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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel confirms 2,790 Palestinian detainees from Gaza held in Israeli jails and detention facilities
2025-06-06
[IsraelTimes] Israel confirms that 2,790 Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip are currently held in Israeli jails and detention facilities.

The information is revealed in the state’s response to a petition by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and other organizations against the Law for Unlawful Combatants.

The law enables the holding of suspected terrorists and combatants from terror groups fighting Israel without providing them with a “prisoner of war” status under international humanitarian law, since they are not members of the legal armed forces of a sovereign state.

According to the state’s response to PCATI, 660 of the Gazan detainees are being held in military detention facilities.

The state’s response also confirms that a military detention facility at the Anatot base has been closed, following reports of harsh conditions there, and a facility at the Amiad base used to hold Hezbollah operatives captured in Lebanon was also shuttered.

Since December, Israel has freed 1,244 Gazan detainees — mostly in the hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas — and has detained 455 more, according to the state response.

PCATI notes that there is a “discrepancy” of 144 detainees since the state’s last update. “The fate of these detainees is unknown, and has not been explained by the state authorities,” the organization says.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Government backs bill to form special tribunal for trying Oct. 7 terrorists
2025-05-26
They need a tribunal for war crimes, like the Nuremberg trials. These were not Israeli citizens or subjects who merely committed aggravated robbery. 10/7 was an act of war by what was functionally a national army out of uniform — Geneva Convention stuff.
[IsraelTimes] AG’s office said to oppose legislation on the grounds it could harm the international legitimacy of Israeli prosecutors’ legal action against perpetrators

The government on Sunday gave its backing to a bill that would establish a special tribunal to try and charge bully boyz who took part in the October 7 atrocities with acts of genocide against the Jewish people.

The bill is co-sponsored by coalition MK Simcha Rothman, the head of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, and by MK Yuli Malinowsky of the opposition Yisrael Beytenu party.

It was approved Sunday by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, meaning the legislation will be backed by the coalition when it comes to the Knesset for its preliminary reading.

Israel captured hundreds of the Hamas
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
-led bully boyz who participated in the October 7, 2023, massacre, but has yet to issue indictments against them due to the complications of trying such large numbers of people and the difficulties involved in trying them under regular criminal procedures.

According to the Hamoked organization, there are currently 1,584 unlawful combatants being held in Israeli detention facilities, a category of prisoner that refers to bully boyz who crossed the border into Israel or who fight in Hamas’s terrorist militia.

The new legislation seeks to establish a special tribunal, composed of 15 judges in total, which would hear cases in panels of three or five judges, depending on the type of indictment filed.

Crucially, the bill enables the tribunal to "deviate" from the accepted legal processes and evidentiary standards in Israel’s regular courts, to effectively try the large numbers of bully boyz suspected of involvement in the atrocities.

Israel’s Law for Preventing and Punishing Genocide from 1950 provides for the death penalty
for anyone found guilty of violating its provisions.

Hebrew media reported that the Attorney General’s Office opposes the legislation, saying it contravenes foundational principles of criminal law in Israel, and could harm the international legitimacy of legal processes that state prosecutors have already taken and will take against October 7 perpetrators.

In April, prosecutors in the State Attorney’s office reportedly put together charge sheets against 22 bully boyz who took part in the massacre in Kibbutz Nir Oz, to be filed as part of a single mega-indictment against hundreds of suspects.

The new information that led to the consolidation of evidence against the 22 Nir Oz bully boyz apparently came from the Shin Bet following the military’s advancement into new areas 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...
, where teams found incriminating evidence, Ynet reported.

Some legal scholars have argued that a criminal process for the hundreds of bully boyz to be prosecuted could take decades.

"When you prosecute under criminal law you get problems. It generates massive amounts of investigative material [for each defendant] and the defendants get numerous rights such as the right to see the material, the right to an attorney, and others," Yuval Kaplinsky, former head of the International Law Department at the State Attorney’s Office, told The Times of Israel last year.

