Pakistan: Press reports indicate a US drone attack killed a senior Pakistani Taliban leader and, variously, from four to seven comrades today. The Pakistani Taliban denied that Wali ur Rehman Mehsud was killed.
Comment: Reaction to this drone attack has been mixed, but the timing relative to political developments in Pakistan is unfortunate. The new parliament has not yet convened and the new government is not in place. Prime Minister-nominee Nawaz Sharif promised peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban to try to restore law and order and he promised to stop the drone strikes.
One commentator said the attack shows the US has no respect for Pakistan. Another opined that peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban are now dead.
Dave McGowan has written the best thing I've seen on the actors at the Boston bombing. I challenge anyone who can claim an IQ above 80 to read this and still believe that this was a genuine attack with real victims, real blood, real terrorists. McGowan's not only a great researcher and writer, he manages to be laugh-out-loud funny at the same time. Of course, given the obvious absurdity of the stories we've been told, humor comes pretty naturally in this situation. There are 6 parts, with lots of photos, all linked on his home page. This is not to be missed!
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I need to add that Dave clearly changes his views as he progresses through the six part series. In the first part, he writes:
I need to be very clear here in stating that I am not arguing that no one was injured in the attack and that there was no real suffering. That undoubtedly was not the case.
but by the 6th part, having spent many days wading through photos and news reports, he no longer believes that there are any real victims. He writes:
…these are people who have sold their souls and sold out their country. They are beneath contempt and nothing I have to say about them should really offend anyone.
(Part 1) Debunks major reported injuries with photos of alleged victims, shows how shrapnel allegedly shredded clothes without drawing blood.
China-Mali:For the record. China has offered to send more than 500 soldiers to the UN force seeking to contain Islamist militants in Mali . This would be China's largest UN peacekeeping contingent.
Iraq: An attack at a military checkpoint at Taji, north of Baghdad, on Thursday killed 11 people, including four soldiers, and wounded five.
Comment: The pause appears ended. The fighting has killed 420 people this month.
Lebanon: Fighting in Tripoli continued for a fifth day. Overnight clashes killed six people and wounded 40. .The Middle East is now destabilized from the border of Iran to the Mediterranean.
Niger: Islamic militants executed coordinated attacks at two locations in Niger, the country east of Mali. In one attack, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at a French-Niger owned uranium mine in the town of Arlit. Simultaneously and 125 miles south, another bomber detonated a car bomb inside a military camp in the city of Agadez. Other jihadists in vehicles attempted to overrun the base, but were stopped by a firefight with Nigerian soldiers. The bombs killed 5 bombers, 25 people and injured 29, according to the Ministry of Defense. No expatriates were killed.
During this Watch, a surviving bomber is holding several Nigerien soldiers hostage
These were the first terrorist attacks of this kind in Niger. The two towns are in central Niger. Some of the facilities for processing uranium ore were damaged at Arlit.
An affiliate of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, known as the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) claimed responsibility. They were also involved in the Mali fighting. Nigerien officials judge the fighters came from Libya. One said that Libyan instability is destabilizing the entire region.
Early this year one military analyst judged that Niger was even less prepared than Mali to cope with Islamic militants and terrorists. Nevertheless, a Nigerien unit participated in clearing operations in Gao, Mali.
The key points are that the jihadists have not given up their plans to establish a base in Sahelian Africa and all the countries are vulnerable. Their territory is enormous with poor infrastructure. They are poor and have small, poorly supported security forces.
The attacks might compel France to deploy some of the troops withdrawing from Mali to Niger. Niger is France's single most important supplier of uranium for its extensive nuclear and electric power industries.
France might need to re-evaluate its strategy for providing security assistance to its former colonies. The threat calls for an integrated regional approach to security. The Sahelian nations and France will certainly need outside help.
FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds was described as “the most gagged person in the history of the United States” by the American Civil Liberties Union. Was the Sunday Times pressured to drop its investigation into her revelations?
A whistleblower has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government’s support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. The government has denied the allegations yet gone to extraordinary lengths to silence her. Her critics have derided her as a fabulist and fabricator. But now comes word that some of her most serious allegations were confirmed by a major European newspaper only to be squashed at the request of the U.S. government.
In a recent book Classified Woman, Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI, describes how the Pentagon, CIA and State Department maintained intimate ties to al-Qaeda militants as late as 2001. Her memoir, Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story, published last year, charged senior government officials with negligence, corruption and collaboration with al Qaeda in illegal arms smuggling and drugs trafficking in Central Asia.
In interviews with this author in early March, Edmonds claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with U.S. military and intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an operation known as ‘Gladio B’. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen, were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed destabilisation operations.
According to two Sunday Times journalists speaking on condition of anonymity, this and related revelations had been confirmed by senior Pentagon and MI6 officials as part of a four-part investigative series that were supposed to run in 2008. The Sunday Times journalists described how the story was inexplicably dropped under the pressure of undisclosed “interest groups”, which, they suggest, were associated with the U.S. State Department.
Peacekeeping Technology for the Protection of Civilians
The goal of the forum is to increase awareness of peacekeeping technologies and how they are being used in practice. While much attention has been given to providing the UN with helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Dr. Dorn emphasizes the importance of basic tools such as smart phones, night vision goggles, video surveillance, and tethered balloons. The forum will include two panels of experts to explore how the UN and African militaries might go about pilot projects to make use of these innovations.
Panelists Include:
Colonel Thomas Dempsey, African Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS)
Dwight Raymond, Peacekeeping and Stability Operations institute (PKSOI)
Sarah Williamson, Protect the People (PTP)
David Rogers, MobileGov
Alison Giffen, Stimson Center
Wednesday, May 29, 2013, Time: 10:00am-12:00pm
National Defense University, Lincoln Hall Room 3305, Ft. McNair, Washington, D.C.
More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon.
These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law.
According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
The former diplomats inform PJM the new revelations concentrate in two areas — what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi and the pressure put on General Carter Ham, then in command of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and therefore responsible for Libya, not to act to protect jeopardized U.S. personnel.
Muslim militant group, Hizb-e-Islami, claimed responsibility for attack
U.S. Defense Secretary confirmed two of the dead are US soldiers
Nationality of four civilian contractors not yet officially announced
Powerful explosion rattled buildings on the other side of Kabul
Identity of dead Americans has not yet been released
