#6
Nope. A famous soprano. If I recall correctly, she was discovered when a small child, singing to herself sitting on the curb of the city street. Later her fans would unhitch the horses from her carriage, so they could pull it through the streets themselves.
#6
Paki air power is pretty decent. We learned that from their recent spat with India. I'm betting they can hit anything in Afghanistan any time they like.
[CRITICALTHREATS.ORG] Mali. The Malian junta has supported select local negotiations with al Qaeda's Sahelian affiliate Jama'at Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen (JNIM) to ease the ongoing fuel blockade, which has had widespread impacts on the Malian economy. The negotiations fit a growing pattern of junta-backed negotiations with JNIM, which give the group de facto control of affected areas, across the country throughout 2025.
As a result militants captured #Bulgaria-made 🇧🇬 Arsenal MG-1M machine gun, #Romania-made 🇷🇴 PM md. 63 rifles, 60mm M2 pattern mortar and Chinese mortar bombs. pic.twitter.com/hIdVC0R7fh
[CRITICALTHREATS.ORG] Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... . Rwandan-backed M23 claimed to have added nearly 17,000 new fighters to its ranks since mid-September, effectively doubling its fighting force since early 2025 and making it the largest Rwandan-backed rebellion since the Second Congo War. M23's force generation efforts will likely further complicate peace efforts with the Congolese government.
[IsraelTimes] The Belgium federal public prosecutor’s office says that it thwarted a terror cell that was aiming to target the country’s politicians, and Belgian newspapers said Prime Minister Bart de Wever was among the intended targets.
“There are indications that the intention was to carry out a jihadist-inspired terrorist attack targeting politicians,” it said in a statement.
A plot to attack the Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever and other Belgian leadership was intercepted by police in Antwerp, and three young adult men were arrested.
Prosecutors described it as a "jihadist-inspired terrorist attack." During a search in the Deurne area of Antwerp, police found a homemade explosive that the suspects were planning to attach to a drone to execute the attack. Deurne is near the prime minister's residence.
"The news of a planned attack targeting Prime Minister Bart De Wever is extremely shocking," Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot wrote in a post on X. "I express my full support to the prime minister, his wife and his family, and my thanks go to the security and justice services, whose swift action has prevented the worst. It highlights that we are facing a very real terrorist threat and that we have to remain vigilant."
Reports said that Antwerp Mayor Els van Doesburg and Dutch anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders may have also been targets. Defense Minister Theo Francken said he couldn't confirm who else was a target but that he was not.
Francken said on Phlegmish public broadcaster VRT, "it is terrible for Bart and his family, and of course it's Islamists again," BBC reported.
The suspects were arrested on suspicion of attempted terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group. They all live in Antwerp, the prosecutor's office said. The oldest one, who is 24, was released Thursday night due to lack of evidence. The other two are expected to appear Friday before an investigating judge.
At a presser Friday, Federal Prosecutor Ann Fransen said searches found a "bag of steel balls" and a 3D printer with "indications that they intended to use a drone to attach a payload."
She said there have been 80 terrorism investigations in Belgium this year, which is more than the number of cases in all of 2024.
Five people were convicted in April of a 2023 plot to attack De Wever while he was mayor of Antwerp. De Wever is conservative and is the first Phlegmish nationalist to be prime minister.
NEW: Inflatable frog harassing ICE in Portland identified himself as a “non-binary Antifa terrorist” and described himself online as “a little gay non-binary toad and proud Antifa terrorist.”
The individual, identified as Seth Todd, a 24-year-old non-binary activist, has… pic.twitter.com/zPtFU9DUow
#3
Interesting that he’s not hiding his identity while openly calling for the destruction of Israel. Certainly his right to do so, but it does put a certain glow about him that makes him very visible wherever he goes and with whomever he interacts. I’m sure interested parties have already taken note.
[IsraelTimes] Temple Israel rabbi denounces the antisemitic vandalism, which includes warning ‘Watch out Zionists,’ saying ‘it’s not about political differences. It’s about hate’.
