UNITED NATIONS LEVIES A DEADLINE ON THE TALIBAN – In remarks made by the head of the UN’s Development Program, the UN is prepared to pull out all support from Afghanistan if the Taliban don’t relent on their bans against women humanitarian workers. While a specific date was not mentioned, the UNDP Chief mentioned the month of May as a potential deadline. In a clearly choreographed effort, the UN released economic data on Tuesday which suggests the economy would be reduced by 30% without this aid. The United Nations employs nearly 3,300 Afghans with a gender ratio of 2,700 men to 600 women. The workers have been ordered to ‘work from home’ for now and are still receiving pay. It is unclear if they would lose their positions should the UN be forced to quit the country.
RAIN AND FLOODING KILL 2 AT TORKHAM, DRIVERS STRANDED ACROSS MANY PROVINCES – A landslide caused by saturated ground near Torkham on Tuesday has overturned at least 14 large trucks, and at least 2 people are dead with many more unaccounted for. Rescue crews, army soldiers, and locals were desperately trying to dig people out of the mud and stone. Officials have said the death toll is expected to climb as scores of names have been reported as missing. A military engineering team that was sent to assess the damage is concerned that more slides or, a larger slide could take place due to unstable conditions and steep grades of the hillsides near the roads.
RESISTANCE OVERTURES TO PAKISTAN – An official from the National Resistance Front indicated in a press conference that overtures had been made to the Government of Pakistan seeking potential cooperation in their fight against the TTP. We do not assess the Government of Pakistan would support official relations with the NRF but may explore secret collaboration based on mutually supportive priorities.
IMRAN KHAN FEARS ARREST PLANNED FOR EID UL FITR IN LAHORE – The deposed Prime Minister has voiced concerns that he will be arrested during the upcoming holiday at his Zaman Park home. Charges have continued to be filed against the former PM by Police and some believe Khan may have conjured the threat up to try and rally supporters. A Pakistani police spokesman said there were currently no plans to serve the former PM at his home in the near future, much less arrest him.
KAZAKHSTAN ACCREDITS TALIBAN DIPLOMATS – Aibek Smadiyarov, a spokesman for the Kazakh Foreign Ministry has stated that letters of accreditation have been granted to some Taliban diplomats in Astana. He stressed that his government does not yet recognize the Taliban regime.
NEXT 24 HOURS
THREAT OF FLOODING TO PERSIST ANOTHER 18-24 HOURS – While floodwaters have receded in some Provinces, water continued to pose a hazard in other areas as heavy rains combined with mountain snowmelt to cause rivers and streams to overflow their banks. Several casualties have been reported and a rough count suggests that as many as 1,000 travelers remain stranded due to washed-out roads. The flooding threat is expected to diminish tomorrow morning in most areas and travel is strongly discouraged in affected areas.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[REGNUM] Al Arabiya: Sudanese army planes attacked special forces positions in the center of Khartoum
Aviation of the Sudanese army attacked the positions of the Sudanese rapid reaction forces in the center of Khartoum, on April 18, Al Arabiya TV channel reported, citing army sources.
In particular, special forces detachments, which were located near the residence of the head of state, were attacked. Information about the victims and the material damage caused is not given.
As REGNUM reported , clashes between the Sudanese army and the country's Rapid Reaction Forces
...known in English as Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for some reason...
broke out on April 15. The parties accused each other of shelling their headquarters.
In addition, on April 16, the armed forces of the republic announced that they had captured the bases and headquarters of special forces in seven cities of the republic. Army aviation also fired several times at positions of Sudanese forces in Khartoum.
On April 17, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry announced that Army Commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had disbanded the country's Rapid Reaction Force , accusing it of mutiny.
I'm Mathieu Olivier, journalist for Jeune Afrique magazine. I am currently dealing with the situation in Sudan, where hostilities have resumed in recent days. I would like to ask Mr. Prigozhin a few questions about the participation of Wagner fighters in Sudan. Thank you in advance for any answers he can give.
