Archive for September 28, 2015

« WarSclerotic home page

Taliban storm Kunduz city

September 28, 2015

Taliban storm Kunduz city, Long War Journal, , September 28, 2015

[R]eports from the Afghan media, as well as Taliban fighters and residents from inside the city, indicate that parts if not all of the city are now under Taliban control.

*******************

The Taliban assaulted the northern provincial capital of Kunduz from three directions and seized control of areas in the city. Unconfirmed reports from residents and Taliban fighters inside Kunduz indicate that Afghan forces have been driven out of the city and the Taliban are in full control.

According to the BBC, hundreds of Taliban fighters launched their offensive today from three districts: Imam Sahib to the north, Khanabad from the southeast, and Chardara from the southwest. All three districts are thought to be under Taliban control.

The Taliban confirmed they launched a three-pronged assault on Kunduz city. “The operations have commenced on the city center from 3 directions with Mujahideen quickly taking enemy positions and the enemy is retreating from their positions,” according to an initial statement that was posted on Voice of Jihad.

The Taliban later stated that their fighters have “reached the main city intersection, are targeting the governors [sic] compound and clearing the small remaining pockets from enemy presence.”

Afghan security officials have denied that the Taliban are in control of the city and have stated that the fighting was largely confined to the outskirts of the provincial capital.

But reports from the Afghan media, as well as Taliban fighters and residents from inside the city, indicate that parts if not all of the city are now under Taliban control.

According to TOLONews, “Taliban insurgents have taken control of Kunduz city’s provincial council building and the local High Peace Council offices.”

Ehsanullah Ehsan, a stabilization manager at the international development agency DAI who is based in Kunduz, has said that the Taliban have seized the city and Afghan National Security Forces [ANSF] have retreated.

“Kunduz city is completely with taliban ANSF are out,” Ehsan tweeted. “[T]he city is completely with taliban now, taliban walking inside streets, i am trapped at home.”

Ehsan posted photographs purportedly showing Taliban fighters walking the streets of Kunduz and prisoners who have been freed from the city’s main jail.

Kunduz province has been hotly contested since the Taliban and its allies launched an offensive to seize control of the province at the end of April. The districts of Imam Sahib, Aliabad, and Qala-i-Zal were overrun in the initial assault, while Chardara and Dasht-i-Archi fellin mid-June. It is unclear when Khanabad fell under Taliban control. The status of the six districts is unclear, but the Taliban is still thought to be in control of Imam Sahib, Aliabad, Chardara, Khanabad, and Dasht-i-Archi.

The Taliban and allied jihadist groups based in Kunduz have been flexing their muscles in the province in recent weeks. In August, hundreds of fighters from the Taliban and the allied Islamic Jihad Union massed in the open, in daylight, to swear allegiance to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, the new emir of the Taliban. Last week, the Islamic Jihad Union claimed it controlled large areas of the border with Tajikistan and a border crossing from Kunduz into the northern Afghan neighbor.

The loss of Kunduz city, if confirmed, would be a major blow to the Afghan government and military, which have struggled to maintain security after US and NATO forces have drawn down to a token presence. Kunduz city would be the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban.

Additionally, the fall of Kunduz would invalidate the entire US “surge” strategy from 2009 to 2012. The US military focused its efforts on the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, claiming that these provinces were the key to breaking the Taliban. Little attention was given to other areas of Afghanistan, including the northern provinces, where the Taliban have expended considerable effort in fighting the military and government. Today, the Taliban are gaining ground in northern, central, eastern and southern Afghanistan, with dozens of districts falling under Taliban control over the past year.

Categories: Afghanistan, Foreign policy, Obama - Middle East, Taliban, U.S. combat troops
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Finally, A Plan To Defeat the Islamic State

September 28, 2015

Finally, A Plan To Defeat the Islamic State, Town Hall, Jim Hanson, September 28, 2015

(Obama would need the approvals of Putin, Xi, Rouhani, Assad, Erdogan and “our” other “peace partners” as well as his trained seals at the Department of Defense. Then, and only then, could General Bowie Bergdahl lead his march to victory. Or something. —  DM)

Black flag

What if there was an actual strategy to defeat ISIS and stop their reign of terror? The state of affairs and the very existence of IS as a governing entity is intolerable so we developed a strategy called Cut Down the Black Flag – A Plan to Defeat the Islamic State, the second book in the Secure Freedom Strategy series.

President Obama has failed to articulate or implement anything resembling a strategy during his time in office. This fact is even more painful when considering the rise of the Islamic State (IS) occurred on his watch and was largely due to his shortsighted and foolish decision to cut and run from Iraq. He lost the peace after our troops won the war.

