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Recent Appearances...

Home Front: WoT

Guantanamo judge rejects torture-derived confession

2023-08-20

[Dawn] A US military judge ruled for the first time Friday that an al-Qaeda bombing suspect’s confession cannot be used as evidence because it was derived from torture, potentially setting a new hurdle for September 11 prosecutions.

The judge in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba US military tribunals said that a confession by Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri,

...the quietly polite, little middle-aged man who two decades ago was an Al Qaeda bigshot and friend of formerly not-dead Osama bin Laden. He has been in American prisons and GITMO since 2002, far from the pleasures of jihad and female companionship, which is some compensation for the fact that he is still among the living...

the alleged criminal mastermind of the 2000 attack against the USS Cole in Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
that left 17 dead, was tainted by years of abuse at the hands of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

"Exclusion of such evidence is not without societal costs," wrote the judge, Col. Lanny Acosta.

"However,
a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all...
permitting the admission of evidence obtained by or derived from torture by the same government that seeks to prosecute and execute the accused may have even greater societal costs."

Still, he’s been imprisoned in GITMO for two decades, kept from practicing jihad and reduced to getting fat and flinging horded feces and urine at his jailers, which is some consolation.

Nashiri’s attorney Anthony Natale said the judge threw out the key evidence military prosecutors hoped to use to convict Nashiri.

The ruling left the long-running death penalty

case mired in the pretrial phase, with no sign of when a full trial could begin.

Attorneys for both Nashiri and the five men accused of the September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attack on the United States have battled for more than a decade in the Guantanamo military court to exclude evidence against them derived from torture.

The six were captured separately after the 2001 attacks and shuttled through CIA-run "black sites" in countries such as Thailand and Poland where they were put through extreme interrogation techniques including waterboarding and physical beatings.

After they arrived at Guantanamo — an isolated US naval base — some like Nashiri were again mistreated, including in early 2007, when the FBI interrogated him.

While prosecutors had argued that Nashiri was no longer affected by the impact of earlier torture sessions, the judge ruled that continued rough treatment up to that interrogation simply extended "years of physical and psychological torment".

"The evidence supports a conclusion that the accused did what he was trained to do: comply," the ruling said.

Nashiri, 58, is charged with engineering the deadly attack on the USS Cole on October 12, 2000. He is also accused of the bombing of the crude carrier Limburg two years later in the same area, which left one person dead.

Natale stressed that the ruling only applies to Nashiri’s case, and is not binding on any of the other judges overseeing cases in the Guantanamo military court. But he said it creates "a template that others could try to replicate".

Alka Pradhan, an attorney for one of the five accused in the September 11 case, said it would impact the entire military court.

"The Nashiri ruling today is fundamentally destabilising to the whole military commission system," she said in a social media post.

In both the 9/11 and Nashiri cases, she said, the bulk of prosecutors’ evidence "was derived from torture at the CIA black sites whose effects were deliberately maintained through FBI interrogations at Guantanamo".

Link

Europe

Belgium busts illegal drug lab on airbase housing US nukes

2022-06-30

[IsraelTimes] Belgian police arrest civilian suspects who brewed ecstasy around the corner from thermonuclear warheads on American base

Belgian police raided an illegal lab producing the rave drug ecstasy on an airbase that reputedly houses part of the US nuclear arsenal in Europe, Sherlocks said Tuesday.

Two suspects — not military personnel — were arrested during the raid, according to a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office in the Belgian province of Limburg.

The Kleine-Brogel base in northeast Belgium is best known for housing a stock of US nuclear weapons.

Belgian officials are discreet about the deployment, having briefly confirmed its role in the 1980s, but in 2019 a Green MP told parliament that US forces hold ten to 20 warheads there.

Prosecutors said that local police had discovered the drug lab on military land on June 22 and that it had been dismantled by specialist federal officers.

The lab was found to produce MDMA, a synthetic recreational drug most commonly known as ecstasy.

The Kleine-Brogel airbase is often a target of Belgian anti-nuclear and anti-NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
protesters.

It is in a rural area between the port city of Antwerp and the border with Germany’s industrial heartland, an area dotted by labs and hideouts used by international narco gangs.

