1. BBC and Amnesty International make brave and unprecedented foray into telling the truth abut Hamas
(The world really is coming to an end)
Amnesty: Hamas rocket attacks amounted to war crimes
Rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militant groups during last summer’s conflict in Gaza amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International says.
Militants displayed a “flagrant disregard” for the lives of civilians during the 50-day war, a report found.
Six civilians in Israel and 13 Palestinians are believed to have been killed as a result of such attacks.
2. Syrian Rebels Capture Roman Amphitheater In Ancient Town Of Bosra After Heavy Fighting With Hezbollah
3. National Investigation Reveals Alarming Number of Attacks on U.S. Power Grid
4. Copilot now officially blamed for deliberately crashing the aircraft. Some unsubstantiated emails tell me that the Islamic State is taking ‘credit’
The Copilot’s birth name has been given but not his convert name yet.
BREAKING NEWS: Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz DELIBERATELY crashed Flight 4U9525 into mountain to ‘destroy the plane’ after locking his captain out of cockpit, reveals French prosecutor
I’ll cut this one here. Much more to come. Thank you Tundra T., CB Sashenka, Richard, M., and many more. Ill be more accurate on next post but I want to get this one published now.
Saudis begin airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNITED_STATES_YEMEN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-03-25-19-49-42
Saudi Arabia leads air strikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/26/us-yemen-security-idUSKBN0ML0YC20150326
Gulf states launch air strikes in Yemen
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cea43f62-d2e1-11e4-b7a8-00144feab7de.html#axzz3VVKYIgvc
‘Islamist extremists,’ phrase rejected by Obama, embraced by allies
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/25/islamist-extremists-phrase-rejected-by-obama-embra/
He’s stubborn on top of everything else. Petty little tyrant. Like Erdogan.
@ 3 – These attacks are terrorism and military, if/when they manage to crash a portion of the grid major economic damage will be done to the US.
NASA plans to bring boulder into moon orbit
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-plans-bring-boulder-moon-orbit-231007328.html
US Declassifies Document Revealing Israel’s Nuclear Program
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193175#.VRQkPuFMOxA
He keeps topping himself!
Yup he does.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia to Lead Ground Operation in Yemen, Officials Say
Officials would not specify troop numbers
— Egyptian security and military officials say Saudi Arabia and Egypt will lead a ground operation in Yemen against Shiite rebels and their allies after a campaign of airstrikes to weaken them.
Three senior officials tell The Associated Press that forces would enter by land from Saudi Arabia and by sea from the Red Sea and Arabian Sea. They said Thursday that other nations will also be involved.
They would not specify troop numbers or say when the operation would start, only that it would be after airstrikes weaken the rebels and allied forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
They say the offensive aims to push the rebels into negotiations on power sharing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
http://time.com/3759976/egyptsaudi-arabia-yemen-rebels/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Fmostemailed+%28TIME%3A+Most+Emailed+Story+of+the+Day%29
Marh 25 2015 – State Dept: “We Stand By” Obama’s Claim That Yemen Is Successful Counter-Terror Strategy
MSNBC Grills WH’s Josh Earnest: ‘Is Yemen Still a Success Story? Can You Say That?’
In numbers: Arab armies join battle against Houthi rebels in Yemen
Ten Arab countries have mobilised forces to take part in Operation Storm of Resolve against anti-government Houthi rebels in Yemen
Saudi Arabia :
Fighter jets: 100
Ground forces: 100,000
UAE :
Fighter jets: 30
Kuwait :
Fighter jets: 15
Qatar :
Fighter jets: 10
Bahrain :
Fighter jets: 15
Egypt :
Naval vessels: 4
* Egypt announced that it was ready to send troops if requested.
Jordan :
Fighter jets : 6
Morocco :
Fighter jets : 6
Sudan :
Fighter jets : 3
* Sudan declared that it was committed to sending ground troops as well.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/126161/Egypt/Politics-/In-numbers-Arab-armies-join-battle-against-Houthi-.aspx
Yemen’s Houthi rebels advance towards Aden
I don’t know if the Germanwings pilot was a Muslim but I do know that killing 150 infidels from a variety of Infidel countries would definitely count as a serious piece of Jihad. If you’re a Muslim and you’ve lead a life of alcohol and women and prayer-neglecting, you’re definitely going to hell when you die, unless you do Jihad and die in the process. Then, you are sent immediately to the highest levels of Paradise the moment you expire. Psychologically, it’s a perfect setup and it’s surprising it doesn’t happen more often. By crashing his own plane and killing all the Infidels, the suicidal Muslim airline pilot takes care of all his problems in one motion…
For that reason, Muslims should be banned from getting on planes, period!