Unlike the President, we’re not interested in token gestures doomed to failure as IS kills, rapes, and tortures on ground won for freedom just a few short years ago. We will not stand on the sidelines as an Inter-Continental Caliphate calls for “Death to all Infidels.” We have a plan to win and cut down their blood-soaked, Black Flag of Jihad.

It will not be easy but it is an essential part of the war for the free world. If we do not make a full faith effort to destroy IS, we will have done a disservice to all who gave their lives and limbs to free Iraq from tyranny. We will also be leaving millions to suffer the chaos and killing fields created when the inevitable vacuum of our withdrawal was filled by IS and Iran.

This book details a strategy focused on victory, aimed for stability in the region with the possibility of actual peace. It recognizes this action must be part of a greater “long war” against the whole of the Global Jihad Movement (GJM). They are the collection of groups who, while not officially associated, share a belief in Islamic Supremacy and are working actively to achieve it.

The Violent Jihadists like the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and others are easily identifiable as our enemies. The Civilization Jihadists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the groups it has spawned such as Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) are less overt but perhaps even more dangerous. Our overall strategy to defeat the Global Jihad Movement with a whole of government and culture approach is detailed in the Secure Freedom Strategy.

Our plan to defeat the Islamic State is a complete departure from the dismal failures of the current Commander in Chief leading from behind. The military might and will to win of the United States are vital to any chance of success. This does not mean we propose rolling tanks in a thunder run from Baghdad to Damascus. But we must take the handcuffs off the forces we already have deployed by allowing them to participate in combat missions with the forces they have trained to provide command and control and direct fire support. We must remove the cumbersome and overly risk-averse process for airstrikes that leave most of our aircraft returning to base with all munitions unused.

We must also work with the Sunni tribes who helped us defeat the precursor to IS; and, arm the Kurds who are our best friend and truest ally in the region. Both of these groups were left to the mercy of a central Iraqi government when U.S. forces withdrew and Iranian influence became dominant. We must look to a future where they govern by self-determination rather than remain forced into artificial borders established nearly 100 years ago; and, that have been largely erased over the recent war-torn years.

Our strategy is ambitious, but it does not require large deployments of U.S. troops or the expectation we will be the sole guarantor of security going forward. We aim to cut off the head of the jihadist snake by empowering the indigenous people who have suffered the most from its actions and then let them govern themselves. This strategy vigorously executed can do what the current half-hearted efforts never will: Defeat the Islamic State.

 

Categories: Air strikes, Arab nations, Department of Defense, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Iraq war, Islamic nations, Kurds, Middle East, Obama - Middle East, Obama's America, Syria war
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Germany segregating Christians as migrant violence escalates

September 28, 2015

Germany segregating Christians as migrant violence escalates, Breitbart, Liam Deacon, September 28, 2015

Screen-Shot-2015-09-28-at-12.58.45-640x480Sean Gallup/Getty

(Video at link.– DM)

Christian migrants in German asylum centres are living under persistent threat, with many fearing for their lives as the hardline Sunni majority within the migrant population attempts to enforce Sharia law in their new host nation. The situation is so bad that Christians claim they live like “prisoners” in Germany, and some have even returned to Middle East.

In the German state of Thuringia, Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow, one of the multiculturalists driving and celebrating the migrant crisis, has been forced to initiate a policy of separating and segregating different cultures as soon as they arrive in Europe.

“In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards have arrested my brother in a house church. I fled the Iranian intelligence, because I thought in Germany I can finally live freely according to my religion,” says Said, a Christian who fled persecution in his native country.

“But I can not openly admit that I am a Christian in my home for asylum seekers. I will be threatened,” he told Germany language paper Die Welt.

This year Germany prepares to absorb a million people in just twelve months – one per cent of its entire population – from numerous, diverse and alien cultures.

“We must rid ourselves of the illusion that all those who arrive here are human rights activists,” says Max Klingberg of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), who has worked with refugees for 15 years. “Among the new arrivals is not a small amount of religious intensity, it is at least at the level of the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said.

Said is living in an asylum centre in southern Brandenburg, near the border with Saxony. “They wake me before dawn during Ramadan and say I should eat before the sun comes up. If I refuse, they say I’m a kuffar, an unbeliever. They spit at me… They treat me like an animal. And threaten to kill me.”

“… They are also all Muslims,” he adds.

Gottfried Martens, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Trinity in Berlin-Steglitz, has around 600 Afghanis and Iranians in his church, most of whom he baptised himself. “Almost all have big problems in their homes,” says Martens. “Devout Muslims teach their view, that here [in Germany] there is the Sharia, and then there is our law.”