Link

Afghanistan

Georgian Peacekeepers Bound to Afghanistan while U.S. Troops Gear Up for Withdrawal

2020-12-07

[KhaamaPress] Salome Zurabishvili, Georgian President told media, their 100 peacekeeping members are bound for Afghanistan,

Positive evaluations received internationally were due to its soldiers, Salome indicated, saying "today, the world is facing a big challenge of the pandemic, the fact Georgia is fulfilling its commitment under these difficult conditions is very important."

Zurabishvili wished Georgian soldiers success in their mission in Afghanistan and wished them safe return back to home.

This comes as Belgium’s Defense Minister, ludivine Dedonder announced troops withdrawal in Afghanistan, to return home by next year.

Belgians are preparing for withdrawal which will occur sometime in 2021, Het Belang van Limburg newspaper reports.

Belgian President Dedonder is expected to present military operation plans for 2021 to the Belgium cabinet and the parliament next week.

They currently have 70 Belgian military personnel serving in Afghanistan as a US-led NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
resolute support mission.

At least 11,000 NATO troops are currently serving in Afghanistan, from which 2000 American troops will be reduced by January of 2021.

Link

Europe

Multiple Injuries As Stolen Truck ‘Rams Into Traffic' In German State Of Hesse

2019-10-08

[RT] A stolen truck has rammed into traffic in the city of Limburg, Germany, causing a number of injuries. The driver has been arrested, though police are still determining whether the incident was an accident or a deliberate attack.

The truck plowed into the cars as they were stopped at a traffic light on Monday evening, injuring at least seventeen people, one of them seriously, according to local media. The driver was also reportedly injured in the collision.

At least 17 people were injured, local media outlets reported siting police.
Here's some additional information from a German TV newscast I saw:

The truck was stolen very close to the site of the incident. The perp opened the parked truck's door and dragged the surprised driver out without saying a word.

According to a witness who rendered first aid to the injured perp he's a young man of 'southern' appearance who said his name was Mohamed.

Thank you, Elmerert Hupens2660. Yahoo has the story from the AFP feed. Key new/confirming bits:

The daily Frankfurter Neue Presse (FNP) quoted the rightful driver of the truck, who was not named, as saying: "A man dragged me out of my lorry."

He said the man, in his 30s with short dark hair and a full beard, had yanked open the driver-side door and stared at him wide-eyed before forcing him out of the vehicle.

"I asked him 'What do you want from me?'," he told FNP. "He didn't say a word."

The newspaper quoted witnesses saying the truck sped into the parked cars before coming to a stop several metres from the traffic light.

When the man behind the wheel of the truck emerged from the crash, several passers-by provided first aid, FNP reported.

"The passers-by said the driver said 'Allah' several times" and spoke Arabic, FNP reported. Police did not confirm this account.

Bettina Yeisley from Limburg, whose office is directly next to the scene of the crash, told FNP that she heard a loud bang and ran out onto the street with colleagues.

They found the man sitting beneath a tree without knowing he had been driving.

"He was bleeding from the nose, his hands were bloody, his trousers torn. He said that everything hurt. I asked him his name and he said, 'My name is Mohammed'."

So now the question is whether he is a registered asylum seeker, a long term legal resident/citizen, or whether he is not supposed to be there, either because of unregistered entry or refusal to leave after being rejected.

Link

Europe

Masked assailants waterboard, rob Netherlands Jewish leader

2019-07-13

[IsraelTimes] Benoit Wesly, 73, stabbed, beaten and tortured in his home in Maastricht; unclear if crime had anti-Semitic motive.

A Netherlands Jewish leader was assaulted, tortured and robbed in his home by four masked men in an apparent planned operation.

Benoit Wesly, a 73-year-old businessman, woke up early Sunday morning to find the assailants around his bed in his home in the southern city of Maastricht, Jonet.nl reported Thursday. His wife was out of the country.

Police are investigating the motives for the crime. Reports about the incident did not indicate whether they or Wesly have reason to believe he was targeted because of his Jewishness. Wesly is a leader of the Jewish community in the Limburg region, in the south of the Netherlands.

Wesly was beaten, pushed down the stairs, stabbed and kicked, according to the report. Then the men tied him to a chair, placed a piece of cloth over his mouth and nose, and poured water on the cloth ‐ a torture technique known as waterboarding that simulates drowning ‐ until he gave them the combination to his safe, Wesly told police.

He was bound to the chair for several hours before wriggling free and going to the cop shoppe.

House invasions involving torture are rare in the Netherlands, as are attacks against Jewish community leaders.

That sounds nice, when so narrowly defined. And is there nowadays in the Netherlands, perchance, an accelerating rate of house invasions, torture, attacks on Jews, and/or attacks on the native Dutch?

Link

Europe

Suspected WWII bomb blasts crater in German field

2019-06-26

[DAWN] A bomb likely dating to World War II went kaboom! in a field in western Germany leaving a huge crater but no injuries, police said on Monday.

The explosion left a 10-metre (33 feet) wide and four-metre deep hole after residents in Limburg heard a loud noise and felt the earth shake on Sunday morning.

"The crater was examined on Monday by an explosive ordnance clearance service to find possible fragments," a police front man said.

"The area was used for target practice during the Second World War," he added.

A bomb disposal service front man said it was "highly possible" WWII ordnance was involved. A local government front man in the nearby city of Darmstadt told German daily Bild it was believed the bomb had a chemical-based delayed timer which could have finally eroded.

Link

Arabia

Saudi Arabia confirms arrival of Guantanamo Bay prisoner

2018-05-04

[DAWN] Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
confirmed on Thursday the arrival of a prisoner who was sent back to the Kingdom from the Guantanamo Bay detention center to serve out the remainder of his 13-year sentence.

Ahmed Mohammed al-Darbi is the first detainee to leave the US base in Cuba since President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
took office. The Pentagon first announced the transfer in a brief statement on Wednesday.

Saudi state security says al-Darbi arrived just before midnight on Wednesday and that his relatives had been notified.

After serving the remainder of his sentence, about nine years, al-Darbi will spend time in a Saudi rehabilitation center for convicted holy warriors that aims to help them assimilate back into society through frequent visits with relatives, religious counseling with moderate holy mans, art therapy and even cash assistance to help them once out.

There have been around 140 detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia. His transfer brings the number of men still held at Guantanamo to 40.

The agreement to repatriate al-Darbi was made under President Barack Obama
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...
, whose administration had hoped to eventually close the detention center. Trump reversed that policy and has vowed to continue using the center.

Al-Darbi pleaded guilty before a military commission at the US base in Cuba in 2014 to charges stemming from an al-Qaeda attack on a French oil tanker. His plea deal included extensive testimony against others held at Guantanamo.

His charges included conspiracy, attacking civilian objects, terrorism and aiding the enemy for helping to arrange the 2002 al-Qaeda attack on the French tanker MV Limburg. The attack, which killed a Bulgarian crew member, happened after al-Darbi was already in US custody and was cooperating with authorities, according to court documents.

Al-Darbi, 43, was captured at an airport in Azerbaijan in June 2002 and taken to the US base in Bagram, Afghanistan. He has testified to being kept in solitary confinement, strung up from a door in shackles, deprived of sleep and subjected to other forms of abuse as part of his early interrogation.

Link

Europe

'Knifeman' brandishes weapon at Belgian train station police - shots fired

2018-01-24

The smart money says he will turn out to be Muslim, very probably an asylum seeker, and a known wolf — a petty criminal with mental health or drug/alcohol problems.

[Express] A MAN has been shot after reportedly brandishing a knife at an on-duty policeman in the Belgian city of Ghent, officials have revealed just days after the nation reduced their terror threat level for the first time in two years.

Police shoot knifeman at Gent train station

Officials are yet to confirm the motive of the incident.

The incident took place outside the Gent-st-Pietrea station to the south of the City's centre.

The area is currently on police lockdown – however train services are believed to still be in operation.

Regional officials have confirmed investigations are ongoing.

Spokeswoman for the regional Prosecutor An Schoonjans said: "A shooting incident happened at the station of Gent-Sint-Pieters.

"The railway police have fired at a man with a knife.

"The man was taken to the hospital and injured and is in danger.

"We investigate the exact circumstances of the facts."

A student who witnessed the incident said: “The man first entered the station loudly”.

"Then he pulled a knife and held it in the air.

“When the police ordered the man to lay down his knife, he refused.”

The man reportedly also entered a shop across the road before the incident – where he also brandished the weapon.

The shopkeeper said he “looked desperate” during the exchange.

Update from Breitbart at 3:20 p.m. ET:

Belgian police shot an Afghan migrant at Ghent station Tuesday night after the man approached officers, threatening to attack them, and ignored orders to drop a knife.

