Helldump Immunity. posted:

EVA BRAUN BLOWJOBS posted:

Shatner is gonna be pissed.

Dead Reckoning posted:

Israeli Police just stormed the Al Aqsa mosque. It's going to be an interesting week.

EDIT: On a second watch, it looks like they were just clearing the courtyard around the mosque, and the video is a day and a half old.

Dead Reckoning posted:

Israeli Police just stormed the Al Aqsa mosque. It's going to be an interesting week.

EDIT: On a second watch, it looks like they were just clearing the courtyard around the mosque, and the video is a day and a half old.

quote:

Libya asked the U.N. Security Council on Thursday for help protecting its oil installations, oil export ports and civil airports, warning that without more international assistance the North African oil producer could become a failed state. Libya's Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdelaziz appealed to the council "to take the case of Libya seriously before it is too late," making it clear that Libya's central government is too weak to control the militias that helped oust late ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Tripoli International Airport has been a battlefield since fighters attacked it with heavy guns on Sunday to wrest control from a rival militia, while months of protests at oil fields and ports caused government revenues to collapse last year.

"Lack of protection of oil fields and the ports through which we export our oil remain to be a serious problem," said Abdelaziz, adding that the government had lost $30 billion in revenues while rebels controlled the ports. "We are not asking for military intervention to protect the oil but we need teams - experts, trained people - to work with Libyans ... so the Libyans can learn how to protect these strategic sites," he said. "The Libyans themselves are not trained to the level that they are capable of ensuring the protection of those sites," said Abdelaziz. "We're calling for stabilization and institution building initiative on the part of the Security Council."

"Should Libya become the failed state, kidnapped by radical groups and warlords, the consequences will be far reaching and perhaps could be beyond control," he said.

quote:

Gunmen killed 21 Egyptian military border guards near the frontier with Libya on Saturday, highlighting a growing threat from an area that security officials say has become a haven for militants seeking to topple the Cairo government. Security officials said the assailants were smugglers. But an army spokesman said on his Facebook page that "terrorists" - the term authorities use to describe Islamist militants - were behind the attack.
...
Security officials say militants pay smugglers to transport weapons, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, to comrades in Egypt, which is already facing an Islamist insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula near Israel.

Sinai militants have stepped up attacks against policemen and soldiers since then-army chief Sisi toppled President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood last summer and launched a fierce attacks on Islamists. Hundreds have been killed in shootings and bombings.

Security officials say militants operating from Libya are trying to forge ties with Islamists in the Sinai, an alliance that could prolong Egypt's instability and scare away investors that are badly needed to help fix the battered economy.
...
Security officials say militants along the Libyan border harbor ambitions similar to the al Qaeda breakaway group that has seized large swathes of Iraq - they want to topple Sisi and create a caliphate in Egypt.

Sisi, who has warned that Islamist militants ravaging the Middle East pose a threat to everyone, has said Egypt will not allow Libya's turmoil to threaten Egypt's national security. Egypt considered launching a cross-border offensive several months ago in a bid to crush the militants, according to two Egyptian national security officials.

quote:

France has announced the deployment of some 3,000 soldiers in northern Africa as part of a new military operation to fight Islamist militants in the region. The French government said its military effort in Mali, known as Operation Serval, was to be replaced by a new, wider counter-terrorism operation codenamed Barkhane.

"The president wanted a reorganisation of our troops in the area," Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said. Le Drian said Operation Serval, launched last year to counter an offensive by al-Qaeda liked groups in northern Mali that arrived as far as threatening the capital Bamako, had been successful. However, the minister said that jihadist cells operating across the borders of different northern African countries still represent a threat and thus a new effort was needed to neutralise them.

Operation Barkhane will be based in the Chadian capital Ndjamena, its activity will span across several countries in the Sahel, a largely desert area rich in natural resources such as minerals and gas.

"Now there is a concern for us and for the countries in the area to make sure there is no upsurges [in terrorism], Le Drian said. "There still is a major risk that jihadists develop in the area that runs from the Horn of Africa to Guinea-Bissau."

Paris is to deploy 3,000 troops backed by six fighter jets, 20 helicopters and three drones in northern Mali, Niger and in Chad. The armed forces of the three African countries, as well as those of Mauritania and Burkina Faso, are also to take part in the operation that will be launched in the coming days.

Snowdens Secret posted:

Reuters is too nice to point out those 'Sinai militants' are Hamas and/or their close allies. Surely somebody is going to do something about all this North African Islamist mess?

quote:

Egypt’s military said Wednesday it has destroyed 1,370 smuggling tunnels under its border with the Gaza Strip, as Cairo’s ties remain sour with the Hamas movement that rules the Palestinian enclave. Ties took a turn for the worse after the military’s July ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, with which Hamas is affiliated.

The statement did not say when the tunnels were destroyed, but the military has poured troops into the adjacent Sinai Peninsula to counter militancy that has grown since July. The tunnels, under the town of Rafah, are used to transfer food, fuel and consumer products into the densely populated Palestinian enclave. But Hamas and other militant groups reportedly use their own more secret tunnels to bring in arms and money. Gaza has been under blockade since 2006, after militants captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid.

Egypt accuses Hamas of having colluded with the Brotherhood in carrying out “terror attacks” on its territory in the past few years. Dozens of alleged Hamas militants have been named among scores of defendants, including Morsi, in trials for organizing jailbreaks and attacking police stations during the 2011 revolt that toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak. In a separate espionage trial, Morsi and 35 other defendants are accused of conspiring with foreign powers, including Sunni Muslim Hamas and Shiite Iran, to destabilize Egypt. Hamas has denied Egyptian accusations that it is involved in fighting in the restive Sinai Peninsula.

On March 4, an Egyptian court banned Hamas from operating in Egypt and ordered the seizure of its assets there.

quote:

Tribal smugglers told Reuters they charge up to one million Egyptian pounds ($140,000) to move weapons in four-by-four vehicles along desert routes.

Snowdens Secret posted:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/17/libya-security-un-oil-idUSL2N0PS27920140717

quote:

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, which is named after al Qaeda's co-founder and Osama bin Laden's mentor, was formed by Saleh al Qarawi sometime after 2004 as an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq, and was tasked with hitting targets in the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories) and throughout the Middle East.

Qarawi is a Saudi citizen and is on the list of 85 most-wanted terrorists that was issued by the Saudi Interior Ministry in 2009. He appears as number 34 on the Saudi list and is identified as Saleh Abdullah Saleh al Qarawi.

Qarawi has been described as a "field commander" by Flashpoint Intel, which published a translation of an interview that was released in April 2010. According to Qarawi, he fought with former al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi in Fallujah (presumably in the two battles in 2004), and was ordered by Zarqawi to form the Abdullah Azam Brigades.
...
Groups calling themselves the Abdullah Azzam Brigade have also claimed attacks in Egypt and Pakistan. It is unclear if the groups are linked. Both the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and Tawhid and Jihad claimed they had carried out the July 2005 bombings in Sharm al Sheikh, Egypt that killed 88 people and wounded 150 more. The bombings occurred at cafes and markets frequented by foreigners in the Red Sea resort town.
...
The Abdullah Azzam Brigades (AAB) has taken credit for three separate rocket attacks targeting Israeli locations, the most recent of which took place on Thursday, July 10. In a series of tweets on AAB's Twitter account, the group said that its Yahya Ayyash Brigades launched three rockets at the Israeli city of Ofakim and the Sufa military support site on Thursday night.

AAB began its rocket attacks on Israel on July 7, the first day of Israel's Operation Protective Edge, which is aiming to silence the barrage of rockets launched by Hamas and other jihadi terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip. AAB claims to have fired seven rockets on July 7, and 11 more on July 9, in addition to the three rockets launched on July 10.

AAB claimed that the Yahya Ayyash Brigades was responsible for firing the rockets into Israeli territory on all three occasions. Yahya Ayyash was a Palestinian terrorist known as Hamas' top explosives expert before he was killed in January 1996 as a result of a bomb-laden cellphone. According to the IDF, Ayyash, also known as The Engineer, "personally built the bombs used in a number of Hamas suicide attacks which resulted in 439 casualties."

AAB's Twitter messages on July 8 taking credit for its initial rocket attack in response to Operation Protective Edge were the first public confirmation of the link between the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and the Yahya Ayyash Brigades. The Twitter messages read, "Allah facilitated for your brothers in the Yahya Ayyash Brigades, which belongs to the Brigades of Abdullah Azzam, to fire a number of rockets at the Jewish aggressors on the night of Monday, 7-7-14."