The Wagner Group has a base, offices and fighters in Khartoum who are close to those of Mohamed Hamdan Dogolo, the country's vice president. However, he is currently involved in the struggle to seize power in Khartoum. Does the Wagner group support him?
What instructions are given to the Wagner fighters in Sudan? Do you think they should remain neutral in the current conflict or will they support Mohamed Hamdan Dogolo?
Thank you in advance for the answers that Mr. Prigogine can give.
We publish Yevgeny Prigozhin's comment:
“I can tell you with absolute certainty, absolutely exactly, and you can enter my words into any protocols, in any of the highest instances. To date, not a single Wagner PMC fighter, I emphasize not a single one, is in Sudan. And it's been that way for over two years. For two years, not a single Wagner PMC fighter has been present in Sudan. And today there is none. I think that's the main thing you need to know."
[AlAhram] No sooner had the first hour of the ceasefire between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces entered into force on Tuesday than the sounds of gunfire were heard in the capital Khartoum resulting in a violation of the agreement.
A 24-hour ceasefire reportedly reached between Sudan's rival generals went into effect on Tuesday, but fighting continued in the capital and it was unclear whether it would hold.
Residents said they still heard gunfire and explosions in different parts of Khartoum, particularly around the military’s headquarters and the Republican Palace, the seat of power. They said few people had ventured out, though there were crowds outside some bakeries.
"The fighting remains underway," Atiya Abdulla Atiya of the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named. "We are hearing constant gunfire."
The truce between Sudan's military and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces came into effect at 6 p.m. local time on the fourth day of heavy fighting.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/19/2023 00:00 ||
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[AlAhram] Over 14,000 people have been arrested and 8,000 weapons seized in an anti-firearms operation across Central and South America, Interpol said Tuesday.
As well as weapons, the raids swept up over 200 tonnes of cocaine and other drugs worth $5.7 billion, as well as 370 tonnes of drug precursors (chemical ingredients), the La Belle France-based police cooperation body said in a statement.
Dubbed "Trigger IX", it was "the biggest firearms operation ever coordinated by Interpol," it added.
"The fact that an operation targeting illicit firearms resulted in such massive drug seizures is further proof, if needed, that these crimes are intertwined," Interpol chief Juergen Stock said in the statement.
Beyond the people arrested and guns seized, police and other authorities also laid their hands on 305,000 rounds of ammunition.
A 100,000-round haul in Uruguay "trafficked internationally by two European nationals" was "the country's largest-ever such seizure", Interpol said.
The body said its actions had helped uncover other crimes including "corruption, fraud, human trafficking, environmental crime, and terrorist activities".
Members of the Balkans Cartel, Brazilian organized crime outfit PrimeiRo Comando da Capital, and El Salvador's Mara Salvatrucha mafia were all arrested over arms trafficking, while 11 trafficked people were freed in Paraguay.
Argentina ...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita... , Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay participated, while the operation itself was funded by the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... Trigger IX drew in police forces as well as other law enforcement agencies such as the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
[Shafaq News] On Tuesday, the Iraqi forces repelled an attack on an agricultural village on the outskirts of Kanaan district, south of Baquba.
A security source told Shafaq News Agency that ISIS snuffies attempted to attack a security point belonging to the 4th Brigade _ 4th Regiment, Diyala Operations Commandos, in Qurba (Sukuk) on Monday night. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... the army forces responded quickly with medium weapons, and no losses or casualties were reported.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/19/2023 02:10 ||
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[Shafaq News] On Tuesday, Ottoman Turkish warplanes conducted two Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s in the north of Duhok Governorate, targeting locations belonging to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
A security source informed Shafaq News agency that the bombardment targeted an area near the village of Kirkash, in the Amadiya district, north of Dohuk.
No further information regarding the incident has been provided yet.
The PKK, classified as a terrorist organization by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... , the United States, and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , has been embroiled in a longstanding conflict with the Ottoman Turkish government that has caused tens of thousands of casualties since the 1980s.
