World War 3 news and updates ... Feb 22

Some of the countries in it, either in major or minor roles:
USA, UK, Canada,  Australia, New Zealand, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Yemen, Nigeria, France with (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad ) Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Albania, Estonia, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Japan, Republic of Korea, Ireland, Spain, Slovakia, Norway, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Novorussia, Ukraine, Russia, Chechnya, Somalia, Iran, India, South Korea, North Korea,  Central African Republic, Kenya, Tunisia, The Philippines, Egypt,  Albania, Serbia, China, Sudan, South Sudan, Bukina Faso, Palestine, Georgia, Chad, Spain, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Nepal, Congo, Uganda, Romania, Mexico, Gambia, Haiti, Cameroon, Chad, Algeria, Venezuela, Thailand....

There are two rival governments in the fractured Libya.  One of them sides with the jihadis.


From BangkokPost
Car, motorcycle bombs injure 13 in Narathiwat
Car and motorcycle bombings in Narathiwat province on Friday injured 13 and damaged 20 buildings in Muang district.
A third bomb attempt failed when someone threw a dud grenade at a restaurant on the road leading to Yi-ngo district. It did not explode and ordnance-disposal officers collected and destroyed it.
The first explosion came from a pickup truck stuffed with explosives parked outside a restaurant on the main road near the Isuzu showroom intersection at 1.06pm, said Pol Lt Gen Anurut Kritsanakaraket, commander of the Southern Border Provinces Police Operation Centre.
They said the bomb was detonated by radio while the employees of the car company were out to launch. About 20 food shops and a karaoke bar were damaged by the powerful blast. Torn corrugated roofing, electrical wires, shattered glass and the charred shell of the car littered the street as police secured the area, according to an AFP witness.

#Turkey's army operation inside #Syria to evacuate troops, & a historic corpse, amid IS threat: http://t.co/rm28JCzeaf @JoeWSJ @aylushka_a
— Emre Peker (@wsjemre) February 22, 2015

From AlJazeera
The US Homeland Security Department   has said that it is not aware of any specific plot against US shopping malls, backing away from comments by the department's chief that he takes seriously a threat by Somali-based armed group al-Shabab against shopping sites in Western countries.

Some US and Canadian officials earlier on Sunday had cast doubt on the credibility of the threat made in a video attributed to al-Shabab, which appeared to call for attacks on Western shopping areas, specifically mentioning Mall of America in Minnesota, the West Edmonton Mall in Canada, London's Oxford Street and sites in Paris.
But Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said that "anytime a terrorist organisation calls for an attack on a specific place, we've got to take that seriously", and told shoppers to be careful without providing any more detail...............

Life is wonderful in the USA/NATO created Utopia of Libya.  The Ukraine is anxiously awaiting to experience  similar wonderful life akin to Libya.
From ABCnews
Islamic State Bombers   Kill Dozens in Libyan Suicide Attacks
 Islamic State militants unleashed suicide bombings Friday in eastern Libya, killing at least 40 people in what the group said was retaliation for Egyptian airstrikes against the extremists' aggressive new branch in North Africa.

The bombings in the town of Qubba, which is controlled by Libya's internationally recognized government, solidified concerns the extremist group has spread beyond the battlefields of Iraq and Syria and established a foothold less than 500 miles from the southern tip of Italy.

The militants have taken over at least two Libyan coastal cities on the Mediterranean — Sirte and Darna, which is about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Qubba. They released a video Sunday that showed the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians who were abducted in Sirte, and Egypt responded Monday with airstrikes on Darna.

The Islamic State group has established its presence in Libya by exploiting the country's breakdown since dictator Moammar Gadhafi was ousted and killed in 2011. Hundreds of militias have taken power since then, and some of them have militant ideologies. A militia coalition known as Libya Dawn has taken over Tripoli, where Islamists set up their own parliament and government. Islamic extremist militias controlled the second-largest city of Benghazi until late last year, when army troops began battling them for control.



The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Friday's suicide bombings in Qubba, but said there were only two attacks, while the government said there were three.
Army spokesman Mohammed Hegazi said one attacker rammed an explosives-packed ambulance into a gas station where motorists were lined up.
"Imagine a car packed with a large amount of explosives striking a gas station; the explosion was huge and many of the injured are in very bad shape while the victims' bodies were torn into pieces," Hegazi said.
Two other bombers detonated vehicles next to the house of the parliament speaker and the nearby security headquarters, he said..........

Map shows extent of conquest... http://t.co/kDia1xTRI2
— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) February 23, 2015

From KyivPost
Ukraine shuts down border posts   with Russia
Ukraine has closed 23 checkpoints on the border with Russia as the Kremlin build up forces close to the strategic port city of Mariupol, situated between Russia and Crimea in Donetsk Oblast.
On Feb. 20, Ukraine's government issued a decree ordering the closure of one international, four interstate and 18 local border crossing points in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv oblasts.
A total of 39 checkpoints will still operate on the border with Russia, the State Border Service said. Three are located in Chernihiv Oblast, 14 in Sumy Oblast, 15 in Kharkiv Oblast, six in Luhansk Oblast and one in Kyiv Oblast.
Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers in Ukraine had already suspended crossings at 14 border posts (6 in Donetsk Oblast and 8 in Luhansk Oblast), due to a direct threat to the lives of those attempting to cross.
At that stage the border posts closed were Marynivka, Novoazovsk, Uspenka, Ilovaisk, Kvashyno, Donetsk, Dovzhansky, Chervona Mohyla, Izvaryne, Krasna Talivka, Yuhanivka, Herasymivka, Petrivka and Luhansk.........

And, in the middle of death and destruction due to wars that our lovely Earth has to endure because of slimy politicians and money-loving warmongers, below is a vid whose producers decided to  give us news on the Ukraine mixed with a spinkling of comedy...Russian style.  **sigh**


From Venezuelanalysis
Amid International Outcry,   Venezuelan Officials Allege Blackwater, U.S. and Canadian Links to Thwarted Coup
 New revelations  in Venezuela have linked U.S. private security firm Blackwater, now known as Academi, to the aircraft that was to be used as part of Thursday's thwarted "Blue Coup" attempt.

The four-stage plan included economic war, an international media offensive against the Venezuelan government, political destabilization fomenting ungovernability, and finally the use of a Super Tucano aircraft to strike "tactical targets" in the capital, such as the Presidential Palace, teleSur, and military intelligence
The coup was planned for the one-year anniversary of violent opposition protests known as the Guarimba and was to come one day after a public statement by leading opposition leaders calling for a "transition". .......

From Venezuelanalysis
Venezuelan Opposition Mayor,   Alias “The Vampire,” Arrested for Role in Blue Coup Plot
Venezuelan opposition Mayor and longtime rightwing politician, Antonio Ledezma, has been arrested by the country’s intelligence services, SEBIN, for his alleged role in plotting to stage a coup against the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro.
The planned coup was uncovered last week by security forces, just hours before several US backed Air Force officials had planned to partake in a bombing spree of strategic targets in the capital. They had hoped this would lead to the assassination of the country’s president and bring about regime change in the South American country. ......