Well said, Chris!
AP – Iran may run centrifuges at fortified site
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The United States is considering letting Tehran run hundreds of centrifuges at a once-secret, fortified underground bunker in exchange for limits on centrifuge work and research and development at other sites, officials have told The Associated Press.
The trade-off would allow Iran to run several hundred of the devices at its Fordo facility, although the Iranians would not be allowed to do work that could lead to an atomic bomb and the site would be subject to international inspections, according to Western officials familiar with details of negotiations now underway. In return, Iran would be required to scale back the number of centrifuges it runs at its Natanz facility and accept other restrictions on nuclear-related work.
Instead of uranium, which can be enriched to be the fissile core of a nuclear weapon, any centrifuges permitted at Fordo would be fed elements such as zinc, xenon or germanium for separating out isotopes used in medicine, industry or science, the officials said. The number of centrifuges would not be enough to produce the amount of uranium needed to produce a weapon within a year — the minimum time-frame that Washington and its negotiating partners demand.
The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the sensitive negotiations as the latest round of talks began between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif. The negotiators are racing to meet an end-of-March deadline to reach an outline of an agreement that would grant Iran relief from international sanctions in exchange for curbing its nuclear program. The deadline for a final agreement is June 30.
One senior U.S. official declined to comment on the specific proposal but said the goal since the beginning of the talks has been “to have Fordo converted so it’s not being used to enrich uranium.” That official would not say more.
The officials stressed that the potential compromise on Fordo is just one of several options on a menu of highly technical equations being discussed in the talks. All of the options are designed to keep Iran at least a year away from producing an atomic weapon for the life of the agreement, which will run for at least 10 years. U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has joined the last several rounds as the negotiations have gotten more technical.
Experts say the compromise for Fordo could still be problematic. They note it would allow Iran to keep intact technology that could be quickly repurposed for uranium enrichment at a sensitive facility that the U.S. and its allies originally wanted stripped of all such machines — centrifuges that can spin uranium gas into uses ranging from reactor fuel to weapons-grade material.
And the issue of inspector access and verification is key. Iran has resisted “snap inspections” in the past. Even as the nuclear talks have made progress, Iran has yet to satisfy questions about its past possible nuclear-related military activity. The fact that questions about such activity, known as Possible Military Dimensions, or PMDs, remain unresolved is a serious concern for the U.N. atomic watchdog.
In addition, the site at Fordo is a particular concern because it is hardened and dug deeply into a mountainside making it resistant — possibly impervious — to air attack. Such an attack is an option that neither Israel nor the U.S. has ruled out in case the talks fail.
And while too few to be used for proliferation by themselves, even a few hundred extra centrifuges at Fordo would be a concern when looked at in the context of total numbers.
As negotiations stand, the number of centrifuges would grow to more than 6,000, when the other site is included. Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran nuclear file as a deputy director general of the U.N’s International Atomic Energy Agency until 2010, says even 6,000 operating centrifuges would be “a big number.”
Asked of the significance of hundreds more at Fordo, he said, “Every machine counts.”
Iran reported the site to the IAEA six years ago in what Washington says was an attempt to pre-empt President Barack Obama and the prime ministers of Britain and France going public with its existence a few days later. Tehran later used the site to enrich uranium to a level just a technical step away from weapons-grade until late 2013, when it froze its nuclear program under a temporary arrangement that remains in effect as the sides negotiate.
Twice extended, the negotiations have turned into a U.S.-Iran tug-of-war over how many of the machines Iran would be allowed to operate since the talks resumed over two years ago. Tehran denies nuclear weapons ambitions, saying it wants to enrich only for energy, scientific and medical purposes.
Washington has taken the main negotiating role with Tehran in talks that formally remain between Iran and six world powers, and officials told the AP at last week’s round that the two sides were zeroing in on a cap of 6,000 centrifuges at Natanz, Iran’s main enrichment site.
That’s fewer than the nearly 10,000 Tehran now runs at Natanz, yet substantially more than the 500 to 1,500 that Washington originally wanted as a ceiling. Only a year ago, U.S. officials floated 4,000 as a possible compromise.
One of the officials said discussions focus on an extra 480 centrifuges at Fordo. That would potentially bring the total number of machines to close to 6,500.
David Albright of Washington’s Institute for Security and International Security says a few hundred centrifuges operated by the Iranians would not be a huge threat — if they were anywhere else but the sensitive Fordo site.