Including the three rocket attacks targeting Israel in the past week, AAB has executed a total of six attacks this year, mostly focused on Iranian and Hebzollah locations in its home base of Lebanon. In January and March, AAB's Marwan Hadid Brigades staged joint attacks with the Al Nusrah Front against Hezbollah locations in Hermel. In February, AAB carried out a double suicide bombing at the Iranian Cultural Center in Beirut, killing 129. Notably, an AAB suicide attack also rocked the Iranian Embassy in Beirut in November 2013 and led to the deaths of 147 individuals.

Snowdens Secret posted:

Surely somebody is going to do something about all this North African Islamist mess?

Two Finger posted:

I just bought defcon because I keep seeing you guys post about it. Who's up to destroy the world with me

Asehujiko posted:

Rutte just did a live press conference about MH17. The Netherlands is going to pay for cleaning up the wreck and we are currently negotiating with Putin about repatriating the bodies from the site of the "accident".

Mr. Nice! posted:

The Netherlands are going to pay for the cleanup!? These guys are going to let Russia shoot down a plane full of their people and pay for the privilege?

Courthouse posted:

More like foot the bill so send some equipment/people to get their citizens back in as dignified manner as possible without anyone getting shot, as opposed to their remains rotting in some local farmers root cellar until the current hostilities blow over. They want to do take care of any remains themselves, simple as that. It's not like it's the fuel spill cleaning they are getting at here.

Courthouse posted:

More like foot the bill so send some their own nationals to get their citizen's remains back in as dignified manner as possible without anyone getting shot at, as opposed to their remains rotting in some local farmers root cellar until the current hostilities blow over. It's not like it's the fuel spill cleaning they are getting at here.

GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:

You're right paying to ensure the safe return of your citizens' corpses is way better

Whip Slagcheek posted:

I'm like 99.99% certain there's going to be some greasing of palms involved in getting the rebels to let western investigators into the site. Which really won't investigate anything because you're delusional if you think the Russians don't already have the most damning evidence back in Moscow.

Whip Slagcheek posted:

I'm like 99.99% certain there's going to be some greasing of palms involved in getting the rebels to let western investigators into the site. Which really won't investigate anything because you're delusional if you think the Russians don't already have the most damning evidence back in Moscow.

Courthouse posted:

I doubt anyone's dumb enough to pay to go look at whatever's left. That part is going to be mostly positioning for the finger pointing, as there are sufficient numbers of idiots who need convincing that Putin is not a nice guy. Rebels demanding money for letting investigators in plays into them being liars and thieves as opposed to freedom fighters.

I don't think they'd have the balls to demand money for the bodies. But if they did that would be a nice boost for the people in the EU who see Russia as a useful boogeyman.

holocaust bloopers posted:

The black box records are just gonna tell exactly what damage occurred to the aircraft. It's possible, to a degree, to figure that out from piecing together the wreckage.

Whip Slagcheek posted:

I mean, they can figure out what happened to the plane just from all of the SIGINT that is being directed at that area along with satellite imagery and radar analysis. But the UN OSCE is still going to want to get into that site for recovery operations.

holocaust bloopers posted:

No. SIGINT isn't gonna tell you a SAM struck the left inboard wing, which rendered the aileron useless. Shrapnel punctured the fuselage causing a rapid loss of pressure, etc.

You need a black box for that.

Whip Slagcheek posted:

You're so cute. Like, I just want to pinch your cheeks and squeeze you. The optimism is beautiful.

No, there's no reason to believe they'd interfere.

Dingleberry posted:

The Separatists have provided a hand-written note obviously written by one of the victims as he fell from the sky indicting the Ukrainian government is responsible.


http://rt.com/usa/174072-washington-marijuana-rules-food/

Dingleberry posted:

The Separatists have provided a hand-written note obviously written by one of the victims as he fell from the sky indicting the Ukrainian government is responsible.


http://rt.com/usa/174072-washington-marijuana-rules-food/

Zeroisanumber posted:

Lol. Do people out east really buy this poo poo? Are they all drinking water piped in through leat pipes like the old Romans?