At least 20 people, including MPs, killed in an attack on a hotel in Mogadishu | #Somalia hit by double explosions http://t.co/xTN0wSrsYx
— Bristol Somali Media (@smgbristol) February 20, 2015

From WashingtonPost
CIA scales back presence   and operations in Yemen, home of potent al-Qaeda affiliate.
The closure of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen has forced the CIA to significantly scale back its counterterrorism presence in the country, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said the evacuation represents a major setback in operations against al-Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate.

The spy agency has pulled dozens of operatives, analysts and other staffers from Yemen as part of a broader extraction of roughly 200 Americans who had been based at the embassy in Sanaa, officials said. Among those removed were senior officers who worked closely with Yemen’s intelligence and security services to target al-Qaeda operatives and disrupt terrorism plots often aimed at the United States.
The departures were triggered by mounting concerns over security in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, where Houthi rebels have effectively toppled the government. Britain and France said Wednesday that they also would close their embassies, as news footage showed Houthi fighters driving off in vehicles that U.S. diplomats had abandoned at an airport during their exodus.
The collapse of Yemen’s government had already disrupted some U.S. counterterrorism operations in Yemen. The closure of the U.S. mission compounds the challenges and “is extremely damaging” to the CIA’s mission in Yemen, said a former senior U.S. official involved in the effort. ........

The largest ever prodemocracy protest in #Bahrain 's history 4 years ago ,the reply " no space for democracy here  http://t.co/xpH7nUN1Sl"
— #Gaza #FreePalestine (@leilanazzar) February 22, 2015

From USAtoday
The latest Islamic State   video posted online appears to show captured Kurdish soldiers paraded in cages through crowded Iraqi streets to wild applause.

The video is less than 10 minutes long but shows what appear to be 21 Kurdish peshmerga fighters being paraded through Kirkuk in individual cages. Some are briefly interviewed in the video.
CNN, translating the inteviews, says most of those interviewed say they are from Kirkuk, a city in northern Iraq with strong Kurdish ties.

"The prisoners, under duress, call on their fellow peshmerga soldiers to give up their fight against ISIS," CNN reports.
"We say to the peshmerga: Leave your jobs, or your fate will be like these, either the cage, or under the ground," a man says in Kurdish, according to CNN's translation.
The fate of the men is not shown on the video...............

Savages!!!! RT BREAKING: New #ISIS video shows 21 peshmerga hostages carried around in cages, in #Kirkuk some Kurds. pic.twitter.com/3GTTslRjqw”
— David Morrison (@TravelandCredit) February 22, 2015

From AlmasdarNews
Hezbollah and Syrian Army   Reinforcements Arrive in Northern Aleppo; Huge Gains in Al-Malaah
In a surprise counter-attack, the National Defense Forces (NDF) were given a boost from Hezbollah (Party of God) and Syrian Arab Army (SAA) reinforcements that succored the entrenched fighters at Al-Malaah to regain more than half of Mazra’a Al-Malaah after fierce clashes with the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda “Jabhat Al-Nusra” on Sunday.
North of Al-Malaah, Jabhat Al-Nusra attempted to infiltrate the NDF’s frontline defenses for the 2nd straight day at Bashkoy; however, they were unable to advance past the outskirts of the town, as they faced heavy resistance from both the NDF and the Syrian Arab Air Force (SAAF).
As a contingent from Jabhat Al-Nusra tried to infiltrate into Bashkoy, their comrades to the north continued their attack on the NDF defenses in Duweir Al-Zeitoun; it was repelled following a long day of fighting between the two parties and the SAAF’s persistent bombing of Jabhat Al-Nusra positions.
The SAA recaptured the Sadkoub Fuel Company in the Al-Khalidiyyeh neighborhood of Aleppo City, killing 16 militants from the Islamic Front (Jabhat Al-Islamiyya) and destroying one of their vehicles mounted with a doshka.......
From DailyMail
ISIS extremists 'offer British teenagers cash to become jihadi brides in Syria and Iraq' by grooming them online just like sexual predators

    ISIS supporters offer cash incentives to encourage schoolgirls to join them
    Use money wires to transfer cash for girls' payment and travel expenses
    Employs UK fixer to train girls in how to behave to not arouse suspicion
    Uses grooming techniques employed by paedophiles to lure young girls
    Police believe under-16s have already been lured to marry fighters in Syria..........

Isis targets in Iraq and Syria hit by six US-led air strikes since Friday http://t.co/blZd2ZELxN Kobani in Syria and Mosul in Iraq among…
— Newsdesk World (@NewsdeskWORLD) February 21, 2015

From AlJazeera
Syria: Turkish incursion is 'flagrant aggression'
Syrian government says Turkey informed Syria about operation in northern Syria but did not await its agreement.
The Syrian government has said that Turkey informed Syria ahead of a major overnight military incursion but did not await Syrian agreement to the action.

Turkish soldiers guarding the tomb of Suleyman Shah in Syria were successfully evacuated to Turkey in the military operation early on Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

Davutoglu said the remains of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, would be moved to a different area of Syria which has been brought under Turkish military control.
Syrian State TV described the incursion as "flagrant agression".
"Turkey goes beyond supporting ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist gangs to launch a blatant aggression on Syrian territory," state-run SANA news said, referring to the alternate name of ISIL.
The Turkish military said in a statement that there had been no clashes during the operation, the first such ground incursion by Turkish troops into Syria, but that one soldier had been killed in an accident.
"Unfortunately we had one casualty and this was not as a result of a clash but due to an accident that happened at the beginning of the operation," Davutoglu said at a news conference in Ankara on Sunday.
The soldiers brought the remains of Suleyman Shah and some relics back to Turkey......

#IS maps detail strategy to takeover #Libya by taking advantage of porous southern border&camps #Niger #Chad #Algeria pic.twitter.com/0nreuvhCmy
— Libya Al Hurra (@LibyaAlHurraTV) February 20, 2015

From AP
Government: Radical militants   kill 4 Tunisian National Guard
Radical militants killed four members of the National Guard in the mountainous Kasserine region near the Algerian border, Tunisia's Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui said 20 militants from the Oqba Ibn Nafaa radical group ambushed a night patrol around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Kasserine city around midnight......

From LibyaHerald
Tunisia and Algeria   send military reinforcements to borders with Libya........

From Reuters
Civilian deaths in Afghanistan   war reach new high in 2014: U.N.
At least 3,188 Afghan civilians have been killed in the intensifying war with the Taliban in 2014, making it the deadliest year on record for non-combatants, the United Nations said on Friday.
The numbers are a sharp reminder that the Afghan war is far from over, even as a U.S.-led international force formally ends its combat mission at the end of the month, shifting to a supporting role for Afghan forces after 13 years.................

