Lightning Times

Morning Report 2015-01-21

Israel: Knife attack on Tel Aviv bus; terrorist held. Hamza Matrouk told investigators he learned everything from the internet; he was shot and apprehended following a stabbing attack on the #40 Dan bus that wounded 12 people.

West Africa: Chad joins Cameroon and Niger against Boko Haram. Chad's parliament voted unanimously to send an undisclosed number of troops south to Cameroon to fight Boko Haram. LWJ notes that both the US and Russia have expressed interest in assisting in the fight against BH.

Morning Report: 2015-01-08

France: Policewoman's killer takes hostages in kosher supermarket as Charlie Hebdo killers take refuge and hostage in printing plant. The jihadi brothers Charif and Said Kouachi fled north from Paris after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, and they're surrounded in Dammartin-en-Goele. Meanwhile, the man who shot a policewoman Thursday is probably the guy who's holding women and children hostage in a kosher market in eastern Paris, where two people are already reported killed. It's not officially confirmed whether the two strings of terrorist attacks are connected, although that would be a reasonable guess.

Nigeria: Boko Haram attack devastates Baga. Reports on the number killed range from 100 to 2000. Witnesses said the attackers were indiscriminately shooting civilians, burning buildings, and looting.

Morning Report: 2015-01-06

Afghanistan: 34 Taliban administrators captured or killed in 2014. The Taliban lost 34 "shadow administrators" - governors and lower-level officials - last year, throughout half of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. 'Approximately 57 percent of the Taliban shadow administrators reportedly killed in 2014 died in clashes with Afghan security forces [see second graph below]. It should be noted, however, that drone strikes in Kunar and Farah provinces resulted in the deaths of at least four Taliban shadow district administrators in 2014. And incidents involving "airstrikes" killed an additional two Taliban shadow district administrators in Kapisa and Badakhshan provinces; it is unclear if those airstrikes were conducted by conventional air assets or drones. In a separate case, one Taliban shadow administrator was killed during an incident of infighting. And in another unique case, Afghan residents gunned down a Taliban district administrator in Farah province in early June 2014. Only 11 percent of the Taliban administrators removed from the battlefield in 2014 were captured alive by security forces. ...' Go to the link for details and statistics.

Israel: Majority of Israeli Arabs proud to be Israelis - survey. '65% of Arabs described themselves as proud to be Israeli, and 59% said they felt a part of the state.' This via the Times of Israel; the American Interest adds, 'This does not mean that Israel is without flaws—as the survey showed, both Israelis in general and Arab Israelis in particular had lots they want to change about their state. But a majority clearly do not think it is evil or illegitimate; on the contrary, pride is a pretty strong word.'

Kenya: Activists challenge Security Act. 'Human rights groups are warning that Kenya's controversial Security Amendment Act still poses a threat to refugees' rights despite a high court decision on Friday that suspends parts of the bill for 30 days pending a full court hearing. The suspension included a section of the wide-ranging bill, popularly known as the 'anti-terror' law, that amended Kenya's Refugees Act. The amendment stipulates that, "the number of refugees and asylum seekers permitted to stay in Kenya shall not exceed 150,000." ...'

Morning Report: 2015-01-05

Canada: Christian convert and refugee fears deportation. Edmonton resident "John Calvin" was expected to go into the family business, which was terrorism. The son of a Hamas family had other ideas, though, and converted to Christianity. He declared refugee status while in Canada, but on New Year's Eve 2014 he received a letter of deportation. Calvin argues that returning to the Middle East will mean certain death for him as an ex-Muslim and supporter of Israel. And it doesn't help matters that he's gay.

Afghanistan / USA: President Ashraf Ghani suggests reconsidering troop withdrawal. '"Deadlines concentrate the mind. But deadlines should not be dogmas," Ashraf Ghani told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview that aired Sunday evening. ...'

USA: Jury selection begins for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tsarnaev trial. 'Some 1,200 potential jurors are due to report to federal court in Boston beginning on Monday as selection begins for the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, charged with the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. ... '

Nigeria: BH overruns MNJTF base at Baga (follow-up). Long War Journal:

At around 5 a.m. yesterday, the al Qaeda-linked jihadists attacked the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) base, which is located just outside the town of Baga in northeastern Borno state, and battled with soldiers for hours. The Boko Haram fighters attacked the MNJTF base "from all directions," and forced the soldiers to abandon the base, the BBC reported. The number of those killed during the assault, including Nigerian and allied troops as well as Boko Haram fighters, has not been disclosed.

Premium Times via AllAfrica:

In the last two years, Baga has suffered five major attacks with high casualty - the latest was that of November 2014 when Boko Haram terrorists ambushed fishermen returning from a night fishing expedition and slit the throats of 43 of them.