Graffiti targeting “Zionists” and praising Hamas was spray-painted on the preschool wing of a Minneapolis synagogue on Tuesday night, the second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Oh brave, brave Lions of Islam!
Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman said she was notified by one of Temple Israel’s neighbors about the vandalism.
[IsraelTimes] Military says strike hit Hamas cell posing threat to troops; 4 Palestinians reported killed, over 40 trapped under rubble of targeted building
The IDF carried out an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in 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... City Thursday night as government ministers convened to vote on a US-backed hostage release and ceasefire deal aimed at permanently ending the Gaza war.
Paleostinian media, citing the Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... -run Gaza civil defense agency, reported that the strike in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood caused a building to collapse, trapping some 40 people under the debris.
Civil defense said four lifeless bodies were recovered from the building, adding that "more than 40 people are still under the rubble."
Confirming the strike, the IDF said it targeted a cell of Hamas operatives whose members were "operating close to forces and posed an immediate threat to IDF troops operating in the area."
The impending ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, announced late Wednesday night by US President Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... , had yet to take effect at the time of the attack. The signed agreement states "the war will immediately end upon the approval of the Israeli government," which was expected to ratify the deal during a meeting that continued into early Friday morning despite some opposition from far-right ministers.
The strike came just after Hamas chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya confirmed the deal’s terms and said the terror group received US guarantees that the war would end.
"Today we announce an agreement to end the war, [see Israel] withdraw from the Strip and carry out a prisoner exchange," he said in a speech, adding that Hamas "guarantees from the mediators and the Americans that the war has ended indefinitely."
In the short term, the US-backed ceasefire deal will see the release within days of the 48 remaining hostages held in Gaza. In exchange, Israel will release nearly 2,000 Paleostinian prisoners.
Ahead of the full cabinet vote, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said his far-right Religious Zionism party would not vote in favor of the deal, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir declared his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party would oppose it.
Ben Gvir expressed joy that the hostages were expected to return home, but said that his party could not vote "in favor of a deal that releases those murderous terrorists," vowing to oppose the agreement.
Otzma Yehudit will remain in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition for now, Ben Gvir said, while reiterating his warning that if Hamas is not dismantled, the party will "bring down the government."
Those slated for release include 250 security prisoners, many convicted of deadly terror attacks on Israelis, alongside 1,700 Gazook detainees who were jugged Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack — in which faceless myrmidons killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages into the enclave.
The deal will also guarantee a surge of aid into Gaza after more than two years of war, over the course of which over 67,000 people were killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
[IsraelTimes] An IDF reservist soldier was killed in a Hamas sniper attack in Gaza City Thursday afternoon, the military announces.
The slain soldier is named as Sgt. First Class (res.) Michael Mordechai Nachmani, 26, a Technology and Maintenance Corps soldier in the 614th Combat Engineering Battalion, from Dimona.
The sniper attack came after Israeli and Hamas negotiators signed a deal in Egypt to secure the release of all the hostages held by the terror group in Gaza. A ceasefire as part of the deal had not yet taken effect when the attack was carried out.
[IsraelTime] Measures come on heels of UN ‘snapback sanctions’ for Iranian noncompliance with 2015 nuclear deal; target Chinese oil refineries, for 4th time since Trump returned to office
The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on dozens of people, companies and ships tied to Iran’s oil sector, stepping up its campaign against a key revenue source for Tehran.
The Treasury announced more than 50 targets aimed at people who help to facilitate Iran’s shipments of liquified petroleum gas, and include a Chinese port and a China-based "teapot" oil refinery.
The US State Department said in a statement that it had slapped sanctions on around 40 others, including "some of the largest buyers of Iranian petrochemical products by volume and value, as well as the leadership of the companies involved in that trade."
The new flurry of sanctions comes less than two weeks after the UN announced so-called snapback sanctions against 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... over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, deepening Tehran’s isolation on the world stage.
Iran has long contended that it is not seeking nuclear weapons, but it has been enriching uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, barring UN nuclear inspectors, and regularly threatening to destroy Israel.
"The Treasury Department is degrading Iran’s cash flow by dismantling key elements of Iran’s energy export machine," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement announcing the sanctions on Thursday.