World War III news and updates ..... February 8

Some of the countries in it, either in major or minor roles:
USA, UK, Canada,  Australia, New Zealand, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Yemen, Nigeria, France with (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad ) Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Albania, Estonia, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Japan, Republic of Korea, Ireland, Spain, Slovakia, Norway, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Novorussia, Ukraine, Russia, Chechnya, Somalia, Iran, India, South Korea, North Korea,  Central African Republic, Kenya, Tunisia, The Philippines, Egypt,  Albania, Serbia, China, Sudan, South Sudan, Bukina Faso, Palestine, Georgia, Chad, Spain, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Nepal, Congo, Uganda, Romania, Mexico, Gambia, Haiti, Cameroon, Chad, Algeria.....

From Bloomberg:
Islamic State Tightens Its Grip on Shaky Libya
The U.S. war against Islamic State has not yet extended to Libya. But the terror group is rapidly expanding its presence and activities there, and the embattled government is asking for Washington to include Libya in its international fight against the Islamic extremists....

Largely due to violence, Libya's oil production has fallen from 900,000 to 325,000 barrels a day in just three months http://t.co/docdEZciGk
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 6, 2015

From Yahoo
Shiite leader defends Yemen takeover
Shiite leader Abdel Malek al-Huthi on Saturday defended his powerful militia's establishment of transitional bodies to resolve Yemen's political crisis, in the face of street protests and international criticism.
"This historic and responsible initiative is in the interest of the country... because it fills a political vacuum," Huthi said in a televised address to his supporters gathered in a northern Sanaa stadium.
The formation of a "presidential council", announced on Friday, would also head off the threat from Al-Qaeda which has a strong presence in east and south Yemen, Huthi said......

#Haiti: Protests against the #Martelly government in #PortauPrince, Feb 7. h/t @PersonalEscrito pic.twitter.com/Fws54NqWUI
— Revolution News (@NewsRevo) February 8, 2015

From Sputnik:
Russia and the United States consider a dialogue on constitutional reform an integral condition of achieving peace in Ukraine, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on its official Facebook page Sunday.
On Saturday Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry held a meeting within the framework of the Munich Security Conference.

"Russia and the United States proceed from [the fact] that launching an overall nationwide dialogue on constitutional reform is an indispensable condition of achieving stable and just peace in Ukraine," the ministry said in a statement.......

The ethnic cleansing of Russian-speaking pro-Russian Ukrainians from eastern Ukraine continues to continue with eager aid and help from the West.

In Ukraine if you do not participate in killing the "sub-humans" in Donbas, then you will be shot. #EuropeanValues pic.twitter.com/eu7TFvRGbx
— narwhal8915 (@Narwhal8915) February 7, 2015

From Channel4
Jordan carries out a third day of airstrikes against Islamic State targets as it "avenges" the murder of a Jordanian pilot who was burned to death by the jihadist group. The kingdom launched airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq on Thursday. On Saturday the government reported that "sorties of air force fighters bombed (Islamic State) bases".
A security official told Reuters that Jordan had conducted 60 raids over three days, mostly targeting the Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. They had hit targets including ammunition depots, training camps and a communications tower, the official said......

As coalition forces conduct airstrikes on ISIS, could ground troops be next? http://t.co/noWEf3a0V5 pic.twitter.com/1wEBJstRa7
— msnbc (@msnbc) February 8, 2015

The jihadi scum reporting that an American female hostage has been killed in a coalition strike on a building where they were holding her, has not been confirmed by the USA.  It's not possible that only the hostage was killed in the bombing and by some miracle the jihadi scum occupying the same building managed to escape.   If she has indeed  been killed by the coalition bombing, then IMO, it's a blessing rather than to see her in a video being burned to death or beheaded.
From BBC
The extremist group   Islamic State is claiming that a female American hostage they were holding has been killed in a coalition air strike in Syria.
Images, which the BBC cannot confirm are authentic, have been posted online of what is purported to show the site of the strike in the city of Raqqa, an IS stronghold.
The hostage has been named as Kayla Jean Mueller. ....

....There are many who have raised doubts about Islamic State's claim that Kayla Mueller was killed in a coalition strike in Raqqa - in an attack in which none of its own fighters died, it says.
Jordan has increased its participation in the bombing of the militant stronghold since one of its pilots was shown being burned to death by IS militants, and officials in Jordan insist they will keep up the pressure.
Saying a Western hostage has been killed by Jordan is being seen by some as an attempt to take the wind out of the sails of this renewed Jordanian resolve to fight the militants......

From IndiaTimes
Egypt: 151 militants killed in army raids in North Sinai
At least 151 militants were killed in army raids during the past three days in different parts in Egypt's North Sinai region, official sources said.
Forty-seven of the 151 militants were identified as dangerous 'Takfiri' leaders. Twenty-two of them are Egyptian while 25 others were of different nationalities, sources said.
The raids came days after President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi ordered the formation of a military leadership for Sinai and the areas east of the Suez Cana.......

From Foreign Policy
The Battle for the   Qalamoun Mountains
Along the Lebanese border with Syria, Hezbollah is preparing for an all-out war with the Sunni fighters of al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State.
AL-QUSAYR, Syria — This embattled western Syrian city, which lies six miles from the Lebanese border, remains all but deserted. The majority of the residents have not been able to return, while the very few who have not already fled are forced to navigate their way through dozens of checkpoints and pockmarked roads, maneuvering around collapsed buildings. The streets are piled high with mounds of rubbish, and children pick their way through the rubble from one street to the next. Entire buildings remain gutted and derelict.
Almost two years ago, huge battles raged inside Qusayr between the Syrian army and Hezbollah on one side, and militants from the Syrian armed opposition on the other. Today, the city remains destroyed, an unrecognizable shell of its formerly vibrant self..........

From Yahoo
How Arab world's newest cable news source made a splash, only to dry up
Bahrain-based Al Arab Television, owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, was taken off the air a day after debuting with an interview with a local opposition leader. 'Technical' reasons were cited.
On Feb. 2, the deputy leader of Bahrain’s largest opposition bloc, the Shia group Al Wefaq, made his way to the headquarters of Al Arab Television for the network’s debut on air.....