He told Die Welt that the Christian refugees are often stopped from using kitchens to prepare food in asylum centres, and are constantly bullied for not praying five times a day to Mecca. Martens continues:

“And [the Christians] ask the question: What happens when the devout Muslim refugees leave the refugee center, must we continue hiding ourselves as Christians in the future in this country?”

Said’s fear is not unfounded. On the 14th of September German police in the town of Hemer revealed in a statement that an Eritrean Christian and his wife – who was eight months pregnant – had been hospitalised after being brutally attacked with a glass bottle by Algerian Muslims. The man had been wearing a wooden crucifix, which had “insulted” the Algerians.

In September, Syrian refugees rioted in the town of Suhl when an Afghan man tore a few pages out of the Koran. Last week during Ramadan, in Baden-Württemberg Ellwangen, there was a mass brawl between Christians, Yazidis and Muslims, and just this weekend migrant violence erupted as hundreds fought in the city of Kassel, leaving 14 injured.

A young Syrian from Erstaufnahmelager in Giessen, who has reported threats against him, said he is concerned that among the refugees are followers of the Islamic State (IS): “They shout Quranic verses. These are words that IS shouts before they cut off people’s heads. I cannot stay here. I am a Christian,” he said

Die Welt even reports a case of a Christian family from Iraq who was housed in a refugee camp in Bavarian Freising. The family lived like “prisoners” in Germany, they said, so returned to Mosul in Iraq. The father told a TV crew how Syrian Islamists had attacked them in Germany: “You have my wife yelled at and beaten. My child they say… We will kill you and drink your blood.”

Simon Jacob of the Central Council of the Eastern Christians said that stories like this no longer surprise him: “I know a lot of reports of Christian refugees who are under attack. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

“The number of unreported cases is high. We must expect further conflicts that bring the refugees from their homeland to Germany. Between Christians and Muslims. Between Shiites and Sunnis. Between Kurds and extremists. Between Yazidis and extremists,” he said.

Categories: Asylum seekers, Christians, Death to Europe, Europe, Free world, Germany, Human rights, Iraq war, Islam, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic immigration, Islamic jihad, Islamic perversions, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamic war on Christians, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Kurds, Middle East, Sharia law, Syria war, Yazidis
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Cartoons of the day

September 28, 2015

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

 

brief

 

nobel

 

obamerica

Categories: Humor, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

The Invasion of Europe

September 28, 2015

The Invasion of Europe, Pat Condell via You Tube, September 28, 2015

 

Categories: Asylum seekers, Death to Europe, Europe, European Union, Free world, Human rights, Imperialism, Islam, Islamic immigration, Islamic jihad, Islamic perversions, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Jews, Leftists, Middle East, Pat Condell, Political Islam, Progressives, Sharia law
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Migration Crisis: “Islam Will Conquer Europe Without Firing a Shot”

September 28, 2015

Migration Crisis: “Islam Will Conquer Europe Without Firing a Shot” Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, September 28, 2015

(The principal focus of the article in on Israel and the Palestinians. — DM)

  • The failed foreign policies of the EU and the US under President Obama, have brought the Arabs to the brink of chaos, and destroyed regimes which, even though they were not democratic utopias, at least provided governance and public order. These failed policies have abandoned the Arabs to the atrocities of the Sunni Islamists and to the murderous proxies of the Iranian Islamic Revolution — and are ultimately the cause of the tsunami of refugees beating at the gates of Europe.
  • Now the EU and Obama want to bring the catastrophe of Gaza to the West Bank.
  • The American FDA is more careful with experiments on animals than the White House is with experiments on the people of the Middle East.
  • Every time the Palestinians have taken steps against the Israelis, we have hurt no one but ourselves, and are left with — nothing.
  • The Arabs living in Israel and the Palestinian Authority territories know, although it is a bitter pill to swallow, that we have been favored by fortune, because under the State of Israel we live in security.
  • In the face of ongoing mass murder in the Middle East, what arcane consideration, apart from Federica Mogherini being a racist, could possibly bring the EU to deal with something as marginal to global issues as boycotting Israeli face-cream and cookies?

With the anniversary of Al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, internal Palestinian discourse revolves around radical Islam and America’s actions. It relates to the slaughter, rape and millions of refugees who have fallen victim to Al-Qaeda, humanitarian calamity of and the Islamist terrorist organizations to which it gave birth, such as ISIS. Today an apocalyptic proportions is unfolding in territories that used to be Arab states but are now the battle grounds for feuding Arab tribes, whose only objective is to destroy one another.