Details of the damage done in the Saturday attack is still sketchy even as residents of neighbouring village of Monguno who reportedly heard the gunshots and explosions echoing in their neighborhood fled to Maiduguri for safety.

Morning Report: 2015-01-04

Nigeria: Boko Haram seizes MNJTF base at Baga. According to reports, witnesses said BH overwhelmed Nigerian, Nigerene, and Chadian troops after a lengthy battle. Residents of nearby communities in the area bordering Lake Chad have fled to Chad to escape raids by BH. Baga is in the troubled Borno State, in the north-eastern corner of Nigeria.

Nigeria: Boko Haram kidnapped 40 youths on New Year's Eve. Around 40 young men and boys were abducted from the village of Malari, also in Borno State. The news emerged only after refugees from the attack reached the state capital, Maidiguri, in person.

USA / Pakistan: CIA drones strike Hafiz Gul Bahadar compound. Hafiz Gul Bahdahar's group is part of a Taliban faction loyal to the Pakistani government. This is the first US attack in Pakistan this calendar year.

USA / Israel: Details of 'Adei 'Ad clash emerging. A New Year's Day confrontation between American diplomatic security and Jewish residents of Samaria resulted in drawn weapons and almost became a shootout, according to reports. Arutz Sheva reports:

Roughly two hours before the start of Shabbat, a group from the Consulate, escorted by armed (apparently American) guards and several residents of the Arab village of Turmus Ayya, descended en-masse and unannounced on an area within 50 meters of Adei Ad's southwestern edge. Neither the IDF nor local residents were informed of the visit beforehand. [The delegation had been invited by the Palestinian Arabs of Turmus Ayya to investigate an alleged attack by Jewish settlers.] ... Adei Ad residents, alarmed at the unannounced arrival of a large group from a Palestinian village within meters of their community, rushed out to confront them. A brief verbal altercation ensued which quickly escalated, with youths from Adei Ad hurling rocks at the delegation, causing some damage to a Consulate vehicle. At this point the accounts vary; witnesses from Adei Ad say Consulate staff drew their weapons - an M-16 and a handgun - following which residents called for backup from Adei Ad's own security team. The Consulate, for its part, has denied any weapons were drawn at all. Either way, the American delegation beat a hasty retreat. Notably, at no point during the confrontation was the IDF alerted by the Consulate team; only after leaving the scene did the Americans call the army, who quickly responded and launched an investigation, which is still ongoing.

USA: East Africa bombing suspect Al-Libi dies before trial. Abu Anas al-Liby (Nazih al-Ragye) died in New York following cancer surgery, just days before his scheduled trial for his alleged role in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 civilians. He was captured last October.

Morning Report: 2015-01-02

USA: Former New York State Governor Mario Cuomo dies. Mario Cuomo died at his home in Manhattan on the day his son Andrew Cuomo was being sworn in for a second term as governor. He was 82.

Nigeria: Chibok parents look back in anguish. Parents of the abducted girls spoke at a demonstration in Abuja.

Middle East: Telegraph (UK) profiles Arab Christians fighting for Israel. And Amir Shalayan, profiled in the article, explains why he supports the Jewish State bill.

Morning Report: 2014-04-25

Uganda: Persecution of gays intensifies. 'The law prescribes life imprisonment for some homosexual acts and also criminalises the "promotion of homosexuality", among other measures.' Activist Sandra Ntebi tells more, at the link.

Indonesia: Drunk passenger triggers hijack alert. 'A Virgin Australia Airlines official said there had not been an attempt to hijack the aircraft but a "flight emergency" when a 28-year-old male passenger banged on the door of the cockpit trying to get in an hour before it was due to land.' Australian Matt Christopher Lockley is in custody.

Mali: French hostage Leal reported killed by al-Qaeda affiliate MUJAO. 'A Portuguese-born French national, Leal was kidnapped in November 2012 from a Malian town near the Mauritanian border. At the time, it was not clear which group had physically taken him, although the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) claimed responsibility.' Full details at the link.

World Today: 2014-02-26

Ukraine after Yanukovych; whither Crimea? Following a period of intense protests beginning in mid-February, Ukraine's president Viktor Yanukovych was deposed last weekend. He's now out of sight while Ukrainians, and the rest of the world, take a look at how he spent his wealth (video). Attention is now turning to the Crimea, that big peninsula that extends from continental Ukraine into the Black Sea. Stratfor has a video (registration) on the Crimea, and a free video on Russia and Ukraine (dated from before Yanukovych was overthrown). As of this morning, Reuters is reporting that Putin has put Russian troops on alert:

President Vladimir Putin put Russian combat troops on high alert for war games near Ukraine on Wednesday, the Kremlin's most powerful gesture yet after days of sabre rattling since its ally Viktor Yanukovich was toppled as president in Kiev.

Thousands of ethnic Russians, who form the majority in Ukraine's Crimea region, demonstrated for independence for the peninsula that hosts part of Moscow's Black Sea Fleet. They scuffled with rival demonstrators, mainly from the Tatar minority, who support the new authorities in Kiev. ...

RIA Novosti describes this as a "snap check" and RT calls it a "surprise drill", but Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu insists that “The drills are not connected with events in Ukraine at all.” Finally, the specter of anti-Semitism haunts yet another revolution.

Nigeria: Boko Haram killings continue. Nigeria's ongoing battle with the jihadi terrorist group Boko Haram continues to claim innocent lives. The latest Boko Haram attack in Yobe state in northern Nigeria has killed 59 students as of this morning.

President Goodluck Jonathan called the attack "callous and senseless murder ... by deranged terrorists and fanatics who have clearly lost all human morality and descended to bestiality".

The Islamists, whose struggle for an Islamic state in northern Nigeria has killed thousands and made them the biggest threat to security in Africa's top oil producer, are increasingly preying on the civilian population.

Militants from Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the northern Hausa language, have frequently attacked schools in the past. A similar attack in June in the nearby village of Mamudo left 22 students dead.

Venezuela: Protests continue. Reuters: 'At least 13 people have been killed, about 150 injured, and more than 500 arrested during protests and violence that have flared since the start of February.' Anti-Chavez protesters say they have been beaten, tortured, and threatened with guns to the head and other places since the beginning of the current wave of protests. Fausta's 2/24 Carnival links to Rory Carroll at Guardian / Observer:

Hugo Chávez used to call it la revolución bonita (the pretty revolution), but the world looked at Venezuela last week and saw only ugliness. Protesters gunned down in the streets, barricades in flames, chaos. One of the dead was a 22-year-old beauty queen shot in the head.

With the government censoring and cowing TV reports, many of the images came from smartphones, grainy and jerky snippets filled with smoke and shouts. One fact loomed through them all: Chavismo, a hybrid system of democracy and autocracy built on populism, petro-dollars and quasi-socialism, was reaping the consequences of misrule.

Demonstrations in Caracas, Valencia, Mérida and other cities turned lethal, with student-led rallies provoking a fierce backlash from National Guard units and paramilitaries. They roared on motorcycles into "enemy" neighbourhoods, guns blazing. Families piled mattresses against windows to shield against bullets. ...

Video here. Carlos Eire at Babalu writes:

Somewhere, in their Cuban-authored playbook, the Chavistas are surely counting on future visits to a remaining tiny number of Jews by Jewish congregations from around the world who come loaded with gifts.

The playbook probably reads something like this: "Be sure to make life so miserable for the Jews that they have to leave. But also make sure a tiny minority stays behind. In a few years, Jews from all over the world will come to visit them and provide your "Revolution" with a very significant revenue stream."

Also (video - Español, de CNN En Español) Entrevista con Gen. Ángel Vivas.

“Los cubanos están en todas las estructuras del Estado venezolano”, dijo.

Morning Report: 2012-08-21

Ethiopia: PM Meles dies. 'Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has died, Ethiopian state television said on Tuesday. Meles had not been seen in several weeks. The government said in July that he was taking a break to recover from an unspecified condition. State television said Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn will be acting prime minister. ...'

Syria: FSA bans torture, prisoner killings. 'The Free Syrian Army issued new orders Aug. 20 forbidding the torture and killing of prisoners following criticism by U.N. investigators, Reuters reported. ...'

Russia / Israel: Gazprom eyes Leviathan. 'Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom is studying opportunities to participate in the development of Israel's Leviathan offshore natural gas field, Bloomberg reported Aug. 20 ...'

Turkey: Gaziantep bombing kills 8. CNN: 'Eight people were killed in a bombing in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, an official in the Interior Ministry said Monday. A spokesman for the Gaziantep governorship said 66 people were wounded in the blast. ...' Bianet - English: 'An explosion that took place near the Karşıyaka Police Station in the southeastern province of Gaziantep killed eight people and injured 61 at around 20:00 on Monday. The blast occured after someone detonated the explosives loaded inside a vehicle, Gaziantep Governor Erdal Ata told the broadcasting station NTV. The victims of the blast were passengers inside a nearby automobile and a minibus, according to reports. Two buses also caught fire in consequence of the explosion ...'

Gaziantep, previously and still informally called Antep; ʻayn tāb [ʕajn tæːb] is a city in southeast Turkey and amongst the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. The city is located 185 kilometres (115 miles) northeast of Adana and 127 kilometres by road north of Aleppo, Syria. The city has two urban districts under its administration, Şahinbey and Şehitkamil. It is the sixth most populous city in Turkey.

USA / terrorism: Hezbollah funds seized. BBC: 'The US authorities say they have seized $150m (£95m) from a bank allegedly linked to a money-laundering scheme of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Last year, US officials accused the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) of helping the group launder profits from drug trafficking and other crimes. The funds were allegedly used to ship cars from the US to West Africa, with the proceeds smuggled back to Lebanon. ...'

Analysis: Benjamin Kerstein on Chomsky, NPR. Michael Totten interviews Benjamin Kerstein on Noam Chomsky:

Benjamin Kerstein: There are a couple of main points that should be made. First, Chomsky is an absolutely shameless liar. A master of the argument in bad faith. He will say anything in order to get people to believe him. Even worse, he will say anything in order to shut people up who disagree with him. And I’m not necessarily talking about his public critics. If you've ever seen how he acts with ordinary students who question what he says, it's quite horrifying. He simply abuses them in a manner I can only describe as sadistic. That is, he clearly enjoys doing it. I don't think anyone ought to be allowed to get away with that kind of behavior.

Second, Chomsky is immensely important to the radical left. When it comes to American foreign policy he isn't just influential, he's basically all they have. Almost any argument made about foreign affairs by the radical left can be traced back to him. That wasn't the case when he started out back in the late '60s, but it is now.

Third, he is essentially the last totalitarian. ...

Go read the rest. Now via a Facebook friend here's Kerstein in 2010 on NPR:

Put simply, NPR is for coastal liberals what Rush Limbaugh is for heartland conservatives: a means of relating to the world from within the confines of a specific subculture. The difference, of course, is that Limbaugh’s admirers do not force others to pay for it.

Nor, I imagine, are Limbaugh’s listeners laboring under the same illusion as NPR’s. Most of them probably understand that Limbaugh is giving opinions based on his political point of view, which is, to say the least, well known to his listeners. NPR’s listeners, on the other hand, are quite convinced that they are receiving nothing less than the pure, unvarnished, objective truth from the network. They believe themselves to be smart and informed, and thus the network they love must also be, perhaps by definition, smart and informative. ...

Morning Report: 2012-05-29

Sudan to pull troops from South border region. YNet: Sudan says it will withdraw its troops from the oil-rich Abyei region on the border with South Sudan.

Girls poisoned at Afghan school - again. CNN: 'A hospital in northern Afghanistan admitted 160 girls Tuesday after they were poisoned in their classrooms with a type of spray, a Takhar police official said. The incident, the second in a week's time, was reported at the Aahan Dara Girls school in Talokhan, the provincial capital. ...'

Afghan women leave country. And it's no wonder. Jihad Watch:

Good thing we expended all that American blood and treasure to fight the Afghan jihadists, eh? Meanwhile, note that the problem here is not just the Taliban, but the Afghan government -- both of which are committed to Sharia, which denies women basic rights. "Afghan women leave the country in fear of Taliban return," by Tracy McVeigh for the Guardian, May 26 (thanks to Banafsheh Zand) ...

The Guardian: 'A brain drain of bright young women is already taking place in Afghanistan before the 2014 handover that many fear will mean a reversal of advances in women's rights. The lack of commitment by the Afghan government to equality and to tackling the high rates of ill-treatment of women in the home and in the workplace is raising real fears they will be at the bottom of the political agenda in the push for power after Nato forces leave the country. ...'

UK to expel Syrian diplomats. BBC: 'Three senior Syrian diplomats are to be expelled, the Foreign Office has confirmed. Others including France, Germany and Australia are also expelling diplomats in a coordinated protest against the killing of civilians. ...'

Salafists threaten Tunisia. Michael Totten:

I’ve gone on the record as being slightly optimistic about where Tunisia is heading. The Islamists in the Ennahda party won less than half the votes last year and were forced into a coalition government with secular liberal parties. They surrendered on Islamic law in the new constitution after meeting massive resistance and have been forced to say they now back a civil state, which is a secular state in all but name.

The reason I'm only slightly optimistic is because years will have to pass before I’m convinced Ennahda won’t be able to pull off some authoritarian Hugo Chavez-style power grab and Islamize the society despite mass opposition.

And in the short term, the Salafists are the biggest threat to watch out for. ...

Most recently, hundreds of Salafis fought with police in Jendouba. 'Police and witnesses in the northwestern town of Jendouba said hundreds of Salafis - followers of a puritanical interpretation of Islam - began rioting to protest the arrest of four men in connection with previous attacks on alcohol vendors. ...'