#Bahrain regime forces brutally suppress peaceful protesters who take to streets on daily bases to #FreeSheikhAli pic.twitter.com/lgqyw7TtOS
— AlwefaqEN (@AlWefaqEN) February 8, 2015

From APS
Algeria “vigorously” condemned   the terrorist attacks perpetrated by the group “Boko Haram” in the cities of Fotokol (Cameroon), Bosso and Diffa (Niger), said Saturday the Foreign Affairs Ministry in a communiqué.
“Algeria vigorously condemns the terrorist attacks perpetrated by the group Boko Haram in the cities of Fotokol in Cameroon, Bosso and Diffa in Niger and expressed its solidarity with the brother people and governments of Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad,” added the source.
The escalation of violence and the increasing number of acts of murder, kidnapping and sabotage in Nigeria and in the bordering countries by the group Boko Haram is a “source of preoccupation” and a “true threat” for peace and stability in Western Africa and in Central Africa, underlined the communiqué.
Algeria “hails and supports the efforts deployed by the African Union, the Lake Chad Basin Commission and other sub-regional organizations to quickly set up a joint multinational force able to meet the challenge of the fight against terrorism,” added the source......

Nigeria postpones elections citing Boko Haram violence http://t.co/orxvlbpJTg
— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) February 7, 2015

From NDTV
For the first time, Pakistan military has begun training personnel of the Afghanistan Army; six cadets of the Afghan National Army are in Islamabad to join the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad for an 18-month long course.

This move indicates a major change in policy for Kabul.
Ironically, Abbottabad is the Pakistani city where Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was found to be hiding, and killed by United States Navy Seals on May 1, 2011.
During President Hamid Karzai's tenure, Afghanistan had refused to send its personnel for training in Pakistan despite repeated invitations by the neighbouring nation......

French-Algerian war of 1954-62

More here  
here
here
and here.  

ISIS/ISIL/IS/xyz plans to expand into North Africa?

As if we didn't have enough to be  apprehensive about!  
Hey ... I have an idea!  Why not import more Muslims to Canada, eh?  When they come here they become all docile and nice, don't they?  Those horrible thoughts of killing infidels skip right out of their minds and their hearts once they land on this soil, this Canadian soil that has the power to change headchoppers into purring little lovable kittens.  So .... yup, let's get our mealy-mouthed politicians to import millions more of the darling puddy cats. We will get along just fine!



Adam al-Sabiri writing at AlAkhbar:
The Arab Maghreb (North Africa) and the world have been expecting for a while an Islamic State in the Islamic Maghreb (ISIM-Damis) to be declared formally in the footsteps of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). If anything, such a move would demonstrate the failure of the international campaign led by the anti-ISIS coalition. Indeed, one of the direct outcomes of this campaign was the emergence of new ISIS-inspired groups that have pledged allegiance to the radical Islamist organization.

Algiers – Public opinion in the Arab Maghreb and the world has shifted its attitude vis-à-vis the so-called Arab Spring, from initial support and praise, to criticism and disillusionment, as things took a turn for the worse with the emergence of terrorist and criminal factions. Instead of seeking to replace dictatorial regimes, these factions declared war on everything and everybody in their way, and became a major headache for the entire world.

Regardless of who supports and finances it, this scourge has quickly revealed the Arab Spring to have been nothing more than the first chapter of a drive to fragment Arab countries and alter the global balance of power, at the hands of armed groups that entrench sectarian and ethnic fault lines, obliterate minorities, and threaten the countries that oppose them and blackmail others for purely financial purposes: enter the terrorism that has no religion, no color, and no boundaries.......

......This trend began with Algerian, Tunisian, and Libyan terrorist groups pledging allegiance to ISIS. On September 12, a number of extremist elements declared they would be joining ISIS and swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, after splitting from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is led by the Algerian Abdelmalek Droukdel. The new group calls itself the Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria, and is led by Khaled Abu Suleiman. The group recently kidnapped and beheaded a French national in central Algeria, with the move being seen as its initiation.......

......Who are the candidates for the upcoming post of emir of ISIM?
Ali Zaoui believes that Mokhtar Belmokhtar is one of the strongest candidates for the post of emir of the upcoming ISIM for a number of reasons, most notably his great ambition to become a global terrorist leader. This is why Belmokhtar had split from AQIM, according to Zaoui, after AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel refused to give him a more senior position.......

French citizen kidnapped by jihadis, beheaded

So many ordinary citizens are paying the price for the folly of their leaders.  It all started because the swollen heads of the Western leaders came up with a brainwave of an idea to change regimes in the Middle East and replace the "dictators" there with other dictators who would have their stamp of approval.  The hatred that the Muslims, both Sunni and Shiite  now have for anything Western has blown up to a very, very, very dangerous level.  There's never a going back to normalcy from this. 

From CBC:
Hervé Gourdel, French hostage, beheaded by ISIS allies
Gourdel was a 55-year-old mountaineering guide seized in northern Algeria
Algerian extremists allied with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria group have decapitated a French hostage after France carried out airstrikes in Iraq, according to a video that appeared online Wednesday.
French President Francois Hollande condemned the killing of Herve Gourdel and said France would continue its fight against ISIS group, which are Sunni militants that have taken over large swaths of Iraq and Syria..........

#Algeria|n #ISIS savages carry out their threat to behead #French hostage #HerveGourdel pic.twitter.com/j6WWrDGEGh
— Syricide (@Syricide) September 24, 2014

Bad month for flying?

Three crashes this month. Approximately 500 dead.



From TelegraphUK;
Air Algerie plane wreckage found in southern Mali
Wreckage from plane found at what is thought to be crash site of Air Algerie flight which disappeared en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers with 117 on board
The wreckage of an Air Algerie flight which vanished from radar in West Africa has been discovered near Mali's border with Burkino Faso, according to officials.
Burkina Faso's commander in chief Gilbert Diendere said the burnt-out wreckage of flight AH5017 was found south of the Mali town of Gao, 30 miles north of the border.
He said searchers found human remains and burned and scattered plane wreckage at the site.
The search team had gone from Burkina Faso to Mali to follow up reports from a resident who described seeing a plane go down.
The Air Algerie jetliner was carrying 116 people. It vanished on Thursday in a rainstorm over restive northern Mali, and French officials had said it has probably crashed - the third major international aviation disaster in a week......

French-Algerians go bonkers after Algerian World Cup win ...

against South Korea.  The Algerians got 4 against South Korea's 2.  Lots of Algerians in France, eh?  That's what happens when you colonize other countries,  the citizens of the colonized countries become the citizens of the "boss" country.  Hmmmm .... the hell that's created when first one learns to go forth and loot the wealth and what not of other countries, eh?

Syria was one of the items on the Agenda at the NAM meeting in Algeria ....

and from several statements made by delegates it is crystal clear that the rest of the world has had it with the USA and her allies. The Non-Aligned Movement  (NAM) is the second largest group of member countries after the United Nations and resolutions, agreements and even decisions about boundaries and changing of maps and borders are items on the agenda at their meetings. One such resolution or opinion or agreement .... call it what you will, is below.  It's from an Iranian online site. 

From EnglishAlalam:
.....NAM condemns insurgent atrocities in Syria.Foreign Ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) have censured the crimes committed by foreign-backed terrorists in Syria, underlining their support for a political solution to the persisting crisis in the Arab country.

