[ShabelleMedia] A senior al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... leader Mohamed Mire, also known as Abu Abdirahman, has been confirmed dead following a targeted dronezap in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia. The attack took place near Kunyo Barow, where Mire was reportedly killed while holding a meeting.
Mire, who had been with al-Shabaab for over 15 years, was a key figure within the organization, previously serving as the governor of the Hiraan region and a member of the Shura Council. More recently, he held the position of head of regions (Wilayaat), a role central to the group’s administrative and strategic operations. His designation as a global terrorist by both the United States and the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... Security Council in 2022 underscored his importance to al-Shabaab’s leadership.
The strike was carried out by U.S. forces in collaboration with Somali national forces and international security partners, showcasing ongoing efforts to dismantle the bad boy group’s command structure. al-Shabaab itself has acknowledged Mire’s death, marking it as a significant event within its ranks.
[IsraelTimes] Israel says 240 suspects arrested at Kamal Adwan hospital — including its director and 15 participants in Oct. 7 onslaught; 600 civilians evacuated; IDF wraps up Jabalia operation
The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that a military raid, completed Saturday, on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern 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... had killed 19 terror operatives, without any known civilian casualties, after Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... -run health authorities previously claimed — and some international media reported — that 50 people had been killed, including hospital staff.
While providing new details on Sunday about the operation, army sources indicated that, with the raid complete, the IDF was close to wrapping up its operations in northern Gaza’s Jabalia area.
Kamal Adwan Hospital was described by the IDF as "Hamas’s last bastion in Jabalia," after hundreds of terror operatives allegedly used the medical facility as a shelter from Israeli strikes.
According to the military, the terror operatives returned to Kamal Adwan after the IDF last operated in the medical center in late October.
The IDF said that, of 940 Paleostinians who passed through an army checkpoint outside the hospital, 240 were detained for being alleged members of terror groups. In all, some 600 civilians and another 95 patients, caregivers, and medical personnel were evacuated from Kamal Adwan.
The IDF said some of the terror operatives posed as medical staff and patients, and some tried to leave on stretchers and in ambulances. Of a first group of 21 patients leaving the hospital, the military said that 13 turned out to be suspected terror operatives.
Of the 240 terror operatives, the IDF said that at least 15 participated in the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which started the ongoing war. Several others are considered to be prominent commanders in the Hamas and the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... terror groups, the military said.
Several operatives who carried out a deadly attack on troops in Jabalia earlier this month were also nabbed, the IDF added.
The IDF said some of the terror operatives posed as medical staff and patients, and some tried to leave on stretchers and in ambulances. Of a first group of 21 patients leaving the hospital, the military said that 13 turned out to be suspected terror operatives.
The director of the hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, was also detained. The IDF said he is suspected of being a Hamas operative.
The IDF said that the Kamal Radwan raid marked one of the largest single arrest operations in Gaza since the beginning of the war.
The IDF has been operating in the Jabalia area since early October, facing relatively fierce resistance by remaining Hamas cells there, military sources said.
Over the last few weeks, the IDF operated in areas near Kamal Adwan, as part of efforts to clear routes to enable the raid on the hospital over the weekend. Numerous bombs were neutralized in the area surrounding the hospital, the IDF said.
Before launching the operation, the IDF said it enabled the evacuation of 350 patients, caregivers, and medical personnel to other hospitals, in an effort coordinated by the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
The IDF said its 401st Armored Brigade approached the hospital from two directions on Friday morning, surrounding it within an hour. The soldiers also neutralized a large bomb planted on a road leading to the medical center, according to the military.
At the same time, two Hamas cells attempted to flee from the hospital, and they were killed in dronezaps, the IDF said.
Within another hour, civilians sheltering at the medical center, along with patients, began to evacuate, following calls by the IDF to leave. As part of the evacuation, they passed through a military checkpoint, at which point those suspected of being terror operatives were taken into custody.