In their heart of hearts, the Arabs living in Israel and the Palestinian Authority territories know, although it is a bitter pill to swallow, that we have been favored by fortune because under the State of Israel we live in security. This reality is brought home to us by the feeble international response and the strange behavior of U.S. President Barack Obama and the leaders of the Western world who have abandoned the Arabs to the atrocities of the Sunni Islamists (and their supporters in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar), and to the murderous proxies of the Iranian Islamic Revolution (mainly in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon).

In view of what is happening in neighboring countries, it is clear to us what will happen if Israel is in danger of destruction: no Western state will come to its aid and no Arab state will come to our aid. Our fate will be the same as that of our brothers beyond Israel’s borders. It is hard not to identify and sympathize with Israel’s efforts to fight terrorism and with its objections to the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Despite the chaos and worse than chaos in the Middle East, the EU’s foreign minister, Federica Mogherini, recently announced that the EU had decided to mark products made in the Israeli settlements. That is mind-boggling, so say the least. In the face of the ongoing mass murders in the Middle East, what arcane consideration, apart from Mogherini being a racist, could possibly bring the EU, now, to deal with something as blatantly marginal to global issues as the provenance of face cream and cookies?

In the final analysis, if the Europeans harm Israel’s ability to market goods manufactured in the West Bank, the first victims will be the Palestinian workers in the Israeli settlement factories. Every time the Palestinians have taken steps against the Israelis, we have hurt no one but ourselves. The last time we boycotted Israeli products we wound up buying them on the black market at double and triple the price. When we refused to work on construction sites, the Israelis switched to modular, prefabricated units, and the Palestinian construction workers who went on strike are unemployed to this day. When we refused to work in Israeli agriculture, they brought in workers from Thailand, who took our jobs and left us with — nothing.

The Western pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to establish a Palestinian state as soon as possible, when viewed through the prism of the mass murders and uncertainty in the Middle East, is incomprehensible. The initiative, and the obsession, to promote such a dangerous project at a time when everyone understands that the conditions on both sides are not yet ripe is dangerous; and the motives involved, whatever they really are, are suspicious. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not new, it has been waged in an atmosphere of terrorism and violence and hostility and complete lack of trust for a hundred years. So why exert pressure now?

Everyone, at least everyone living in the Middle East, knows full well that the conflict will not end with a “peace for our time” agreement forced on the two sides and accompanied by a handful of empty, meaningless documents; the dynamics are too dangerous. For both us and the Israelis it is a matter of life and death, not semantics; and it will probably take another hundred years before enough trust can be built on both sides to find a just solution.

The irony is staggering. At a time when the Arab states that were artificially created after the First World War crumble to dust, the EU is pressing for the creation of another artificial Arab state, this one called “Palestine,” to be carved out of territories once belonging to Jordan and Egypt. If “Palestine” is granted the status of statehood, it will force not only Israel but the rest of the world to grant it complete control over its borders, airports and a seaport. That will expose the new weak “state” to a rapid and certain takeover by Hamas, ISIS and various other terrorist organizations. Given the current situation in the West Bank, the elected government of “Palestine” will be controlled by Hamas. It will overthrow the Palestinian Authority, the way it did in the Gaza Strip, take over the West Bank, use its airports and seaport to import missiles, various other weapons and Islamist terrorists, and help Islamist terrorism in general, and ISIS in particular, to operate from its territory. The Islamists will proceed to attack Israel and Jordan the way ISIS is currently attacking Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula. Worse, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad will enter the new “Palestine” and strengthen its relations with Iran, just as it has in the Gaza Strip and Syria, and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Evidently the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, which led directly to Hamas’s bloodbath and takeover of the Gaza Strip, the expulsion of the Palestinian Authority and the entrenchment of Islamist terrorism, was not enough for Europe. Now the EU and U.S. President Barack Obama want to bring the catastrophe of the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. The American Food and Drug Administration is more careful with experiments on animals than the White House is with experiments on the people living in the Middle East.

In view of the events in the Arab countries, it is clear to the Palestinians that American and European actions in the Middle East are the direct result of stupidity and complete ignorance of the Middle Eastern mindset, if not outright racism and malevolence. What is inescapable is that under Obama, both America and Europe brought the Arabs to the brink of chaos and beyond, destroyed regimes which, even though they were not democratic utopias like the United States, at least provided governance and public order. That is ultimately the cause of the tsunami of refugees beating at the gates of Europe, all of it caused by the United States and its failed foreign policy.