At the 17th meeting of the Foreign Ministers of NAM which was held in the Algerian capital Algiers with the participation of Syria, the NAM member states also rejected all forms of western sanctions against the Syrian people.

The ministers asserted in "Algiers Declaration" which is the final statement issued by the meeting, rejection of all forms of sanctions imposed on NAM member states for political reasons and expressed concern over the unilateral sanctions imposed by the US on Syria.
They reiterated that all measures taken by the Israeli occupation forces in the occupied Syrian Golan are null and void.

The ministers further condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli aggression against Syria in 2013 and stressed that such acts of aggression are flagrant violation of the international law.

Syria’s Assistant Foreign and Expatriates Minister Hussam al-Din Ala said that the interference in the country's internal affairs and the violation of their sovereignty were made under various pretexts, such as what they refer to as the right of humanitarian interference and the protection responsibility......

Algeria .... another country where islamists might rear their ugly heads

Algeria's secularists better nip in the bud the plague of islamists  unless you think you can handle the kind of madness  happening in Egypt and Syria to happen in Algeria too.  Prevention  is better than the cure.

Olivier Guitta writing at WeeklyStandard:
...  Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika  returned to Algiers on July 16 after three months in a hospital in Paris. His health will prevent him from running for reelection in April, and it’s unclear whether he can run the country until then. As a result, the contest over his succession is already gearing up, and the Islamists are first out of the starting blocks. The United States and the European Union—along with China, a major presence in energy-rich Algeria—are closely monitoring this latest round in the continuing struggle over the Islamists’ role in government and society.

Oddly enough, the regime has regarded this trend with complacency. It has even courted conservative Muslim Brothers and named a prime minister sympathetic to the Islamists, Abdelaziz Belkhadem, who served from 2006 to 2008. Belkhadem closed down outlets selling alcoholic beverages, condemned those who broke the fast during Ramadan, hunted illicit couples, and supported restaurants that refused to serve unescorted females. He even called the Koran “the only constitution of Algerian society,” echoing the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood....

Tunisia launches military operations aimed at islamists on her borders

Our MSM really keeps us in the dark about events that  matter to us, or should matter to us given the state of the world we live in now.  Reuters at least reports  on what's happening in Tunisia, although in bits and pieces  and hidden well inside layers and layers of other insignificant news.  

Tarek Amara and Erika Solomon writing at Reuters:
....Tunisian forces launched air and ground strikes on Islamist militants near the Algerian border on Friday after fierce overnight clashes in the area, which coincided with increased instability and political turmoil in the North African country.
Aircraft bombed caves in the Mount Chaambi area, where the military has been trying to track down Islamist militants since December, witnesses said on Friday.
"A major military operation with the participation of air and ground units began at dawn on Friday," army spokesman Taoufik Rahmouni said, adding that the army had surrounded a "terrorist" group of 15 to 20 militants.

"The army has now imposed a security ring around the area and is searching nearby towns in the region. Until now there are no casualties or arrests (in Mount Chaambi)," he said.
The operation was launched in the same area where militants ambushed and killed eight soldiers on Monday in one of the deadliest attacks on Tunisian security forces in decades. The gunmen slit the throats of some of their victims.
Tunisia's Islamist-led government is grappling with rising instability and a mounting protest movement organized by the secular opposition that is demanding its resignation. Rival rallies to support the ruling coalition have also been growing.........

From ElWatan  (Google translation)
....The Tunisian army was  conducting an operation Friday "large-scale" to "eradicate" an armed group in the Algerian border, where eight soldiers were brutally killed, while still political crisis destabilized the government led by Islamists. 
Clashes erupted the night at Mount Chaambi, where the army hunts since December a group called "Phalanx Uqbah Ibn Nafaâ" allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda and counting veterans Islamist rebellion in northern Mali. 
According door voice of the army, Taoufik Rahmouni, "a large-scale operation, with the use of air and ground units, began at dawn to clean up the mountain" Chaambi. 
"Operations will continue until their eradication , "he told AFP. The spokesman and a source on site indicated that the army was not able to estimate the number of fighters. 
No new information was leaked early evening on these maneuvers, but the Prime Minister announced a press conference on these events Saturday 3:30 p.m. (1430 GMT). 
Algeria had announced Thursday that it deployed more troops on its side of the border.......

Canada admits that Al Qaeda (AQIM) was responsible for kidnapping of Canadian diplomats

I hate the way reporters  from almost all our main newspapers in Canada do their reporting.  Why can't they come out and say exactly how things are?  Why call this Al Qaeda person a "bandit" and infer that he has "ties" to Al Qaeda but is a "fugitive al-Qaeda-aligned bandit"?   Mokhtar Belmokhtar   is the leader of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreh (AQIM).  That's it.  Why go around that fact?  For what?  

Here's what the status is as we should see it:
1) Under the Conservative govt.  a ransom was paid to Al Qaeda for freeing two Canadian diplomats.  Did the govt. pay the ransom money or was it a collection from private individuals ...that we do not know..... as yet;
2) The Conservative govt and I presume every member of the other three parties walking the halls of power in Ottawa know that Al Qaeda is an enemy of Canada and Canadians;

3) Knowing that Al Qaeda and affiliates are our sworn enemies,  the Harper govt. is still  not averse to siding with the USA, UK and other powers who desire to arm Al Qaeda and affiliates  in Syria in order to oust Assad.
We should never forget that .... especially at the next Federal election.

Colin Freeze and Les Perreaux writing at TheGlobe&Mail:
.....Bandit with ties to al-Qaeda charged by RCMP for abducting diplomats. Canadian police have charged Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a fugitive al-Qaeda-aligned bandit based in the Sahara Desert, with the kidnapping of two Canadian diplomats almost five years ago.

The charges amount to a largely symbolic act against one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, given there is almost no conceivable scenario where Canadian authorities will get to arrest or try him and his co-accused.........

How the UN and its Muslim member nations are plotting to caliphate planet Earth

While searching the internet to find the document I wanted  to add as an update  to my claim that I had seen a paper "to make it possible for a delegate from the United Nations to act as interim "President" or "Prime Minister" of any country"  I found yet another ploy originating from hell United Nations on how to  bring about a one world government ruled by of course the UN itself.

The article below  is really worth reading in full.   More postings of such ploys to follow as I continue looking for that evasive document on non-elected Presidents and Prime Ministers to be supplied  from within the UN.   Notice how this particular conference had Muslims at the helm of things.  Check out the areas I have highlighted.

The article below is especially ironic at this point in time as we suffer from severe  shell shock  at  the latest whistleblower  disclosure of  what the USA's NSA  has been doing for over a decade.  

The vid below was posted in November last year.

Eli Dourado writing arstechnica:
Behindclosed doors at the UN’s attempted “takeover of the Internet”   Conflicting visions for the future of the Internet collide in Dubai.

In early December, I found myself in an odd position: touching down in Dubai with credentials to attend a 12-day closed-door meeting of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). It's a meeting I spent the last six months trying to expose.