Meanwhile,
...back at the desert island, Bert climbed the cocoanut tree, looking for ships. He saw none. He looked in the other direction and saw Irene, vigorously scrubbing her backside... the patients, caregivers, and medical personnel were taken to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, where the IDF delivered fuel, generators, and other medical equipment from Kamal Adwan.
After the hospital was cleared of all Paleostinians, members of the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit carried out "precise activities" inside the hospital, during which they located and captured weapons, including grenades, handguns, ammunition, and other military equipment, according to the IDF.
The IDF acknowledged that only a few weapons were found in the hospital itself, but said that numerous weapons were located and seized in apartments surrounding Kamal Adwan, which were used by Hamas as fighting positions, some of which were boobytrapped.
During the operation, three operatives launched RPGs at an armored personnel carrier from an area near the hospital, the IDF said. There were no injuries among the Israeli forces, and the operatives behind the attack were killed, according to the military.
The IDF said it did not fire directly at the hospital, did not target any medical staff, and was unaware of civilian casualties in the operation.
Kamal Adwan Hospital is now out of service after its staff, patients, and equipment — including generators and critical medical equipment — were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital, also located in Jabalia.
Before the evacuation, the IDF also operated at the Indonesian Hospital to ensure that no terror operatives were holed up there, military sources said.
The IDF said it has no plans to demolish Kamal Adwan following the raid there. A military source said troops would remain in the area of Kamal Adwan to "closely monitor" the hospital to ensure it does not return to serve as a base for terrorists.
Military sources said that there are still other operations to carry out in Jabalia against remaining Hamas cells, but, in general, the IDF is close to completing its mission there, following the hospital raid.
Israel has been at war against Hamas in Gaza — and other Iranian-backed forces that have joined the war — since October 7, 2023, when some 3,000 Hamas-led forces of Evil invaded Israel from the enclave, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages.
Hamas has fought from within hospitals throughout the war and periodically hid some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7 inside them. International law generally prohibits targeting hospitals during wartime, but hospitals can lose this protection if used for military purposes.
Since October of this year, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in northern Gaza, stating that its goal is to prevent Hamas from regrouping in the area.
[IsraelTimes] Fighter jets hit rocket launchers amid resurgent fire from Strip; fourth baby dies of hypothermia in Gaza tent city; IDF says it killed six Oct. 7 perpetrators last month
An IDF soldier was killed in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, the military announced, as a months-long operation in Jabalia appeared to approach its end, despite several instances of rocket fire from the enclave, which has been a rare occurrence at this stage of the war. The slain soldier was named as Staff Sgt. Yuval Shoham, 22, of the 401st Armored Brigade’s 9th Battalion, from Jerusalem. The Israel Defense Forces did not detail the circumstances of Shoham’s death.
The killing brought Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against the Hamas terror group in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 394.
Separately, a soldier with the Nahal Brigade’s 931st Battalion was seriously wounded during fighting with Hamas terror group operatives in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun on Sunday, the military added.
The incidents came as the IDF indicated that it was wrapping up its operations in northern Gaza’s Jabalia following the Israeli military raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Kamal Adwan Hospital was described by the IDF as “Hamas’s last bastion in Jabalia,” after hundreds of terror operatives allegedly used the medical facility as a shelter from Israeli strikes. According to the military, the terror operatives had returned to Kamal Adwan after the IDF last operated in the medical center in late October.
There is no way to verify the military’s claims.
The IDF has been operating in the Jabalia area since early October, facing relatively fierce resistance by remaining Hamas cells in the area, military sources said.
The IDF said it had arrested hundreds of terror suspects at the hospital while facilitating the transfer of patients and civilians to other Gaza hospitals. The raid sparked a widespread outcry in the international community with Israel being accused of torching the hospital and killed civilians.
Overnight, Israeli fighter jets struck rocket launchers in Beit Hanoun, which had been used to fire two long-range rockets at the Jerusalem area on Saturday.
There were no injuries or damage in Saturday’s rare long-range rocket attack from Gaza, as both projectiles were intercepted.