Instead, he proposed applying an administrative process for the terrorists, by amending Israel’s Law for Unlawful Combatants to allow long-term detention without trial, renewable every few years.

This would create a situation akin to the manner in which the US has held bully boyz responsible for the September 11 attacks and other terror attacks in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Some legal scholars argue the contrary, however, insisting that putting perpetrators of the October 7 massacre on trial within the criminal law framework could help create "a historic narrative" for the invasion and atrocities.

"This is a historic event. Our legal behavior must be in keeping with this historic vision," said conservative legal scholar Rafael Biton at a conference of the Israel Law and Liberty Forum in March 2024.

He noted the strong impact the Nuremberg trials and the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel had on the narrative of the Holocaust.

Biton proposed prosecuting the October 7 invasion as a "collective crime" through the passing of a law to try terrorist suspects on a collective basis, with a presumption that if they were caught by Israel’s security forces in Israel on or after October 7, they took part in the attacks, unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary.

Treating the perpetrators in this way would remove many of the obstacles mentioned by Kaplinsky, including prosecuting each defendant on an individual basis and connecting their actions to a specific victim, with all the investigative work that requires.

"This was a collective invasion to carry out genocide, crimes against humanity, and crimes against Israeli illusory sovereignty. This was not a group of individuals, they didn’t gather together accidentally," said Biton.
That’s why the legislation is needed — this is not a matter for standard issue state prosecution. They could have been holding drumhead court-martials after military intelligence and Shin Bet got through with them, then put them up against a wall with a last cigarette.
Link


Science & Technology
Stealthy Special Operations Speedboats Are Getting Kamikaze Drone Launchers
2025-05-08
[TWZ] The Navy's future Combatant Craft Medium Mk 2s will gain the ability to launch long-range strikes on their own.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Lawyers say detained Gaza hospital director still in Israeli custody, despite reports he would be freed
2025-02-17
[IsraelTimes] Despite reports predicting he would go free in yesterday’s prisoner release as part of the hostage deal, detained Gaza hospital director Hussam Abu Safiya remains in Israeli custody, according to his lawyers.
What is his Nom De Guerre?
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a Gaza-based Palestinian rights group representing Abu Safiya, says that Israeli authorities issued an order last week to detain the doctor without charges under a 2002 law dealing with unlawful combatants.

The decision comes after Abu Safiya’s lawyer visited him in Ofer Prison and claimed his client had been subjected to “torture and ill-treatment, including being held in solitary confinement for more than 20 days,” the group says in a statement.

Although Hebrew media reports claimed that Abu Safiya was one of the 333 Gazans slated for release yesterday, his name did not appear on the list distributed by Palestinian prisoners’ organizations.

Israel detained Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, along with nearly 240 others during a raid on the medical facility in December 2024, alleging that Hamas was using it as a command center.

The military said it suspects Abu Safiya of being a Hamas member.

In its current form, the Unlawful Combatants Law permits high-ranking IDF officers to issue a temporary detention order against an inmate whose release could harm state security. The order must be ratified by a civilian court within 45 days, upon which it can last for up to six months before being renewed.
Related:
Hussam Abu Safiya 02/13/2025 Lawyers for detained Gaza hospital chief claim he was abused in Israeli custody
Hussam Abu Safiya 01/08/2025 Hamas gunny tells IDF interrogators that gunmen operated in Kamal Adwan Hospital
Hussam Abu Safiya 01/04/2025 Security Council holds emergency session on IDF counter-terror raid of north Gaza hospital

Link


Science & Technology
Will The U.S. Navy Build New Cruisers?
2024-07-04
The U.S. Navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruisers are approaching the end of their service lives and will be decommissioned in the coming years. By 2027, all cruisers will be gone. What will replace them, and will the U.S. Navy build new cruisers as replacements?