Though the world had been assured that WCIT would not attempt to mount a “UN takeover of the Internet,” that was in many ways what happened..........

....The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN agency convening the meeting, vigorously denied that the conference would have anything to do with the Internet at all. The purpose of the meeting, claimed ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré, was simply to update the treaty that governs international phone calls; it had last been revised in 1988, when most phone companies were state-owned monopolies. Claims that the conference would implicate the Internet were part of a misinformation campaign pursued by unnamed opponents of the ITU, Touré said. In any case, the ITU was just a convener of the WCIT, and actual decisions would be made by member states on a non-voting, consensus-driven basis. The ITU, it was said, had no agenda of its own......

....Soon after this, the Chairman of the conference, Mohamed Al-Ghanim, threw everything into disarray. Because it was now Day 8 and so much of the text was still in brackets.........

......Everyone grew frustrated and tired. After working long hours each day, text was beginning to trickle back up to Plenary still laden with brackets, and it was clear that consensus would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach. The US pleaded for everything to be handled in Plenary, rather than cascading down and back up through the chain of groups with little progress.



Amid this frustration, host country United Arab Emirates (UAE) dropped a bombshell. It announced that it was putting forward a new “multi-regional common proposal,” a complete rewrite of the treaty to substitute for all the bracketed text we had worked on. It had support from numerous member states. Bahrain, Russia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Oman all expressed support for the document, which was not yet available for inspection.....

.........The document indicated that it was to be submitted jointly by Russia, UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, and Egypt. It read like a compilation of the most objectionable proposals—it would have nationalized key aspects of Internet governance, including naming and numbering (currently handled by the nongovernmental ICANN), and it created new member state obligations with respect to Internet security. Despite the ITU’s claims that WCIT was not going to be about the Internet, there we were, halfway through the conference, and the Internet was still on the table.......

........We continued to try to make the text work. At one point, US lead negotiator Richard Beaird pleaded that only one additional word—“correspondence”—was necessary to make the definition of a key term acceptable. This appeal was rejected. (The term “public correspondence” would have limited the applicability of the treaty roughly to the traditional common carriers, while “public” alone could have implicated any company providing telecommunication services to anybody.)......

......As a series of countries asked for the floor to express support for Touré’s modified resolution, Ambassador Kramer spoke on behalf of the United States, clearly signaling that the US did not support the resolution.

What followed was surreal. The Chairman calmly said that he had a long list of countries wishing to speak, and that in lieu of going through the list, he was going to take the “feel of the room” by asking countries to hold up their voting boards if they supported the resolution as amended by the Secretary-General. After also asking for those against, the Chairman said simply, “The majority is with having the resolution in.” After some applause, he added, “Thank you. Now we can go to Corrigendum 2.”.......

.........I woke up on Day 11 feeling very encouraged, despite everything. The situation was now out of our hands. Between the Internet resolution, the scope of the operators covered, and the new articles on security and spam, the United States would not sign the treaty.

Furthermore, I looked to the future. After last night’s performance, the ITU could never again deny that it had designs on the Internet, it could never again imply that those who were concerned about the possibility of a takeover of some aspects of Internet governance by nation-states were misinformed conspiracy theorists. The battle lines were now drawn, and this clarity comforted me. But would we stand alone?......

.....The United States took the floor. Ambassador Kramer announced that the US would not be signing the new treaty. He was followed by the United Kingdom. Sweden said that it would need to consult with its capital (code in UN-speak for “not signing”). Canada, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Kenya, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and the Czech Republic all made similar statements before the Chairman cut the meeting short.
All told, 89 countries signed while 55 did not. .....

Al Qaeda getting stronger by the day, especially in Africa

What is it that Obama said about Al Qaeda after killing Osama bin Laden?   Was it:  The network is fragmented and on the run?  The head is cut off?  Al Qaeda is of no consequence now?  

What a delusional prez .... and to make matters worse, his country is full of equally delusional dhimmis who voted him in for a second term.  Osama bin Laden might be dead but the Muslims' evil cult lives on.

Go to the link and read the entire article.  You will learn of  things most of us didn't  know about before now.

Charlie Edwards, Senior Research Fellow writing at RUSI:
.....The attack on the Al-Amenas facility   in Algeria earlier in the year reveals the nexus between organised crime and terrorism in West Africa. This has major implications for the international community and requires greater support to national governments in the region.

Late last month, UK Border Force officials seized cocaine valued at over £17 million at the Port of Tilbury in Essex. While the value of the drugs is not the largest on record, what makes this particular seizure of interest is that the drugs are believed to have been smuggled via Senegal to Europe by an Al-Qa'ida affiliated group. If confirmed, this will be the first time an Islamist terrorist group has attempted to ship a considerable amount of Class A drugs directly to Europe from West Africa and is a significant step for Al-Qa'ida in the Maghreb (AQIM) in terms of both funding and operations. Officials believe the cocaine was part of a major deal between AQIM and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) who provided cocaine in return for weapons the Islamist terrorist group had procured - possibly from Libya. The seizure of such a large volume of drugs suggests a transnational network not seen since FARC and the IRA collaborated in the early years of the last decade.

The link between AQIM and drug traffickers in West Africa is becoming clearer. Dr Kwesi Aning, Director of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Ghana suggested recently that a decade ago the trade was dominated by Tuaregs and middlemen who guided traffickers to water and fuel dumps in the desert.

Ten years later, and after Al-Qa'ida became involved, there has been a massive increase in the quantities of cocaine involved. The conflict in Libya has made the region even more dangerous with a growth in available weapons and material - some of which have been sold in exchange for a variety of contraband items including drugs. A UN report cited multiple cases - both proven and under investigation - of illicit transfers from Libya to more than twelve countries of heavy and light weapons, man-portable air defence systems, small arms, related ammunition and explosives. Belgian-manufactured landmines originally supplied to Qadhafi's army appear to have been by Mokhtar Belmokhtar's group in their attack on the Al-Amenas gas facility in January this year.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that AQIM has a long established link in the global drug trafficking network, having traded in opium and marijuana from countries such as Morocco to Europe. For example, the Al-Qa'ida inspired attack on the transport network in Madrid in 2004 is believed to have been  ..........

......Maritime piracy is usually associated with the waters off the coast of Somalia, but is an increasing problem in the Gulf of Guinea. Fifty-eight incidents were recorded in 2012, including ten hijackings and 207 crew members taken hostage. Much of this activity is linked to the regional oil industry and the existence of a booming black market for oil. Most of the attacks are simple robberies that yield relatively low profits for the criminals, but the frequency of the attacks drives insurance premiums up, which in turn decreases the use of West African ports for shipping and deprives regional Governments of vital income......