Since 2016, Ankara has launched a trio of transborder operations in northern Iraq under the pretext of PKK presence.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/19/2023 02:08 ||
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[Rudaw] A court in Baghdad on Tuesday sentenced eight people to death for attempting to organize the Islamic State (ISIS) in prison.
The eight were being held in three different prisons and had been in contact with ISIS prisoners in order to “restructure the organization and plan a prison escape to carry out an organized terrorist project,” according to a statement from the Iraqi judiciary.
They confessed to receiving orders from ISIS, the statement added, and were sentenced in accordance with the 2005 anti-terrorism law, which stipulates that anyone who participates in committing a “terrorist act,” as defined by the law, shall be sentenced to death.
Since the rise of ISIS in 2014, thousands of people have been detained across Iraq for suspecwtede links to terrorist groups, including ISIS, while hundreds have been executed. Amnesty International in March reported that at least 20 death sentences have been handed down since Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani assumed office in October.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/19/2023 01:59 ||
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[Rudaw] Iraq’s intelligence service on Tuesday arrested an "important" suspected member 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) in the Kurdistan Region’s province of Sulaimani after tracking him down for ten months, the country’s Security Media Cell said.
"The Iraqi National Intelligence Service managed to arrest an important terrorist target involved in targeting security forces and civilians in a number of Iraqi provinces," a statement from the cell reads, adding that the suspect was active in areas north of the capital Baghdad, as well as Kirkuk and Salahaddin.
According to the cell, the Tuesday operation in Sulaimani was carried out in coordination with counterterrorism forces in the city.
At least 17 people sentenced to death for terror charges in Iraq were executed in 2021, reported AFP. Amnesty recorded 45 executions in 2019, down from 100 the year before.
An Iraqi F-16 strike on a suspected ISIS hideout in Kirkuk on Tuesday resulted in the deaths of at least four alleged members of the group, the cell announced.
Also on Tuesday, a Baghdad court sentenced eight people to death for attempting to restructure ISIS from prison and escape the facility.
Over 200 ISIS fighters were killed in Iraq in 2022, Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji, spokesperson for the Joint Operations Command, told Rudaw late December.
[Rudaw] An Iraqi soldier and his wife were killed on Tuesday after a number of suspected 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) members attacked his house, according to a police spokesperson.
Nihad Mohammed, spokesperson for Diyala police, told Rudaw’s Hiwa Husamaddin that eyewitnesses have seen a number of people, he suspects to be affiliated to ISIS, entering the house of the soldier and "brutally" killing him and his wife.
However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... it is not clear with what the spouses were killed as no weapon was used, added the spokesperson.
The incident took place in the Tahrir neighbourhood.
Police have launched an investigation into the assault, said Mohammed.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/19/2023 01:45 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Media reports say 2 brothers detained by special forces in northern West Bank; PA health ministry reports 8 maimed
Israeli troops clashed with Paleostinian button men in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday afternoon, according to the military and Paleostinian media reports.
The Israel Defense Forces said troops were operating in the Jenin refugee camp, but did not immediately provide further details.
Paleostinian media outlets said special forces detained two Paleostinians and exchanged fire with local button men. The detained men were named as brothers Ahmed and Muhammad Jaradat.
According to the Paleostinian Authority Health Ministry, eight people were maimed by gunfire amid the festivities. The official Wafa news agency said that included a 68-year-old woman who was hit in the hand and a paramedic who was hit by shrapnel.
[IsraelTimes] Police say a Paleostinian man in his 40s has been arrested at the Qalandiya crossing near Jerusalem after allegedly attempting to snatch a gun from a security guard.
According to a police statement, the suspect, who did not have an entry permit to Israel, was detained for questioning upon trying to pass through the checkpoint.
"At a certain point, the suspect, who was assisted by crutches when walking, attacked the civilian security guard and tried to forcefully grab the weapon he had in his possession, without success," police say.