All the signs indicate that the Middle East disaster is hardly far from over. It is actually just beginning. it will get worse because of the tens of billions that will now pour into the Ayatollahs’ coffers from the insane agreement with Iran. Much of this money will go directly not only to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force, Iran’s arm of international terrorism, but to the various proxy terrorist organizations Iran supports, thus hastening the total destruction of the Middle East and eventually large swaths of Africa.

The wave of refugees will increase, and the price will be paid by the Europeans, already faced with legions of refugees and no plan for dealing with them. Eventually Gaddafi’s prophecy will come true: Islam will conquer Europe without firing a shot.

Categories: Europe, European Union, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Islamic immigration, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Jews, Middle East, Obama - Middle East, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, West Bank
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Differing Views from Catholic Clergy on the Threat from Jihad and Shariah

September 28, 2015

Differing Views from Catholic Clergy on the Threat from Jihad and Shariah, Terror Trends Bulletin, Christopher W. Holton, September 27, 2015

rss63_pope_turkeyPope Francis and Turkey’s Islamist leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan

With the visit of Pope Francis to the United States, some attention has been paid to his views on Jihad in general and the September 11 attacks in particular.

On a visit to the September 11 memorial at Ground Zero, the pope made a statement that we find offensive and born of ignorance.

From USA Today:

In a remark some relatives of 9/11 victims may disagree with, the pope attributed “the wrongful and senseless loss of innocent lives” at Ground Zero to “the inability to find solutions which respect the common good.”

To what solutions could Pope Francis possibly be referring?

What “solutions which respect the common good” would have convinced Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Mohammed Atta that violent Jihad was wrong?

Al Qaeda and all Jihadist groups have as their goal the imposition of Shariah through violent Jihad. We can only assume that the pope is unaware of this. We must also assume that he is unaware that mainstream Islamic doctrine also calls for the imposition of Shariah worldwide.

Which Catholics and other Christians should be sacrificed to live under Shariah for the “common good?”

This was not the first time Pope Francis made statements that demonstrate an ignorance of Islamic doctrine.

In his The Joy of the Gospel, the pope stated:

Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalizations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence.

No one can study Islamic doctrine based on the Islamic trilogy–the Quran, the Hadith and the Sirah–and come away believing that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence.”

It should be noted that when it comes to commentary on Islam, Pope Francis is merely stating his opinion; this is not a statement that has the authority of the Catholic church behind it since it applies to the interpretation of another religion.

But all one has to do to see the folly in the pope’s assertion here is to review the too numerous to count examples of Islamic religious leaders and Shariah scholars admonishing their followers to violent Jihad.

We could fill volumes with examples of violent exhortations in the Quran, the Hadith and the Sirah. We could go into depth here about the principle of abrogation in the Quran. But rather than do that, we would like to point out that there are other members of the Catholic clergy and community who are more informed on Islam, Shariah and Jihad and they have put their thoughts in writing. In some cases, these good men are much closer to the tip of the spear in the clash of civilizations:

  1. Nigerian cardinal criticizes role of sharia, says Muslim leaders must ‘rein in their mad dogs’

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=20976&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CatholicWorldNewsFeatureStories+%28Catholic+World+News+%28on+CatholicCulture.org%29%29

Nigeria of course has been wracked for several years now by horrible violence committed by Boko Haram, which has recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Cardinal Onaiyekan has seen thousands of Christians in his country slaughtered at the hands of Jihadists and he knows that Boko Haram’s stated goal is the imposition of Shariah.

2. It’s Time to Take the Islamic State Seriously

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/time-take-islamic-state-seriously

Rev. James V. Schall, S.J. expresses a very different view from that of Pope Francis on the issue of the Islamic State and the role of Islam in violence.

3. Making Islam “As Banal as Catholicism”

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015/01/30/making-islam-banal-catholicism/

Robert Royal, editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing, and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., also expresses a far different view of Islamic terrorism than the one expressed by Pope Francis.

Why have these three men, two American and one Nigerian, two men of the cloth and one a prominent lay Catholic, one black and two white, reached such a different conclusion than that of Pope Francis?

To those of us who have studied Islamic doctrine over the past 15 years, the clear answer is that they have studied the Quran, the Hadith, the Sirah and Shariah. Pope Francis clearly has not. Francis is not alone in that state of being; few if any world leaders in the non-Islamic world have studied Islamic doctrine.

But those who have know what it contains and it isn’t all about peace, the “opposition to every form of violence” and “solutions for the common good.”

Categories: Christianity, Human rights, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Islamophobia, Pope Francis
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment