 17, he reached out to a man connected with Iranian intelligence and began passing along information, prosecutors said. He was given NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... secret security clearance when he took part in a joint exercise at Fort Cavazos in Texas in early 2021.
British security officials were not aware of Khalife’s contacts with the Iranians until he contacted MI6, the UK’s foreign intelligence service, to offer to work as a double agent.
He reached out to MI6 anonymously, saying he had earned the trust of his Iranian handlers and that they had rewarded him by leaving a bag in a north London park that contained $2,000 cash ($1,578 pounds).
Khalife said most of the material he provided to his Iranian handlers was information he made up or documents that were available online and didn’t expose military secrets.
#5
Thank you for the heads up, Fairbanks. Fixed — for some reason the URLs were within single quotes instead of the usual double quotes. I erased the quotes altogether, and then it worked fine for me. Please double check to make sure it works for you now, too.
[IsraelTimes] German authorities say they arrested a teenager suspected of planning an Islamist pipe kaboom.
Police found two bayonets, four pieces of piping and items suspected to be used to make a detonator in his home in the western district of Mainz-Bingen, they say.
The suspect, who is not named, was "radicalized online" and had shared "propagandistic content" on social media, the Koblenz prosecutor’s office says.
The teenager "glorified the crimes" of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group and shared its calls for "jihad," it adds in a statement.
He had "obtained instructions online on how to make pipe bombs and explosives," Sherlocks say.
There was no indication that the suspect was on the verge of carrying out an attack, prosecutors say, with no explosives found during the searches.
Germany has been on high alert for Islamist attacks since Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... ’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel sparked the devastating 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.
Another teenager was arrested this month on suspicion of preparing an attack, which reportedly would have targeted a Christmas market.
The alleged plot recalled the deadliest jihadist attack in Germany, when a truck plowed into a crowd at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016, killing 12 people.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/29/2024 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] NYPD steps in as demonstrators jump over barriers, sit on parade route with a banner reading ‘Don’t celebrate genocide,’ chant ‘Free, free Palestine’
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade marched, soared and roared into its second century on Thursday despite a drenching rain and a brief disruption from pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrators.
New York City police said they arrested 21 people after protesters jumped barricades and sat down on the parade route with Palestinian flags and a “Don’t Celebrate Genocide” banner. They chanted “Free, free Palestine!” as a giant Ronald McDonald balloon bore down on them on Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue.
People protesting Israel’s war in Gaza also interrupted last year’s parade.
This year’s parade featured 17 giant, helium-filled character balloons, 22 floats, 15 novelty and heritage inflatables, 11 marching bands from as far away as Texas and South Dakota, 700 clowns, 10 performance groups, award-winning singers and actors, and the WNBA champion New York Liberty.
“The work that we do, the opportunity to impact millions of people and bring a bit of joy for a couple of hours on Thanksgiving morning, is what motivates us every day,” said Will Coss, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade executive producer.
The parade route stretched 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) from Manhattan’s Upper West Side to Macy’s Herald Square flagship store on 34th Street, which served as a performance backdrop.
The firebrands entered the parade route at West 55th Street and Fifth Avenue, stopping the Ronald McDonald balloon in its tracks around 9:25 a.m., police said — and drawing loud jeers from parade-goers screaming at the killjoys to move.
NYPD officers quickly descended upon the group, who shouted “Free, free Palestine!” as they were tackled to the ground and placed in handcuffs.
Cops cuffed about 25 protesters “without incident” and hauled them away to face pending charges, police said – but the arrests appeared more violent than the NYPD’s account.
The rabble rousers were carted to One Police Plaza, where they spent hours during their Turkey Day in the NYPD’s mass arrest processing center, sources said.
”This is disgusting,” said a Brooklyn cop. “There are times and places to peacefully protest, but not the Thanksgiving day parade. This a day for families to enjoy and not be interrupted by these a–holes.”
The protesters were “autonomous anti-genocide activists,” independent reporter Talia Jane posted on X,
…that should be ”independent reporter” — the X post linked in the article is from an account that definitely belongs to a Black Bloc/Antifa cadre…
along with a viral video viewed 1 million times showing them hop barricades, block the Ronald McDonald balloon and sit in the street.
Their antics only disrupted the parade for about five minutes.
The protests during the parade Thursday appeared less disruptive than last year’s, when officials said cops arrested about 40 agitators.
Two people waiting outside NYPD headquarters for protesters to be processed declined to comment to The Post.
City Hall spokeswoman Kayla Mamelak called this year’s disruption “disrespectful.”
“Interrupting New York City’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to protest a conflict overseas is disrespectful and accomplishes absolutely nothing,” she said.
“They have won over no one, and, instead, have just disrupted a fun day for thousands.”
But protesters didn’t confine their antics to the parade.
PrankstersBlack Bloc activists revolutionaries hung banners from the Queensboro Bridge decrying “genocide” and blaring “Free Palestine, free the land, free them all.”
The banners were as much a pro-Palestinian message as an anti-Thanksgiving one, according to a “communique” apparently from the protesters posted by Jane, the independent reporter.
Real reporters don’t post communiques — that’s the job of spokesmen. Way to out yourself, Jane.
“On the holiday where this fascist empire commemorates its first but not only genocide, a group of autonomous organizers remind us that fascism here or anywhere is linked to genocide here and everywhere,” it read. “The only solution is global Intifada. LAND BACK NOW.”
You give up America and go back to wherever your ancestors came from first, Jane dear. Show us how it should be done.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF said it was continuing an offensive against Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... in the Strip’s northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, launched in October to stop Hamas efforts to regroup in the area.
Fighter jets struck dozens of Hamas weapon depots, buildings used by the terror group and other infrastructure in the area overnight, according to the military.
The IDF said many of the targets were identified based on intelligence obtained from the interrogation of detained terror operatives.
Hamas-run 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... authorities said Thursday that IDF strikes had killed at least 21 Paleostinians across the Strip, as forces stepped up their strikes in central areas and tanks pushed deeper into the north and south of the enclave.
The figures could not be independently verified. Contacted by Rooters, the IDF said its forces were continuing to "strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip."
Paleostinian medics said six people were killed in two separate Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on a house and near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, while four others were killed when an Israeli strike hit a cycle of violence in Khan Younis in the south.
In the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, Israeli planes carried out several airstrikes, destroying a multistory building and hitting roads outside mosques. At least 11 people were killed in those strikes, according to officials at al-Awda Hospital.
They said in a statement that dozens of families were trapped in their homes after some tanks advanced from the northern area of the camp and that ambulances were unable to reach them because of continued tank fire.
The IDF released footage of one of the airstrikes, targeting a Hamas operative preparing to launch rockets from Jabalia.
The military said the rockets were being set up in a building next to a weapons depot, where several other operatives were holed up. Strikes were carried out against the primed rockets and weapons depot, killing the Hamas operatives, according to the IDF.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks pushed deeper into the northwest area of the city, according to Paleostinian residents.
The operations in Gaza took place as a fragile ceasefire halted 14 months of festivities on the northern border initiated by Hezbollah in October 2023 in support of Hamas after its brutal attack on southern Israel.
"I hope a ceasefire will happen like it did in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original 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... ... I just want to take my children to see my land, my house, to see what they did to us, I want to live in safety," said Amal Abu Hmeid, a displaced woman in Gaza.
"God willing, we will have a truce," she said, sitting in the courtyard of a school sheltering displaced families in Khan Younis.
[IsraelTimes] The Israeli army shows foreign media around aid arriving in Gaza via a key crossing amid accusations that Israel is preventing assistance from reaching the Palestinian territory.
International aid organizations have repeatedly warned of the deteriorating conditions in Gaza, saying civilians are starving and aid shipments are now lower than at any time since October 2023 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, triggering the war in Gaza.
Israel blames the inability of relief organizations to handle and distribute large quantities of aid.
During the first media visit including AFP to the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the largest for humanitarian aid, journalists saw trucks carrying aid mainly from Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Israel itself.
The aid also comes from UNICEF, Rahma Worldwide and the World Food Kitchen. Distribution is organized by international aid agencies that hire local truck drivers.
“Today we have more than 800 truckloads that are waiting for the international community to take them and deliver them to the people inside Gaza,” says Colonel Abdullah Halabi, who heads the Gaza division of COGAT, the Israeli military unit responsible for overseeing humanitarian needs in Gaza.
He says often the goods wait at the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, the southernmost entry point from Israel, for “months.”
Halabi rejects claims Israel was not allowing trucks to enter, saying there was no restriction on the trucks or the amount of aid allowed to enter Gaza.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF publishes a summary of its activities against Hezbollah in the past 14 months, as a ceasefire between between Israel and the terror group appears to hold.
Over 12,500 Hezbollah targets were struck, including 1,600 command centers and 1,000 weapons depots, according to the military.
During the ground offensive, 14 IDF brigade-level task forces participated in it, and separately, over 100 special operations were carried out.
The IDF says it has confirmed with high confidence the deaths of 2,500 Hezbollah operatives, though it estimates that number to be around 3,500.
Among the dead are Hezbollah’s former longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and 13 members of the terror group’s top leadership.
Also among the dead are four Hezbollah commanders at the division level, 24 brigade-level commanders, 27 battalion-level commanders, 63 company-level commanders, and 22 platoon-level commanders.
The IDF says it has captured some 12,000 explosive devices and drones; 13,000 rockets, launchers, and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile systems; and 121,000 pieces of communications equipment and computers.
Some in Israel’s security establishment are estimating the chances of a resumption of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon at 50%, according to the Ynet news site.
The report says this is one of the reasons the government is yet to call on the tens of thousands of displaced residents of the north to return to their homes.
“The more the rules and their enforcement are clear from the get-go, the better they will hold up later,” the outlet quotes an unnamed IDF officer as saying.
[IsraelTimes] First strikes since ceasefire come as troops fire warning shots, including drone strike, near vehicles in violation of two-day old truce; Lebanese media report two injured
The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that it had carried out an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... on a Hezbollah facility in southern Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original 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... , less than two days into a fragile ceasefire with the Iran-backed terror group and hours after firing warning shots at suspects who approached border areas that are still off-limits according to the truce.
Fighter jets struck the facility, which was used to hold medium-range rockets, after identifying activity there, according to the military.
"The IDF is deployed in southern Lebanon, acting and thwarting any violation of the ceasefire agreement," the IDF added.
Earlier, the IDF said it fired warning shots in several cases at suspicious individuals in several areas of southern Lebanon. In one case, a drone struck near the suspects as a warning measure.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were maimed in the village of Markaba, close to the border.
Thursday’s two airstrikes were the first since the ceasefire came into effect early Wednesday, in an effort to end over a year of cross-border violence initiated by Hezbollah last October. The ceasefire sets out a 60-day period for Israeli troops to pull out and for new security arrangements to be made. Hezbollah is banned from operating south of the Litani River, several kilometers from the border.
"The arrival of suspects, some with vehicles, to several areas in southern Lebanon was identified, which constitutes a violation [of the ceasefire]," the IDF said in a statement.
It said troops "opened fire" as a warning measure, and will "actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement."
In the Markaba area, the IDF said it had fired a warning shot near a vehicle that was not intended to kill the passengers, while troops, artillery, and tanks fired warning shots in other areas.
Lebanese state media and security sources said Israeli fire had hit six areas within the border strip, striking Markaba, Wazzani and Kfarchouba, Khiyam, Taybe and agricultural plains around Marjayoun, all of which lie within 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) of the Blue Line demarcating the border between Lebanon and Israel.
The ceasefire agreement, brokered by the United States and La Belle France, includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah turbans are to withdraw north of the Litani River, about 20 kilometers from the boundary between Israel and Lebanon, and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said on Thursday that Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as the IDF withdraws. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
A Lebanese army source said its forces were "conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints" south of the Litani River without advancing into areas where Israeli forces were still present.
In a statement on X on Thursday, the IDF’s Arabic-language front man announced a nighttime curfew in south Lebanon.