The U.S. Navy did have the Next-Generation Cruiser program (CG(X)), started in November 2001, to design and replace the Ticonderoga-class cruisers. The CG(X) program was canceled in 2010. In CG(X)’s canceled program’s place, the U.S. Navy decided to acquire Flight III DDG-51s, upgraded versions of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

According to the June 10, 2010, Congressional Research Service (CRS) report to Congress, “The CG(X) program was announced on November 1, 2001, when the Navy stated that it was launching a Future Surface Combatant Program aimed at acquiring a family of next-generation surface combatants. This new family of surface combatants, the Navy stated, would include three new classes of ships.

• a destroyer called the DD(X)—later renamed the DDG-1000 or Zumwalt class—for the precision long-range strike and naval gunfire mission,

• a cruiser called the CG(X) for the AAW [Anti-Air Warfare] and BMD [Ballistic Missile Defense] mission, and

• a smaller combatant called the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to counter submarines, small surface attack craft, and mines in heavily contested littoral (near-shore) area.” The tumblehome hull Zumwalt-class destroyers (DDG-1000) and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) were indeed built, but the CG(X) program did not become a reality.

In June 2024, Naval News asked the U.S. Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) about cruiser replacements and if there would be any new CG(X) program resurrection. NAVSEA forwarded my request to the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Information (CHINFO) office, who replied:

"The Navy does not intend to replace Ticonderoga-class cruisers with CG(X). In the near term, the DDG 51 FLT III, and DDG(X) in the long term, fulfill the requirements historically supported by the Ticonderoga-class cruisers."

“While DDG 51 Flight III capabilities enable the surface force to pace adversary threats into the future, after 40 years of production and 30 years of upgrades, the DDG 51 hull form has inadequate space, weight, power, and cooling margins (SWaP-C) for future upgrades,”

“DDG(X) represents an evolutionary vice revolutionary approach that will provide the Navy with the warfighting capabilities and SWaP-C margins to relieve both the Arleigh Burke DDG 51 class destroyer and Ticonderoga CG 47 class cruiser as the next enduring hull form.”

When asked why the CG(X) program was canceled and if the Requirements for the CG(X) program still exist, CHINFO’s spokesperson said, “CG(X) represented a revolutionary vision for the future of the Navy. However, CG(X) was based on the matured DDG 1000 hull form, which met with significant technical and affordability issues.

"The requirements that were filled by the Ticonderoga-class cruiser are now being filled by DDG 51 FLT III in the near term and DDG(X) in the long term. The Navy’s current capabilities resident within DDG 51 FLT III and DDG(X) ship classes are sufficient to meet the requirements the CG(X) program was intended to fulfill. These capabilities are deemed sufficient to support the Surface Navy’s mission throughout the range of military operations. Accordingly, there is no plan to pursue the CG(X).”

Link


International-UN-NGOs
Ukraine prisoner of war trials in Mariupol could be a war crime: OHCHR
2023-09-29
[UN News] OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said the trials by the Russian-backed authorities could begin in the occupied city, possibly within days - and warned that such a process could amount to a war crime.

"We are very concerned about the manner in which this is being done. There are pictures in the media of cages being built in Mariupol's philharmonic hall, really massive cages and apparently, the idea is to restrain the prisoners", Ms. Shamdasani told a briefing in Geneva. "This is not acceptable, this is humiliating," she said.
'Combatant immunity'

Ms. Shamdasani pointed out how "under international law, individuals entitled to prisoner of war status have combatant immunity and cannot be prosecuted for having participated in hostilities, or for lawful acts of war committed in the course of the armed conflict, even if such acts would otherwise constitute an offence under domestic law."

The spokesperson added that OHCHR was concerned that prisoners of war have generally been held without access to independent monitors, exposing them to the risk of being tortured to extract a confession.

"There have also been worrying public statements by Russian officials and members of affiliated armed groups labelling Ukrainian prisoners of war as ’war criminals, ’Nazis’, and ’terrorists’, thereby undermining the presumption of innocence."
The Ukrainian POWs are slowly being starved with minimal medical care. The exchanged prisoners have all lost 20kgs or more.

Related: One of the defenders of Mariupol during the shameful trial in Russia.
Link


-Land of the Free
Marines get Tomahawks
2023-07-26
[USNI News] The Marine Corps stood up its first-ever Tomahawk cruise missile battery at Camp Pendleton, Calif., last week.

Alpha Battery, which falls under the 11th Marine Regiment, is the first of three Long-Range Missile (LMSL) batteries that the service plans to procure starting in FY 2024.The Long-Range Fires Launcher will use the same ROGUE-Fires carrier of the Navy/Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) and mount a single Mk.41 vertical launch system cell, according to budgetary documents. Each LMSL battery will have 16 launchers, former Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger said in a statement before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

"This is a historic chapter in the Marine Corps and the 11th Marine Regiment. The American people expect the Marine Corps to prepare for war," said Col. Patrick Eldridge, commanding officer of the 11th Marine Regiment, in the activation ceremony’s press release.

USNI News previously reported that the service was pursuing a JTLV-based Tomahawk launcher in 2020. This concept was tested last year, with May’s Force Design 2030 Annual Update stating "conducted a ground launch of a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile mounted on a remotely operated mobile launcher."

The Marine Corps has described the LMSL batteries as a way for the service to "provide Combatant Commanders with the ability to employ an agile, mobile, land-bases system, capable of launching Tomahawk cruise missiles to complement surface and sub-surface launched missiles."

Tomahawks are one of the key assets being procured to achieve a long-range fires capability as the service gears up for challenges in the Pacific through Force Design 2030.

"These Marines have done phenomenal things. They took an idea and are making it work. The job just started, but this capability will be able to reach out and provide devastating and lethal fires," Capt. Justin Hillebrand, Alpha Battery’s first commander, said in the activation ceremony’s press release.

Alpha Battery is the latest development in the Marine Corps’ anti-ship efforts. A few days prior to the activation, the 11th Marine Regiment also conducted a NMESIS live fire at Point Mugu. This was the first firing of the service’s Naval Strike Missile in two years, the last occurring in 2021.
Link


Caribbean-Latin America
Biden Frees Maduro's Cocaine-Trafficking ‘Narco-Nephews' in Venezuela Hostage Swap
2022-10-05
[Breitbart] President Joe Biden conducted a prisoner swap with the socialist regime of Venezuela that materialized on Saturday, releasing two of dictator Nicolás Maduro’s nephews who had been sentenced to 18 years in prison in America for cocaine trafficking in exchange for seven imprisoned American oil workers.

The Biden administration announced the release of the seven American citizens via an official statement published Saturday.

“Today, after years of being wrongfully detained in Venezuela, we are bringing home Jorge Toledo, Tomeu Vadell, Alirio Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano, Jose Pereira, Matthew Heath, and Osman Khan. These individuals will soon be reunited with their families and back in the arms of their loved ones where they belong,” the statement read.

Five of the seven American citizens were executives of the Houston-based Venezuelan Citgo oil company.

The White House statement omitted that these American citizens were released as part of a prisoner swap for Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, whom Venezuelans have commonly referred to as the narcosobrinos (“narco-nephews”) since their arrest and conviction on drug trafficking charges in New York. Flores and Flores de Freitas are the nephews of Cilia Flores, Maduro’s wife and “First Combatant” of the socialist regime — a made-up term to elevate her above “first lady” status.

Both of Maduro’s nephews were arrested in November 2015 by DEA authorities in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, while allegedly attempting to transport 800 kilograms of cocaine belonging to Colombia’s Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terrorist organization into the United States. Both were convicted and sentenced to 18 years in a U.S. prison in December 2017.

The Biden administration, which granted clemency to both of Maduro’s nephews, said in the official White House statement that Biden was “grateful for the hard work of dedicated public servants across the U.S. Government who made this possible, and who continue to deliver on my Administration’s unflinching commitment to keep faith with Americans held hostage and wrongfully detained all around the world.”

The Maduro regime celebrated the prisoner swap as a victory, releasing an official statement that refers to the “narco-nephews” as “two young Venezuelans” who were “unjustly arrested” in the United States. The regime claimed that it released the Americans for “humanitarian reasons.” The Maduro regime’s statement also mentions that the swap took place as a result of different conversations between the socialist regime and the Biden administration — directly contradicting Biden’s assertions during the 2020 presidential campaign that Maduro was “afraid” of a Biden victory and his campaign’s promise not to “negotiate with dictators.”

Shortly after the announcement, the administration of Venezuela’s legitimate (yet powerless) president, Juan Guaidó, released a statement clarifying that they had no involvement in the negotiations that led to the release of Maduro’s nephews, but he celebrated the release of the American citizens.

“Any gesture must go in the direction of recovering democratic institutions, defeating the dictatorship, and defending respect for human rights. Any other direction would be detrimental to Venezuela and the entire world. We are and will always be with the Venezuelan people and their inalienable struggle for freedom,” Guaidó’s statement read.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) lambasted the move on Sunday, expressing to CNN that the swap puts Americans in danger worldwide.

“That has now put a price tag on Americans. Every time you do one of these deals — and I wanted those people released as much as anybody — but every time you do this, now others know, ‘I can take Americans, I can hold them until I need something as a bargaining chip,’” Sen. Rubio said. “I think seven innocent American hostages in exchange for two convicted drug dealers, who happened to be the nephews of Maduro, is a huge win for Maduro and, unfortunately, puts Americans all over the world now in danger.”

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele also commented on Biden’s release of the convicted nephews through his Twitter account.

“On this day, my Venezuelan brothers realized that we are just pawns for the global elites. Our causes are used and discarded at convenience, it does not even depend on what we do or not. Our freedom will only come from ourselves,” Bukele posted.

In another tweet, Bukele wrote, “He who spares the wolf sacrifices the sheep.”
Related:
Citgo: 2021-10-19 Maduro ally Alex Saab appears in court to face corruption charges
Citgo: 2021-05-13 Top U.S. fuel pipeline recovering from devastating ransomware attack
Citgo: 2020-02-09 US oil executives moved from house arrest to prison after Guaido meets with Trump
Related:
Francisco Flores de Freitas: 2016-11-09 NY drug trial starts for two nephews of Venezuela's first lady
Link


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Database of foreign mercenaries fighting in Ukraine
2022-06-08
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.


ForeignCombatants.ru
is our database of foreign mercenaries and volunteers taking part in hostilities on the side of Ukraine war" in Ukraine. Although there are enough veterans in the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine, the vast majority are airsoft players and e-sportsmen.

Despite the huge number of publications in foreign media about the hard lot of mercenaries in Ukraine, no one has yet thought of creating a single public database to show the scale of the disaster.

Together with the @vatfor project, we did this: with the help of volunteers, we collect, catalog and translate information into foreign languages.

The purpose of the ForeignCombatants.ru project is to convince adventurers to abandon the role of "cannon fodder" and show how the Ukrainian authorities simply use them all.

If you want to join the volunteer team and help, you are welcome: write to @fcomb_bot

Link


-Great Cultural Revolution
Diversity and Inclusion Officer Hired For Special Forces
2021-03-28
[Victory Girls] On Friday, March 26, 2021, the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) announced that they have hired Richard Estrada-Torres as their Officer of Diversity and Inclusion. You read that right. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is planning to "cultivate masculinity" and our Special Forces are getting woke. Patton, Pershing, Nimitz, Puller, and Washington are shaking their fists at us.

For those not versed in military speak, USSOCOM is the umbrella organization for special operations in the United States Military:
SOCOM was established following the disastrous attempt by Delta Force to rescue Americans held hostage in Iran in 1980. One of the issues that contributed to the debacle in Iran was the lack of interoperability, communication and co-ordination between the Army, Navy and Air Force. SOCOM was activated in April 1987. SOCOM oversees any special operations involving elements from multiple services. JSOC, a joint command which is focused on counter terrorism, was established in December 1980 and was later brought in under the umbrella of SOCOM.

USSOCOM includes units from all of the military branches, such as Navy Seals, Army Rangers, Marines Special Operations Command, Air Force Special Operations Command, and others.

Their mission statement is:
USSOCOM develops and employs fully capable Special Operations Forces to conduct global special operations and activities as part of the Joint Force to support persistent, networked and distributed Combatant Command operations and campaigns against state and non-state actors to protect and advance U.S. policies and objectives.

For perspective, less than one percent of the United States population serves in the military and two percent of the military are special operators. To quote Will Smith in Men in Black, They are the "Best of the Best of the Best, Sir! With Honors, Sir!" The United States, Canada, Great Britain, Israel and Poland have the best special operations units globally. My point in telling you all of this is that diversity and inclusion are at odds with the very nature of special operations.

Nevertheless, on March 1, 2021, USSOCOM hired Richard Torres-Estrada as Officer for Diversity and Inclusion, but didn’t announce the hire for 25 days. Via Twitter:
Link


Europe
Belgian extremist arrested in kidnapping probe
2020-06-03
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A leading suspect arrested by Belgian police on suspicion of kidnapping a 13-year-old is an holy warrior with terrorism convictions, a source close to the investigation told AFP on Tuesday.

Khalid Bouloudo, 45, was arrested on Monday along with five others, accused of taking the young son of a suspected drug pusher hostage for ransom and holding him for 42 days until his release on Sunday.

Bouloudo — identified by prosecutors by his initials and hometown: "B.K. of Maaseik" — is a former member of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM),
... Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain, one of the North African Salafi jihadist groups spawned in Afghanistan during the tenure of the Taliban...
an holy warrior group with ties to al-Qaeda terrorist organization.

He was due to go on trial in September accused of running a GICM cell in Belgium, having had a previous conviction overturned after an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

In 2018 he was convicted of a terrorism offence for recruiting fighters to join an holy warrior faction in Syria’s civil war, but his 10-year sentence was reduced to three years suspended on appeal.

The source told AFP others among the six suspects arrested with Bouloudo are also suspected of extremism ties, but it was not clear whether the kidnap will be prosecuted as terrorist fundraising or a simple crime.

The GICM is an armed movement linked to al-Qaeda which is suspected of having participated in attacks in Madrid that left 191 dead on March 11, 2004 and Casablanca, in which 45 were killed on May 16, 2003.
Related:
Khalid Bouloudo: 2005-11-05 Belgium opens major terror trial
Khalid Bouloudo: 2005-11-03 Belgium opens al-Qaeda trial
Khalid Bouloudo: 2005-10-10 Hard boyz find base in Belgium
Link


Olde Tyme Religion
We can destroy Israel in 1/2 a day! Sermon by Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda
2019-09-23
[Twitter]


Sayyid Ahmad Alamolhoda is an Iranian Shia Islamic cleric who has been described as "senior" and "conservative" and "hardline." His rank has been given both as Hojjatoleslam and Ayatollah. He is the Friday Prayer leader in Mashhad, Iran and is also that city's representative in the Iranian Assembly of Experts. Alamolhoda is a member of Combatant Clergy Association
Born: Sept 1, 1944, Mashhad, Iran
Political party: Combatant Clergy Association
Spouse(s): Sakineh Rikhtegarzadeh

Wikipedia on the Combatant Clergy Association
Link



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