......The region's lawlessness was blamed for the now infamous 'Air Cocaine' incident in 2009. A Boeing 727 was found burnt-out in the Malian desert. The plane was believed to have been carrying up to 10 tonnes of cocaine. While officials originally thought the plane had crashed, investigators believe that the plane was burnt deliberately after it had landed and the cocaine had been removed. In 2010, a Malian police commissioner was convicted in connection with attempts to build an airstrip in the desert for future landings......

Canada's Muslim Immigrant population creating havoc in Canada and worldwide

For a country with approx. only 3% of the population  being followers of the cult of islam,  it might come as a surprise to some folks who are deaf, blind and delusional to boot, that such a small percentage, albeit a percentage which is rising rapidly and predicted to triple in a decade or two according to this National Post article, is capable of  committing crimes which outnumber the crimes  committed by at least 80% of  the Canadian population.  Now, try to imagine the kind of Canada you will get in a decade or two when that same murderous segment grows to 9% and more.

Adrienne Arsenault writing at CBC News:
At least one of the two Canadians  who took part in a deadly attack on an Algerian gas plant had worked at the facility, CBC News has learned.....

.....A CBC News investigation has learned that Medlej was briefly detained in Mauritania in the late fall of 2011, suspected of plotting an attack. He was briefly questioned, held for 40 days and released without charges. Those who interrogated Medlej found him to have no ill intent and no malice, but they seem to have seriously misread the young Canadian’s objective.

Sources at the jail in Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital, say that as soon as Medlej was released in early 2012 he went to find work at the gas plant in Algeria, where he would be killed a year later.

It seems his role was to scout the facility. He then travelled to militant training camps in Mali to help draw up the plans of attack, sources say.....

....A team from CBC News spent a week attempting to retrace the steps of the three Canadians after they arrived in Mauritania.
t seems they made curious choices. Instead of staying at one of the well-known, inexpensive backpacker hotels popular with young travellers and students, they opted for a guesthouse in the centre of what police call a criminal hub.

It’s a neighbourhood that extremists are known to frequent, where the tension is palpable. It’s not the sort of place you find in a travel book, suggesting that someone may have guided them there.

The contacts that the trio made and the places they went all suggest someone was on hand to give them advice. Just who that person is counts among the many secrets the desert isn’t quite willing to give up yet.

Nigeria's terrorists responsible for kidnapping of French family in Cameroon

Muslim terrorists are all over.  But, it's easier to pretend they are not.

Boko Haram releases video of French family kidnapped in Cameroon.  Islamist extremist group, Boko Haram, has released a video showing the French family kidnapped in Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria.
The three minutes, 26 seconds video, posted on YouTube on Monday, shows the seven members of the Moulin Fournier family, kidnapped on February 19.
The video shows three adult members of the family-two men and one woman; and four children sitting between two armed men, masked, and in military fatigue, and a third who acted as the group spokesperson.
The spokesperson confirmed they belong to the Jama’a Ahl al-Sunnah lil Da’wa wal Jihad, better known as Boko Haram.
He accused France of waging war on Islam, and said the condition for releasing their hostages was for the Nigerian government to release all female jihadists imprisoned, while the Cameroonian government releases their male counterparts......

Algeria .... the "progressive" Muslim nation .... yup, right !!

If only the Judeo-Christian nations of the world would declare that Muslim immigrants have to convert to Christianity on landing ... now wouldn't that be the right solution?   Those who want to stick to their madness would not migrate (thank the good Lord for small mercies!) and those who want to assimilate and give up on lunacy would convert.  Future aggressiveness or terrorism and mayhem from the Muslim immigrants solved !   Our politicians don't have the backbone to do that and as such  will remain cowards even when they are about to breathe their last.

....An Algerian judge under pressure from Islamists to uphold a Christian's conviction for alleged proselytizing rescinded his one-year prison term on Wednesday but doubled his fine, an attorney said.
Mohamed Ibaouene, 36, was shocked to learn on Dec. 11 that he had been convicted in absentia on July 4, 2012 by a court in Tigzirt, sentenced to one year in prison and fined 50,000 dinars (US $635) on a charge of pressuring a Muslim to convert. His attorney, Mohamed Benbelkacem, told Morning Star News that the appeals judge in Tindouf, in raising Ibaouene's fine to 100,000 dinars, must have realized there was no basis for the charge but was under pressure from Islamists to impose a sentence.

"The judge must have undergone some pressure to arrive at this sentence – that is the only explanation," Benbelkacem said. "That is why he had to choose to split off one of the two punishments; he could not decide for the punishment sought by the prosecutor, namely two years in prison followed by a 100,000-dinar fine, because it was unfair and unfounded. Unfortunately, we are faced with an act of injustice, and we intend to appeal."
Ibaouene was convicted of "inciting a Muslim with pressure to change his religion" under Algeria's controversial Law 06/03, which places restrictions on the religious practice of non-Muslims. The decision on the appeal of his sentence was to be announced on Feb. 6, but the judge delayed the verdict until today without explanation.

Ibaouene denies the charge, saying the a machine operator at the company where he worked as a manager, identified only as Abdelkrim M., was the one pressuring him to change his religion. The 27-year-old machine operator, known to be an Islamic extremist, leveled the accusation only after Ibaouene, a convert from Islam, refused to renounce Christ, Ibaouene says.....

UK snags Algeria in their conniving net

Stealth strategy of divide and conquer.  Very soon you can expect to see Algeria, with UK and France muscle firmly behind it, inside the borders of Somalia, Nigeria, Mali, Mauritania and anybody and everybody else who doesn't fall in line and say "Yes Massa".

The colonizers are on the march again.

The Prime Minister says he wants   to see a "tough approach on security" to combat Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in the region but says the solution is not "purely a military one"

Speaking shortly after arriving in Algiers for a meeting with President Bouteflika, Prime Minister David Cameron said he wanted to see closer co-operation with the Algeria and other governments in the region to combat terrorism but cautioned that armed interventions were not the only option.
"We don't look at this region of the world and think that the answer is purely a military one.
"It isn't, what is required in countries like Mali, just as countries like Somalia on the other side of Africa, is that combination of a tough approach on security, aid, politics, settling grievances and problems - an intelligent approach that brings together all the things we need to do with countries in this neighbourhood to help them, to make them safer, make us safer, make the world safer," said Mr Cameron.........

Another attack on an oil facility in Algeria

This one on an oil pipeline.  Gotta wonder how many attacks there have been in muzzie lands which are kept under wraps by the powers-that-be that have big bucks riding on the oil companies operating in muzzie lands.

Lamine Chikhi writing at Reuters Algiers:
....Suspected Islamist militants attacked an oil pipeline in northern Algeria on Monday, killing two guards and wounding seven other people, a security source told Reuters.

The Djebahia region, some 70 km (45 miles) east of the capital, is a stronghold of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) which earlier this month killed 37 foreigners at a gas plant in the south, and is where its leader Abdelmalek Droukdel is believed to be based, the source said.