"It is strictly forbidden to move or travel south of the Litani River starting from 5 p.m. (1500 GMT) until 7 a.m. tomorrow (Friday). Those south of the Litani River must remain where they are," Col. Avichay Adraee said.
Hezbollah politician Hassan Fadlallah on Thursday accused Israel of attacking people returning to their villages in south Lebanon. The IDF has instructed residents of towns along the border not to return yet, for their own safety.
[IsraelTimes] The Lebanese army accuses Israel of violating the ceasefire “several times” since it went into effect the previous day after more than 13 months of hostilities with Hezbollah.
“The Israeli enemy violated the deal several times,” the army says, citing air strikes and attacks on Lebanese territory with “various weapons.”
Israel said it acted on several occasions to enforce the the ceasefire.
Syrian rebel groups launched a large-scale attack on areas controlled by government forces yesterday, setting off fierce clashes and seizing territory in western Aleppo.
The offensive was launched the same day that the ceasefire began between Syrian ally Hezbollah and Israel.
Rudaw names him as Brigadier General Kioumars Pour Hashemi, known as Haji Hashem.
#1
Assad's forces were the 'winner' in the Aleppo battle that lasted a half decade and sort of ended in 2016.
Somewhere over 30k casualties in that conflict.
Hezbollah and Russia both helped Assad but the Syrian Govt forces suffered a lot of damage so the 'win' wasn't really worth the cost in a lot of judgements.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
11/29/2024 8:27 Comments ||
Top||
Armor and Fighters of the Syrian National Army (SNA) are now amassing to the North of Tal Rifaat in Northern Syria, as they prepare to open a Second Front against Assad’s Army near Aleppo, as well as the U.S-Backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positioned between Tal Rifaat and… pic.twitter.com/hm58BaZR5L
Text taken from the Telegram channel of Boris Rozhin
[ColonelCassad] The SAA is not doing well in Aleppo yet. Despite the fact that the enemy's offensive was stopped in a number of areas with losses for the militants, in others it is still far from stabilization. Moreover, the militants have reached the M-5 highway, which the SAA unblocked back in 2020 during the battle for Saraqib and southern Idlib.
The enemy's offensive cannot be stopped by airstrikes by the RRF Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Air Force alone. Additional SAA reserves are currently being transferred to Aleppo, but it will take some time for them to enter the battle. The task now is to slow down the enemy's offensive and buy time to stabilize the situation after reinforcements arrive and then launch a counteroffensive (see the battle in Northern Hama in 2017, which developed according to a similar scenario).
If the SAA, with the support of its allies, succeeds, then in the future, this failure to break through the front may turn out to be an excellent pretext for transferring the offensive to the militant-controlled part of Idlib, which remained with them following the battles of 2020. But this is still a long way off.
“According to a statement issued by opposition factions on Wednesday, the rebels captured 13 villages, including the strategic towns of Urm al-Sughra and Anjara, as well as Base 46, the largest base of the Syrian government forces in western Aleppo,” the report dated November 27 said.
The report also said that 37 government troops and allied units were killed during the offensive.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, earlier the Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria reported that the Jabhat al-Nusra group (a terrorist organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation) is preparing a provocation with the staging of the use of toxic substances in the area of populated areas in the southern part of the Idlib de-escalation zone in order to accuse Syrian government forces of allegedly indiscriminate strikes and the use of toxic substances against the population.
The battles mark the first significant military operations between the opposition and the regime in northern Syria since the March 2020 cease-fire.
In the early hours of Wednesday, opposition factions including the Sunni Islamist group Tahrir al-Sham launched the battles, ultimately capturing multiple villages and towns in the western Aleppo countryside. Among the spoils was the Syrian Army’s 46th Regiment military base, which had been subjected to near-daily shelling since the regime captured it in February 2020.
At the time of this report, the factions are still engaged in battle. I kinda hoped for Lebanese factions ganging on Shiites, but - anything that harms Iran is good.
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.
[IsraelTimes] German authorities say they arrested a teenager suspected of planning an Islamist pipe 
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original 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...