Among those targeted was Shandong Jincheng Petrochemical Group Co., a China-based refinery that the Treasury Department said had purchased millions of barrels of Iranian oil since 2023.
The Treasury also hit the company that operates the Rizhao Shihua Crude Oil Terminal at Lanshan Port, accusing it of accepting more than a dozen shadow fleet vessels shipping millions of barrels of Iranian oil.
Thursday’s actions are the Treasury’s fourth set of sanctions targeting China-based refineries since US President Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... ’s return to office in January, according to the statement.
The move adds to the hundreds of people, firms and ships punished for their links to Iran as part of the Trump administration’s "maximum pressure" campaign.
The Treasury’s designation means that any "property and interests in property" held by the sanctions targets in the United States, or controlled by a US citizen, permanent resident or company, are now blocked and must be reported to the its sanctions division.
Any companies owned directly or indirectly by one of the sanctioned individuals are also blocked, the Treasury said.
"So long as Iran attempts to generate oil revenues to fund its subversive activities, the United States will act to counter and to promote accountability for Iran and its partners in sanctions evasion," US State Department principal deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.
[IsraelTimes] Lebanese judicial source says the 32 suspects detained in recent months are suspected of ‘collaborating with Israel, six of them before the ceasefire’ reached last November
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.... has arrested 32 people in recent months on suspicion of providing Israel with information on Hezbollah that facilitated strikes on the Iran-backed terrorist group, a judicial official told AFP on Thursday.
More than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, including two months of open war, saw Israel pummel the group’s arsenal and kill a slew of senior commanders, and it has kept up strikes even after a November truce that it has accused Hezbollah of violating.
Requesting anonymity, the official said that "at least 32 people have been arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel, six of them before the ceasefire."
So far, "nine people have been tried by the military court," while 23 are still under investigation, the official added.
Lebanon has no formal ties with Israel, and any contact is punishable with imprisonment.
In September last year, hundreds of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies went kaboom! in an Israeli operation that paralyzed the terrorist organization’s communication systems and that Lebanon said killed 39 people and maimed thousands.
The following week, Israel killed longtime Hezbollah chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> in a massive Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
A second judicial official with knowledge of the investigations said two of those convicted were sentenced to eight and seven years of hard labor, respectively.
They were found guilty of "providing the enemy with coordinates, addresses and names of Hezbollah officials, knowing that the enemy would use this information to bomb locations where the group’s officials and leaders were located," that official said.
Some of the suspects admitted to "providing Israel with information during the war in south Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs," where Hezbollah holds sway, they added.
VEHICLE TYPES, BUILDINGS
Among those in jug is a religious singer close to Hezbollah whose brother was killed in an Israeli strike.
The suspect is accused of collaborating with Israel’s Mosssd ...sees all, knows all, gets 'em all in the end... spy agency in exchange for money, the second official said, and of providing Israel with coordinates that led to the death of a Hezbollah official and his son in an Israeli strike in south Beirut in April.
He allegedly supplied Israel with "the names of new leaders appointed by the party to succeed those killed during the war, facilitating their liquidation by Israel," the second official added.
A Lebanese security source, also requesting anonymity, told AFP that initial questioning of some detainees showed Israel had sought information on the types of cars and cycle of violences Hezbollah members used.
Since the deal to end the fighting, which began after Hezbollah started attacking Israeli communities and military posts following its Paleostinian ally Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... ’s October 2023 terror onslaught, Israel has usually said its strikes have targeted Hezbollah sites or operatives, also striking cars and cycle of violences both before and after the truce.
"Some agents from outside the group’s ranks were tasked with monitoring certain Hezbollah military and security figures," or with "photographing buildings and facilities that Israel suspected were weapons depots and command and control centers," the security source added.
Lebanon has arrested dozens of people on suspicion of collaborating with Israel over the years, many recruited online in the wake of the country’s economic collapse in 2019.
Those convicted face prison sentences of up to 25 years.
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.
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka 
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
...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 
...sees all, knows all, gets 'em all in the end...