When the strike was carried out, another rocket had been loaded into one of the launchers, the IDF said, releasing an image showing the launchers before they were hit.
In a video published by the military, the rocket could be seen flying out of the launcher.
MORE ROCKET FIRE
On Sunday, five more rockets were launched from the northern Gaza Strip, this time at the southern city of Sderot, along the border with the enclave, one of the largest rocket attacks from Gaza in recent months. According to the IDF, two rockets were intercepted, while the other three apparently struck open areas. There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage from the attack, which marked the third day in a row of rocket fire from the Strip.
Rocket attacks from Gaza have been rare at this stage of the war, after frequent barrages during and in the months after the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which started the war.
Following Sunday’s rocket fire, the IDF issued a fresh evacuation warning for civilians in a large area near the northern Gaza city of Jabalia.
“Terror organizations are again launching rockets from these areas that have been warned several times in the past,” Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman said on X, attaching a map of the areas to be evacuated.
Civilians were urged to head for shelters in Gaza City, in advance of the IDF launching strikes on the area.
STRIKE HITS HAMAS CELL IN GAZA CITY HOSPITAL
Also Sunday, Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck a group of Hamas members who were operating out of a former hospital in Gaza City, the IDF said. Palestinian media reported at least seven dead and several others wounded in the airstrike on Al-Wafa Hospital.
According to the IDF, the operatives were part of Hamas’s air defense unit in the terror group’s Shejaiya Battalion.
“The terrorists operated in a command and control center that was established in a building that was previously used as Al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City, and is not currently an active hospital,” the military said.
The IDF said the operatives were using the command center at the former hospital to plan and carry out attacks against troops operating in Gaza “in the immediate future.”
Artillery shelling also reportedly hit the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City Sunday morning, though there was no immediate comment from the IDF on that incident.
HAMAS COMMANDERS, OCT. 7 PERPETRATORS KILLED
The IDF and Shin Bet also revealed on Sunday that 14 members of Hamas, including six who participated in the October 7 onslaught, were eliminated in a series of operations and airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip last month.
As part of the IDF’s ongoing operation in the Strip’s far north, troops are working to locate and kill terrorists who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, the military and Shin Bet said.
In one incident on November 27, the IDF said, troops of the Givati Brigade raided a Hamas position in Jabalia, where they killed Muhammad Abd al-Hamid Salah, a Hamas terrorist who “participated in the murderous massacre on October 7.”
Another two Hamas commanders were killed in the same operation, according to the military. The IDF said an airstrike in Jabalia on November 26 killed Rasem Jawda, a Hamas company commander, Zahar Shahab, and Ali Ramadan, who all participated in the October 7 onslaught. Another two Hamas commanders were also killed in the strike, the military said.
A separate strike on an unspecified date a month ago killed Muhammad Hamuda, who also participated in the October 7 attack, the IDF says. With him, five additional Hamas operatives were killed, the military added.
FOURTH BABY DIES OF COLD IN GAZA
A fourth infant has died of hypothermia in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly 15 months of war are huddled in tents along the rainy, windswept coast as winter arrives.
Jomaa al-Batran, 20 days old, was found with his head as “cold as ice” when his parents woke up Sunday, his father Yehia said. The baby’s twin brother, Ali, was moved to the intensive care unit of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Their father said the twins were born one month premature and spent just a day in the nursery at the hospital, which, like other health centers in Gaza, has been overwhelmed and is only partially functioning.
He said medics told their mother to keep the newborns warm, but it was impossible because they live in a tent and temperatures regularly drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at night.
“We are eight people, and we only have four blankets,” al-Batran said as he cradled his son’s pale body. He described drops of dew seeping through the tent cover overnight.
At least three other babies have died from the cold in recent weeks, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave.
Rainy and stormy weather in the region is expected to intensify over the next two days before slightly warmer conditions return later this week.
Some 1.9 million Palestinians of the 2.3 million Gazan population are residing in the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone,” according to IDF assessments in July. The zone is located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, western neighborhoods of Khan Younis, and central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah. The size of the zone has changed multiple times, according to evolving IDF operations against Hamas.
[IsraelTimes] Death of Shatha al-Sabbagh comes as PA security services clash with terror operatives in West Bank city; family says shooting happened with no fighting nearby
A Paleostinian journalist was rubbed out overnight at the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, with her family on Sunday accusing the Paleostinian Authority’s security forces of killing her while she was with her mother and two small children.
Shatha al-Sabbagh, a journalism student and independent news hound in her early 20s, was killed by a bullet to the head, which her family said was fired by a security forces sniper while there was no fighting going on in the vicinity.
The security forces of the PA, however, blamed local Paleostinian terror group fighters, saying she was shot during nighttime festivities at the camp.
PA security forces have been carrying out an operation against terror groups in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, killing and detaining members of Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... and Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... , seizing weapons, and neutralizing bombs.
The crackdown came after terror operatives stole two PA vehicles and paraded them through Jenin earlier this month.
The Paleostinian Authority security forces said in a statement Sunday that the "heinous crime was committed by outlaws inside the Jenin camp."
But her family insisted that the PA security forces were responsible.
She was killed by "a sniper’s bullet from the security forces of the Paleostinian Authority in a heinous crime," the family said in a statement released on Sunday. "As the family of martyr Shatha al-Sabbagh, we hold the Paleostinian Authority and its security forces directly responsible for this crime."
Describing the incident, the family said she was with her mother when she was shot in a neighborhood that was "fully lit... and there were no festivities" at the time.
"Despite this, the snipers of the security forces shot her directly," the statement said.
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... -based Paleostinian terror group Hamas, which also maintains a presence in the West Bank, also accused the PA forces of killing her.
"The coldblooded and deliberate killing of journalist Shatha... is a criminal act that adds to the dark record of these security apparatuses, which have committed crimes of killing, arresting and mistreating our people," said Hamas, which itself has widely been involved over the years in abuse and persecution against critics in Gaza, as well as countless terror attacks and atrocities against Israelis, including during its October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre.
The Paleostinian Journalists Syndicate called for an independent investigation to uncover the circumstances of Sabbagh’s death.
Her death brings to 11 the total number of deaths since the festivities began on December 5.
The PA has a relatively strong presence in southern and central West Bank cities, where it has managed to maintain public order. But in the northern part of the territory, especially the refugee camps in the Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem areas, the PA has struggled to exercise authority against the terror groups there.
As the PA faces a legitimacy crisis over its failure to deliver Paleostinian statehood or even hold elections, its popularity has waned significantly, particularly in the northern West Bank where rivals have taken up weapons and challenged its authority.
Rival factions of PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase.... ’s Fatah party have condemned the recent arrests, accusing the security forces of collaborating with Israel.
As Trey said, there is a civil war happening between Hamas and the West Bank. No media outlets are picking it up, because they would never want to portray Hamas or the Palestinian Authority as violent.
… Overnight, a Palestinian journalist was killed in Jenin.
Tensions are boiling.
BREAKING: Palestinians in the West Bank have taken to the streets to protest Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
They are also protesting Al Jazeera, for whitewashing terrorists to look like “leaders.” Al Jazeera is too radical for Palestinians, but not for Western academics. pic.twitter.com/i3J6ElKwag
#1
Well, the PA hires outlaws, so it explains itself.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/30/2024 8:40 Comments ||
Top||
#2
One band of outlaws blames a different band of outlets. The other day Israel's foreign minister stated the new government of Syria is composed of 'gangsters'.
[Rudaw] At least 27 people, including suspected members 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.... (ISIS), were arrested in a security operation by Kurdish security forces (Asayish) in the northern Raqqa province, the force said on Saturday.
"As part of the ongoing efforts to enhance security and stability in our areas, our security forces carried out a large-scale security campaign east of Raqqa ... resulting in the arrest of 27 people, some of whom belonged to these [ISIS] cells and other criminals in the area," the Asayish said in a statement.