Police forces and civilian guards managed to arrest him without gunfire, police add.
[IsraelTimes] Victims reportedly targeted while heading to prayers; both taken to hospital in moderate condition; police searching for gunman, who flees scene
Two Israeli men were shot and maimed in a terror attack in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on Tuesday morning, police and medics said.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said its medics treated the two victims, aged 50 and 48, at the scene in moderate condition and took them to hospitals in the capital.
The Shaare Zedek and Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus medical centers said the pair were listed in stable, pH balanced condition.
Police said officers were at the scene, on Pierre Van Paassen Street, investigating the shooting and searching for the terrorist, who fled.
The weapon apparently used in the attack, a makeshift "Carlo" submachine gun, was found by officers nearby, police said.
According to police and medics, the victims were in a car when they came under fire.
Surveillance camera footage of the attack showed the gunman approaching the victims’ car and opening fire from close range, before fleeing.
"They continued driving and stopped near a police car and reported the incident to them," said MDA medic Nir Buzaglo.
"We arrived at the scene quickly... one of the victims was lying on the road and the other was walking nearby, they were fully conscious and suffered from gunshot wounds to their upper bodies," he added.
According to Hebrew-language media reports, the victims were heading to morning prayers at the Tomb of Simeon the Just, in Sheikh Jarrah.
The neighborhood, parts of which were historically known as Shimon Hatzadik, has become one of Jerusalem’s tensest in recent years. Jewish nationalists have sought to evict Paleostinian residents in decades-long legal battles that helped touch off an 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", terror group in the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip in 2021.
"Large police forces of the Jerusalem District continue to carry out extensive searches in the area and in more distant areas," police said in a statement several hours after the attack, adding that officers, special forces, a canine unit, and a police helicopter were participating in the manhunt for the terrorist.
Tensions between Israel and the Paleostinians have been high for the past year, with the Israeli military conducting near-nightly raids in the West Bank amid a series of deadly Paleostinian terror attacks.
At least 92 Paleostinians have been killed since the beginning of the year, most of them while carrying out attacks or during festivities with security forces, but some were uninvolved civilians and others were killed under circumstances that are being investigated.
Paleostinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank have left 19 people dead since the beginning of the year and several more seriously hurt.
The attack in Jerusalem came hours after a Paleostinian woman stabbed and moderately hurt an Israeli man in the West Bank on Monday evening.
[NPASYRIA] Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS, formerly al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front) killed on Monday three troops, including an officer, of the Syrian government forces in Aleppo and Idlib governorates, northwestern Syria.
Militants of the HTS sniped three troops, including an officer, of the government forces, and injured two others in the Zawiya Mountain, south of Idlib, and Basratun, west of Aleppo, a military source of the al-Fateh al-Mubin Operations Room told North Press.
The source added that factions of the Ottoman Turkish-backed armed opposition, also known the Syrian National Army (SNA), managed to destroy two positions of the government forces that contained thermal equipment; one in al-Malaja axis, south of Idlib, and the other in the Regiment 46, west of Aleppo.
In the meantime, another military source said the government forces intensified their shelling on areas in the south of Idlib, including al-Bara, Sfuhen, Fatterah, Kansafra, and Benin.
Another source indicated that the al-Fateh al-Mubin Operations Room, a coalition of several SNA factions, targeted positions of the government forces in the southern countryside of Idlib and the western countryside of Aleppo with heavy artillery and missiles.
Although the de-escalation zone in northwest Syria is subject to a Russian-Ottoman Turkish ceasefire agreement signed in March 2020, the area witnesses frequent mutual bombardment between Syrian government forces and opposition factions accompanied by Russian warplanes’ flight despite the entry of the ceasefire into force.
In March 2020, Russia and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... reached an agreement in Moscow that stipulated a ceasefire, the establishment of a safe corridor, and the conduct of joint patrols on the M4/Aleppo-Latakia Highway.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2023 00:00 ||
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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.
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
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