Militant attacks are relatively rare in the north of the country where there is a heavy security presence that pushed most AQIM activities south.

"In comparison to the In Amenas attack, this is a very minor event," the source said, referring to the gas plant attack.

AQIM's leader Droukdel is believed to be somewhere in a triangle of three northern cities: Boumerdes, Bouira and Tizi Ouzou, some 1,600 km (1,000 miles) from In Amenas, and has limited contact with other senior members of the group, the source said.

"The links are almost non-existent, and evidence of that is that there are no Libyan weapons with AQIM's militants in the north," a security source who asked not to be named told Reuters. The In Amenas attackers used arms smuggled across the desert border from Algeria's eastern neighbor.

On whether a Thirty-Year war has just began and whether Obama will be impeached?

Very interesting article and equally interesting Lyndon LaRouche webcast of Jan 25 on the ongoing political situation in the USA and elsewhere. Haven't listened to the whole thing but the first few minutes were enough to tell me this is gonna be interesting.  Political junkies should also access the link and read the entire EIR by Steinberg.  Lyndon LaRouche and his movement are the only voices on the internet who are placing the blame for the present situation in the world squarely on the shoulders of  the United Kingdom of Great Britain

Executive Intelligence Review by Jeffrey Steinberg writing at LaRochePublications:
 ...The just-concluded mass hostage incident in Algeria is the latest indication that the British-Saudi plan for a new Thirty Years War of religious, tribal, and sectarian permanent conflict is spreading throughout the African continent, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf. The British objective, as frequently spelled out by Royal Consort Prince Philip, is the rapid wiping out of 80% of the human race—either through permanent war/permanent revolution or a thermonuclear war from which mankind might not survive at all.....

Regardless of the merits or liabilities of the French intervention, the Mali conflict, and AQIM's long-planned assault on a British Petroleum-led consortium's natural gas field in Algeria have made clear that all of North Africa is facing a brutal war that will either be decisively stopped, or will lead to a decade or more of perpetual warfare and mass population reduction.

Two years too late, even the New York Times admitted today that "Qaddafi was right," noting,

"As the uprising was closing in around him, the Libyan dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi warned that if he fell, chaos and holy war would overtake North Africa. 'Bin Laden's people would come to impose ransoms by land and sea, he told reporters. We will go back to the time of Redbeard, of pirates, of Ottomans imposing ransoms on boats.' ".........

This week's developments in Africa are solidly in line with British operations to foment a permanent Sunni-versus-Shi'a bloody confrontation within the extended Islamic world. The conflict in Syria, now going into its third year, has been transformed into a vicious sectarian conflict between Sunni jihadists from various countries on the one side, and Shi'ite, Alawite, and Christian minorities in Syria on the other. Saudi Arabia remains the number one source of weapons and funding to the jihadists in their campaign to overthrow the Bashar Assad government in Damascus.

Last week, the Lebanese daily al-Manar, closely tied to Hezbollah, reported that Saudi Arabia's chief of intelligence, Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, was pouring cash and weapons into the al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), to both overthrow Assad and wipe out rival oppositionists from the Free Syrian Army. Al-Nusra is comprised of Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi neo-Salafists who fought against the American occupation in Iraq, and who crossed into Syria in early 2011, when the revolt against the Assad government began. Even though the U.S. State Department placed al-Nusra on its list of international terrorist organizations, the vast majority of Syrian rebel groups remain loyal to al-Nusra—for the simple reason that they are the best-armed, best-funded, and most effective fighting force deployed against the Syrian Army......



.....As bad as the prospect of a new Thirty Years War may be, the even greater danger is that the regional conflict now spreading throughout Southwest Asia and Africa will devolve into a superpower confrontation between the United States and Russia/China. This past week, Russia conducted the largest naval manuevers in the eastern Mediterranean since the end of the Cold War. Tom Donilon, President Obama's National Security Advisor, is heading to Moscow in the next hours, with a letter from President Obama to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Whatever the content of Obama's message, it is not likely to satisfy Mr. Putin, who is well aware that the U.S. and NATO ballistic-missile defense shield being installed along the eastern borders of Russia and the southern tier of Russia and China, is not about containing Iran or Syria. It is aimed at the two thermonuclear weapons rivals of Washington—Russia and China.....

........As the situation in North Africa and Southwest Asia moves closer and closer to full-scale regional war, drawing in the United States, Russia, and China, the situation in South Asia is also heating up. In addition to a renewal of Pakistani-Indian conflict along the border in Kashmir, Pakistan has been the scene of a brutal sectarian offensive by fundamentalist Sunnis versus Shi'ites. One incident in Quetta, Baluchistan, in Pakistan, took nearly 100 lives, all Shi'ite worshippers.

In response, President Asif Ali Zardari disbanded the Baluchistan government, dismissing both the regional president and his cabinet, and taking charge of the province, which borders on both Afghanistan and Iran. A Baluchi group, Jundallah, has been engaged for the past two years in a low-intensity insurgency into the bordering region of Iran, carrying out sabotage and assassinations directed against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps............

Good News for Canada's Oil Sands .... the safest and the most ethical oil on the planet

All the fear and instability about Western oil interests in Muslim lands is great for Canada's oil sands. I am loving it !!

BP Libya is reviewing to see if their drilling operations in that terrorist-ridden country is safe from savage attacks like the kind seen in Algeria.  Do they really need a review to give them the answer?   BP Algeria is also reviewing the continuance of their operations in that country.  Foolish NATO countries have thrown Libya from a frying pan into the fire.  Thou shalt reap what you sow !

I wonder if terrorists are planning attacks on US Aramco in Saudi Arabia too?   Won't surprise me if one morning we wake up to the news that the Saudi oil wells have gone up in smoke.  Will USA then at long last wean themselves off from Saudi oil  and turn to Canada?

Robert Mendick writing at TheTelegraphUK:
The company is to launch a review   into drilling in the country amid serious concerns over security in the region.
BP signed a $900m (£569m) exploration and production agreement with Libya’s National Oil Corporation in 2007 but suspended the contract in February 2011 because of the civil war that eventually led to the overthrow of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
BP subsequently announced a resumption of exploratory drilling – due to begin in September – but has put that on hold following the murder of Westerners working at the Tigantourine facility in the Saharan desert in Algeria. Four BP employees were among 37 foreign hostages who died in the siege.
BP’s problems in the region are compounded by a Foreign Office warning last week of a “specific, imminent threat to Westerners” in the Libyan city of Benghazi. The Foreign Office urged British nationals to leave the city immediately.
A BP spokesman told The Sunday Telegraph: “We were due to drill in the second half of this year but we are now reviewing that as a result of the situations in Algeria and in Benghazi.
“What has happened in Algeria is absolutely tragic.
“We are committed to returning to Algeria and obviously we are heavily involved in Libya as well but it is only natural we review security and take a look at what we are doing.”