The arrests come as ISIS cells attempt to exploit the security vacuum created in parts of the country after the downfall of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... ’s regime, particularly in desert areas which the former regime used to loosely control.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/30/2024 2024-12-30 02:30 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[IsraelTimes] Drone said to fire missiles at weapons warehouse causing massive blast; up to 11 reportedly killed; no comment from IDF
An alleged Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... near Damascus hit a weapons warehouse and killed several people according to Arab-language media outlets Sunday.
Reports said there was a kaboom in the city of Adra, on the eastern outskirts of the capital. A drone was said to have fired two missiles at the warehouse located in a commercial area.
Initial media reports said that at least two people were killed, though that was not the final toll.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 11 people were killed, mostly civilians. It said there was a blast at a weapons depot belonging to the former Syrian regime and that it was "likely resulting from an Israeli attack."
According to the Observatory, Syrian locals in areas where there are weapons warehouses sometimes arrange for the contents to be blown up to prevent an Israeli airstrike that could kill people in the area. However,
you can observe a lot just by watching... according to the observatory, it was not previously known that there was a weapons warehouse in the Adra area where the earth-shattering kaboom happened.
SOHR, run by a single person, has regularly been accused by Syrian war analysts of false reporting and inflating casualty numbers as well as inventing them wholesale.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces on the alleged strike.
An unconfirmed video shared on social media purported to show the aftermath of the attack. The video showed a building reduced to rubble with several bodies scattered among the debris.
Earlier in December, after the rebels took control of Damascus in a lightning offensive, Israel launched a major operation to destroy Syria’s strategic military capabilities, including chemical weapons
...have not been used since WWI except for in Iraq, by the late, unlamented Saddam Hussein and in Syria, but really, honest, not by the Syrian government. And in Germany in WWII, but that was against civilians. Lots of them, just one of many reasons Hitler's also late and unlamented... sites, missiles, air defenses, air force, and navy targets, in a bid to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile elements.
In a move that drew some international condemnation, Israel also entered a United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... -patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights. Israel has said it will not become involved in the conflict in Syria and that its seizure of the buffer zone established in 1974 was a defensive move and a temporary one until it can guarantee security along the frontier.
Israel has also signaled its desire to have "correct ties" with the new regime, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in early December.
Syria’s new de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Julani, has said that his new regime is "committed to the 1974 agreement and we are prepared to return the UN [monitors]," referring to peacekeeping forces that manned the demilitarized zone alongside Syrian troops. He has also said he does not want conflict with Israel.
Israel and Syria do not have diplomatic relations and have formally been in a perpetual state of war since Israel declared independence in 1948.
While the fall of the Assad regime, which stood for over five decades, could provide a historic opportunity for recognition between Israel and its neighbor, the potential power vacuum in Syria could also lead to further chaos and serve as a breeding ground for a resurgence of terror in the region.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/30/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
BREAKING - IRAN: Mass strikes erupt in Iran as retailers, shopkeepers, and business owners in Tehran stop working to protest the Islamic regime's failed economic policies and rampant hyperinflation. Protesters are chanting slogans, urging others to join the general strike. pic.twitter.com/1o1WSWkHq9
Today, Sunday, December 29, 2024, large sections of Tehran’s bazaar went on strike in protest against crippling price hikes and skyrocketing currency rates. They organized a protest march, urging other merchants to join the strike.
The strike and protest began in the Shoemakers’ Bazaar and quickly spread to the Rasteh Bazaar, Small Charsu, the Fabric Sellers’ Bazaar, Bagh Sepahsalar, Seyyed Vali Passage, Hammam Chal Passage, and the Coppersmiths’ Bazaar. Shortly afterward, the fabric sellers in Abbasabad Passage, Sepah Bazaar, and Mellat Passage also joined the strike. Protesters chanted: “Courageous merchants, support, support!” “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, shut it down, shut it down!” and “You can’t do business with an 80,000 toman dollar!”
