Lightning Times

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi gets his virgins.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/270632

Arutz Sheva:

President Donald Trump announced the death of ISIS chief Bakr al-Baghdadi from the White House Sunday, after the US reportedly killed the ISIS founder in northwestern Syria.

“Last night, the United States brought the world’s number one terrorist leader to justice. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead. He was the founder and leader of ISIS, the most ruthless and violent terror organization anywhere in the world.”

“The United States has been searching for Baghdadi for many years. Capturing or killing Baghdadi has been thee top national security priority of my administration.”

Trump said the US suffered no casualties in the operation, while a large number of ISIS fighters were killed along with the terror group’s leader.

“US special operations forces executed a dangerous and daring nighttime raid in northwestern Syria and accomplished their mission in grand style. The US personnel were incredible. I got to watch much of it. No personnel were lost in the operation, while a large number of Baghdadi’s fighters and companions were killed with him.”

“He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way. The compound had been cleared by this time, with people either surrendering or being shot and killed. Eleven young children were moved out of the house and are uninjured. The only ones remaining were Baghdadi in the tunnel, and he had dragged three of his young children with him. They were led to certain death.”

“He reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down. He ignited his vest, killing himself and the three children. His body was mutilated by the blast, the tunnel caved in on it in addition. But test results gave certain, immediate, and totally positive identification. It was him. The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread, terrified of the American forces bearing down on him.” ...

Morning Report: 2013-05-30

Syria says its shipment of Russian S-300 missiles (registration) has arrived.

Burmese changes: 'After 50 years of brutal military rule, Myanmar’s democratic opening has been swift and startling...'.

Over the past two years dramatic reforms introduced by a new president, Thein Sein, prompted by the country’s increasingly desperate economic straits, have started a rapid transition from secretive isolation to an open democracy of sorts. The mere fact of such a change taking place has surprised the world; its speed and breadth have caused widespread bewilderment.

China interested in the Azores?

"Hundreds of thousands" of AP phone records seized, says CEO Gary Pruitt.

Richard Fernandez examines the dangers of recruiting informants - if indeed that is the reason so many warnings about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Bomber; Michael Adebolajo, the Woolwich beheader and Alexandre D. the Parisian neck-stabber were ignored.

The biggest cost to using informants is that they can in the meantime continue their life of crime. In fact, they are often expected to proceed as before in order to rise ever higher in the hierarchy of the target. The crimes they may naturally commit along the way often go unpunished. The price of catching the big fish is feeding it bait.

Morning Report: 2013-01-01

Pakistan: Gunmen kill seven charity workers. Fox: 'Gunmen killed five female teachers and two other people on Tuesday in an ambush on a van carrying workers home from their jobs at a community center in northwest Pakistan, officials said. The van was transporting teachers and aid workers from the center in conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Two health workers, one man and one woman, were also killed and the driver was wounded.' BBC has more, with a map. Workers at the center say they suspect its vaccination program is the target of the attacks; last month nine health workers were killed during a national polio vaccination drive.

India: Delhi gangrape protests continue. Hindustan Times: 'The capital on Tuesday continued to witness protests against the Delhi gangrape, with a modest gathering at Jantar Mantar demanding strong law against sexual offences. Some people continued their fast demanding stringent punishment for the culprits involved in the gangrape of the 23-year-old paramedic student, who died last Saturday.' Via Rantburg, The cops stated that after throwing the victim out of the moving bus, the accused had tried to crush her under the bus.

Syria: Fighting continues near Aleppo airport, throughout country. Fierce clashes have erupted near the international airport in Syria's second city of Aleppo, officials say. Syrians woke on New Year's Day toc ountrywide aerial bombardment, while President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels fighting to topple him clashed on the outskirts of the capital.

Saudi Arabia: Women refuse to segregate. A group of conservative man who wanted to attend the “Saudi Elite and Alienation Issues” lecture this week at the Jeddah Literary Club protested against the presence of women in the same room as men and threatened to leave if they were not moved to another room. However, the women refused to move room and insisted on remaining in the main hall to listen to the lecture.

Azerbaijan: Rent hike prices Russian radar out. Strategy Page:

January 1, 2013: Russia has decided to shut down its Daryal type long range missile detection radar in Azerbaijan after the Azerbaijanis demanded that a new lease increase annual rent from $7 million to $300 million. Russia refused to pay and will shut down the Azerbaijan radar and dismantle it. The ten year lease ended on December 24, 2012. This radar went operational in 1983 and was supposed to be one of seven. But the end of the Cold War halted that project and only one other Daryal radar was built (on the north coast of Russia). That one detected missiles coming in over the North Pole from North America. The radar in Azerbaijan covered all of the Middle East and India. Its role will be assumed by a more recent radar design that recently went into service on the Black Sea coast. Russia had offered to upgrade the Azerbaijan radar and pay more rent, but not $293 million more a year more. In addition, Russia has always paid Azerbaijan $5 million a year for electricity and $10 million a year for other services. About 500 Azerbaijanis were employed at the radar station, in addition to 1,100 Russians.

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: 2012-08-14

Syria: Rebels claim to hold pilot. They say they shot his plane down. Reuters: 'Syria's rebels were jubilant on Tuesday, claiming to have shot down a jet and captured its pilot, an apparent victory against the overwhelmingly superior firepower of President Bashar al-Assad's forces. Video uploaded onto the Internet on Monday showed the jet bursting into flames as it streaked through the sky amid heavy gunfire. The rebels said they had hit it with newly acquired high-caliber anti-aircraft guns. ...'

Syria / China: China hosts Assad regime aide Bouthaina Shaaban. BBC: 'A senior aide to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has flown to China for talks on the crisis, officials say. The Chinese foreign ministry said Bouthaina Shaaban would meet Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi later. The ministry said it was part of its effort to implement the UN's six-point peace plan. ...'

Egypt: Meet the new boss, etc. The Arabist on SCAF: 'I agree with [Accidental Occidental's] take and put it in a different way in a Guardian piece yesterday — i.e. that talk of Morsi's triumph overshadows that generals (just different generals) were still kingmakers. ...'

Son of Former Syrian Defense Minister Defects to Turkey

'Syrian Brigadier General Manaf Talas, the son of former defense minister Mustapha Talas, has defected to Turkey ...'

Morning Report: 2012-06-25

Morsi declared winner in Egypt elections. Fox: 'Egypt's new president-elect, Islamist Mohammed Morsi, moved into the office once occupied by ousted leader Hosni Mubarak and started consultations Monday on forming his team and a new government, an aide said. Morsi was declared on Sunday the winner of Egypt's first free presidential election in its modern history, following a tight race with Mubarak's last Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq. ...' Ryan Munro:

The results of Egypt’s presidential election have been officially announced and the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian wing, Hamas, are in a state of jubilation. Mohammed Morsi won with 51.7% of the vote, while the secularist former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq came in a close second with 48.2%. The Islamists shouldn’t get too excited. The fact remains that the Supreme Armed Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) remains in control of the country.

Protests in Egypt swelled as it was reported that Shafiq was going to be declared the winner. By all accounts, it was a close election but the preliminary tally showed Morsi ahead. If Shafiq became president, the population would have understandably seen it as a decision of SCAF and not the voters. By permitting a legitimate election, SCAF has avoided a confrontation with the Egyptian population while maintaining its hold on power. ...

The Glazov Gang hosts video discussion at FrontPage.

Syrian official: Turkish plane violated airspace. 'Syrian air defenses had to react immediately to a Turkish jet flying at 100 meters altitude inside Syrian airspace in what was "a clear breach of Syrian sovereignty", Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said on Monday. ...'

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. ...'