Two shots were fired by the officers after the man failed to respond to orders to drop the knife, one of which struck the would-be assailant, causing him to drop his weapon. The 28-year-old man, who was described as being of Afghan origin and as wearing "a white turban" was handcuffed and taken to hospital, and was at death's door, although that has now improved.

Belgian Phlegmish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reports nothing is known about the man, his identity, or motivation ‐ however, Belgian police have said they do not believe the "undocumented" Afghan was moved by a terror motive to take a knife to attack police at the station.

The paper also reported although there was no certainty over who the man was, he did not appear to be known for previous crimes and "there are no signs of radicalisation."

Het Belang van Limburg reports that rumours the man quoted verses of the Koran during the attack had not been confirmed by police.

Link

Europe

Belgian Kurd becomes Federal Secretary, Turkish hissy fit

2017-02-26

[ARA] The Phlegmish nationalist MP Zuhal Demir, a Kurd born in Belgium, was sworn in as the new Secretary of State (Junior Minister) of Belgium.

She took over the job of her colleague Elke Sleurs and became the new Secretary of State for Equal Rights, Disabled Persons, Scientific Policy, Urban Policy and fighting Poverty.

"We congratulate Zuhal Demir on her appointment as Secretary of State," Falah Mustafa, the head of foreign affairs of the Kurdistan Region said on Saturday.

Demir, 36, was born in the Limburg city of Genk. Her parents immigrated to Genk from the Kurdish town of Dersim in ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
From January 2013 to the end of 2015, Zuhal Demir was District Mayor in the central district of Antwerp. She left the post to return to her hometown of Genk.

The Turkish media responded negatively to the appointment, calling it a scandal, accusing her of attending a meeting of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Belgium.

However,
it was a brave man who first ate an oyster...
Demir says she is a pacifist and has no sympathy for the PKK.

"Just because you have Kurdish roots, it doesn’t mean you are supporting the PKK. On the contrary, violence can never be a solution," she said.
Ask Kaiser Bill. Ask Harold Godwinson. Ask Napoleon Bonapart. Ask any Gepid.
Earlier a picture was shown of Demir attending a meeting with a PKK flag and a portrait of the imprisoned PKK-leader Abdullah Ocalan.

"I have never attended a PKK-meeting, but a meeting of a cultural Kudish association in Antwerpen. For years, I plead for a peaceful solution for the Kurds in Turkey. I am sick and tired of these suspicions," she said.

Earlier the Turkish media posted a picture claiming that Demir was a female fighter of the PKK, but she denies this. "I am not the woman on the picture of the Kurdish fighters. They did this on purpose to frame me," she said, threatening to take legal action.

Link

Europe

Belgian Priest Stabbed by "Asylum Seeker" In his Own Home After Offering the Man Assistance

2016-08-01

[Gateway Pundit] Belgian priest Jos Vanderlee, suffered several wounds after an asylum seeker stabbed him in his own home. The man asked Father Jos for a shower to clean up then stabbed the priest after he wouldn't give the man his money.

A priest has been stabbed in his own home by an asylum seeker he allowed in to use his shower ‐ according to local prosecutors. The priest - named locally as 65-year-old Jos Vanderlee -suffered injuries to his hands during the incident in Lanaken, Belgium.

Public Prosecutor of Limburg Coppin Bruno said the attack happened at around 2.40pm local time (1.40pm UK time) but have stressed they do not believe it was terror-related.

Prosecutors say the suspect had knocked on the priest's home to ask for a shower and help. After the shower the man allegedly asked for money and stabbed the priest when he said no.

The attacker is then said to have fled the scene.

Link

Europe

Mother abducts Dutch children to ISIL-held Syrian city

2015-03-17

Two Dutch children have been abducted by their mother and taken to the ISIL-held city of Raqqa in Syria, Dutch prosecutors confirmed Monday. It is the first such case reported in the Netherlands, a country which has seen dozens of other would-be fighters head to conflict zones in Syria and Iraq to join forces with the armed group.

The 32-year-old woman, a native of Chechnya, who has not been named by Dutch media,

...why on earth not??

took the boy and girl, aged 7 and 8, from their hometown of Maastricht in the Netherlands in October. Dutch police immediately emitted a national alert and an international arrest warrant, public broadcaster NOS reported.

Anyone call the coppe shoppe at the Istanbul airport?

But the mother managed to reach Syrian territory controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

According to Dutch prosecutors, the woman had arranged for false passports for her and her children, Luca and Aysha. Prosecutors suspect that the woman received help from others to travel because she managed to dodge the warrant. Three other people left Maastricht for Syria last year, and the police are investigating the possible presence of a professional network in the city that recruits people to travel to the war zone, according to Dutch media.

We have professional networks supporting the crossing of the Rio Grande, so it makes sense that you'd have one in Turkey...

After their arrival in Syria, the woman announced via Facebook that she and her children were in Raqqa. Nothing has been heard from them since, prosecutors told Dutch media.

Dutch prosecutors say the Maastricht case represents the first time children have been abducted to ISIL-held territory. More than 4,000 foreign fighters from western European countries have joined the wars in Syria and Iraq. The Dutch Justice Ministry said a total of 180 Dutch nationals are known to have left the Netherlands for Syria. Around 35 have returned and 21 have been killed in the four-year war, which has left more than 200,000 dead and sent millions fleeing.

The children’s Dutch father told the newspaper De Limburger that they were taken by his ex-wife without his consent. She left another daughter with her father in Belgium, and her son from another relationship with his grandmother in the Netherlands, who allegedly was not aware of her impending departure, according to the newspaper.

The man had previously gone to the police because he suspected that his former wife was about to travel to Syria. Police interrogated her several times, but she denied the alleged travel plans and no steps were taken.

Oh. She lied. How..unusual...

By the time authorities reached her home in Maastricht, the woman was already with her mother, where she was picked up by a friend who dropped her off at the airport in Dusseldorf, according to De Limburger. She allegedly missed her flight, but still managed to board a plane with the two children two weeks later in Charleroi, Belgium, to Athens, Greece.

What were the police doing for that two weeks?

Security cameras in Istanbul, Turkey show her withdrawing money at a bank, according to De Limburger. Dutch attempts to contact the Turkish authorities went unanswered. Soon afterward, the woman called her mother to say that she was in Raqqa, Syria, in January.

Prosecutor Bart den Hartigh told NOS that it would be impossible to recover the children from Syria as long as the mother stays within the war-wrecked country. Only if she travels to another country would it be possible to try and reunite the children with their father, according to Dutch newspaper NRC.

Link

Europe

Dutch Authorities Release Teen Rescued by Mum From IS

2014-11-26

[AnNahar] A Dutch court on Tuesday ordered the provisional release of a young woman being probed on terrorism charges after her mother rescued her from Syria, where she had married an Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
fighter.

"The judge has decided to free Aicha if she adheres to certain conditions," the Limburg regional court said in a statement.

A convert to Islam who traveled to Syria in February to marry an IS fighter she saw as a Robin Hood figure, Aicha, whose surname was not given, was placed in durance vile
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
after landing back in the Netherlands with her mother Monique last Wednesday.

A judge on Friday had ordered Aicha to be detained pending possible terrorism charges, including taking part in a terrorist organization.

The court declined to give the precise conditions for Aicha's release, but said it broadly meant the 19-year-old -- called Sterlina before she adopted an Arab name -- should "not commit any crimes and adhere to any request by the police and justice officials."

The Limburg court also declined to say exactly when the Aicha will be released, keeping her "personal interests at heart."

European nations are increasingly concerned about returning jihadist fighters, but the question of what to do with women who travel to Iraq and Syria but do not fight is a thorny one.

The authorities have barred Monique and Aicha's lawyers from talking to the press because of the sensitivity of the case.

Monique, 49, has previously told Dutch television how her daughter converted to Islam and began wearing a face-covering niqab.

Aicha traveled to Syria to join a Dutch-Turkish jihadist fighter who went to the war-torn country to train fighters for the IS group.

She later turned to her mother for help after her marriage failed and she ended up with a Tunisian fighter, the Dutch tabloid daily Algemeen Dagblad said.

The paper reported that a niqab-wearing Monique crossed the border into Syria and traveled to the IS stronghold city of Raqa, but the Dutch prosecutor's office said they had met at the Turkish-Syrian border.

Public prosecutors said that if Aicha were found to have fought alongside IS she could face up to 30 years in prison.

Link

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