In a statement, the merchants cited several reasons for their strike, including the shortage of raw materials due to soaring currency rates, severe economic stagnation caused by exorbitant prices, lack of liquidity in the market, and heavy taxes.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), praised the protesting and striking merchants. She stated that these protests are a significant part of the broader and growing wave of social unrest, including actions by workers, laborers, nurses, and retirees. The vast majority of Iran’s people, impoverished by the plundering, oppressive, and warmongering policies of the criminal clerical regime, face relentless inflation, declining purchasing power, power outages, and disastrous living conditions. This regime of murderers, destroyers of the land and its people, will undoubtedly be overthrown by the uprising and resistance of the people.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
29 December 2024
It seems more an emotional outburst than something effective…
[IsraelTimes] Judicial official, speaking anonymously, says Beirut will ask for file on Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi before deciding on extradition; Cairo convicted him in absentia for terrorism
Lebanese authorities have arrested Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian opposition activist wanted by Cairo and son of the late spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Lebanese judicial official told AFP on Sunday.
Qaradawi, also a poet, was detained on Saturday as he arrived from Syria at the Masnaa border crossing due to an Egyptian arrest warrant, the official said.
The warrant was “based on an Egyptian judiciary ruling” sentencing Qaradawi in absentia to five years’ jail on charges of “opposing the state and inciting terrorism,” the official added.
His father was prominent Sunni scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in Egypt.
The late scholar was imprisoned several times in Egypt over his links to the Muslim Brotherhood. He died in 2022, after decades in exile in Qatar.
Lebanese authorities “will ask the Egyptian authorities” to transfer Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi’s file for examination, the judicial official said, requesting anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The judiciary will make a recommendation on whether “the conditions are met for him to be extradited” and the matter will be referred to the Lebanese government, which must make the final decision, the official added.
Qaradawi was a political organizer against the government of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in 2011 in the Arab Spring uprising.
He later became a vocal opponent of current Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, who in 2013 overthrew elected president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
A family friend told AFP that Qaradawi holds Turkish citizenship and was returning from a visit to Syria, where rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham toppled longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad on December 8.
Assad’s ousting came more than 13 years after war broke out in Syria with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.
Qaradawi had posted a video online taken at Damascus’s Umayyad mosque, celebrating Assad’s fall, expressing hope for “victory” in other Arab Spring countries including Egypt, and warning Syrians of “malicious regimes” in “the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt,” who he described as “Zionist-affiliated states.”
[IsraelTimes] Identity of killer still unknown, but some media reports say perpetrator is linked to al-Qaeda
A suicide bomber killed a local police officer and wounded another in a southern Iranian port city, home to a large Sunni Muslim community, local media said Sunday.
The hardline Javan Daily, a newspaper close to the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the attacker stopped Capt. Mojtaba Shahid’s car Saturday evening in Bandar Lengeh in the province of Hormozgan before detonating his vest.
Shahid’s deputy, who was also in the car, has been hospitalized in critical condition, the paper reported, describing the attack as an act of terrorism.
The city, some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the capital Tehran, has no recent history of terrorism.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but some local news outlets claimed Ansar al-Furqan,
...the Sunni Arab jihadi/separatist group based along the Iranian border with Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. It’s been a thorn in the Iranian side for the past quarter century...
an al-Qaeda-linked Sunni armed group, was behind it.
The attack came days ahead of the anniversary of two suicide bombings on January 3 in which nearly 100 people were killed at a memorial in southeastern Iran for top IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2020 by a US drone. Islamic State claimed those two suicide bombings.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
[IsraelTimes] Fighter jets hit rocket launchers amid resurgent fire from Strip; fourth baby dies of hypothermia in Gaza tent city; IDF says it killed six Oct. 7 perpetrators last month
[IsraelTimes] Death of Shatha al-Sabbagh comes as PA security services clash with terror operatives in West Bank city; family says shooting happened with no fighting nearby
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
...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 
[IsraelTimes] Identity of killer still unknown, but some media reports say perpetrator is linked to al-Qaeda