Beyond its symbolic significance, “it keeps the infrastructure in place and keeps a leg up, if they want to restart (uranium) enrichment operations,” said Albright, who is a go-to person on the Iran nuclear issue for the U.S. government.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4edc712e71a24f788cb2a8a5e4400dbb/ap-exclusive-iran-may-run-centrifuges-fortified-site
Three Members of ‘Taliban 5? Swapped for Bergdahl Tried to Reconnect to Terror Network
Read more: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/03/25/three-members-of-taliban-5-swapped-for-bergdahl-tried-to-reconnect-to-terror-network/#ixzz3VVxG0jiT
More:
France’s air force says it scrambled a Mirage fighter jet to the area when the Germanwings flight lost radar contact, but arrived too late to help via Stripes.com.
Translation from PINews hat tip: FreeRepublic
7 nuclear facilities within a few minutes of flight Ausgestrahit.de
Compare with map of flight path
Fighter jets were scrambled to keep the nuclear plants safe from a plane that did NOT respond to Marseille ATC.
nuke sites all over that area of France
*****
No link, but also read a comment suggesting the pilot did NOT leave the cockpit once from the flight inbound to Barcelona-El Prat.
TUNISIA – 23 suspects arrested over Tunis museum attack: minister
Tunisia said Thursday that it had arrested 23 suspects in connection with last week’s jihadist massacre at the country’s national museum.
“Twenty-three suspects including a woman have been arrested as part of a terrorist cell” involved in the attack, Interior Minister Najem Gharsalli told journalists, adding that “80 percent of this cell” had been broken up.
All of those arrested were Tunisians, he said, adding that another Tunisian, two Moroccans and an Algerian suspected of being members of the cell were on the run.
The Tunisian, Maher Ben Mouldi Kaidi, was previously identified as a suspect and is alleged to have provided the automatic weapons to the two gunmen who shot dead 21 people — including 20 foreign tourists — at the Bardo Museum in Tunis on March 18.
The minister said the operation was organized by an Algerian jihadist named Lokmane Abou Sakhr, one of the leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade, the main Tunisian armed group active along the border with Algeria.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed however by al-Qaeda’s jihadist rival, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group.
“At this stage we cannot name (the group responsible),” Gharsalli said. “What is certain is that there are links with Okba Ibn Nafaa.”
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/africa/2015/03/26/23-suspects-arrested-over-Tunis-museum-attack-minister-.html
video – Anti-Terrorism Brigade BAT unit Tunisian police in action during the attack of Tunis Bardo museum
Yemen Ground Invasion By Saudi, Egyptian Troops Imminent
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3272430/posts
This might be just as good as the Iran / Iraq war. When that war was going on there where very few attacks against the west.
Thank you Obama.
“Stated he is a ‘patriot’ and he felt no one was paying attention to what was going on the world. Sibley felt if he placed the package in a Roswell park then people would finally get that this type of activity could happen anywhere.”
Agents say they also found a copy of the Quran in the backpack and other items pointing to what Sibley called “soft targets,” like the location of Atlanta’s Jewish community center.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/fbi-man-who-planted-explosives-park-wanted-be-patr/nkcz9/
I don’t know this whole story but it sounds like it could be another Breivik logic. In this case he left the Qur’an in a backpack(believers wouldn’t have left the Qur’an with the bomb)
Breivik logicKill those that disagree with you in order to wake them up. The logic is psychopathic or he converted. Either way Islam is responsible. One acting on fear of Islam and the other acting in the name of Allah.
Media can easily spin this to be psychopathic Islamophobia. Which we should recognize it as psychopathic fear of none action against a major threat.
US Declassifies Document Revealing Israel’s Nuclear Program
Obama revenge for Netanyahu’s Congress talk? 1987 report on Israel’s top secret nuclear program released in unprecedented move.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193175#.VRQkPuFMOxA
Obama in panic mode to heart Israel but this wasn’t a secret.
I can’t even imagine having a president that is in panic mode to harm our allies.
4: Related note:
The Coming U.S. Pilot Shortage Is Real
As the comment below was well said:
“Who would want that job? The pay isn’t what it used to be, and with airlines nickel and diming you every step of the way, the working environment stinks as well. The airlines are doing their best to make the piloting career only slightly more desirable than a bus driver.”
http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/coming-us-pilot-shortage-real
I know who would want that job temporarily
I don’t know tennis argot, but it’s like receiving a good one and hitting back another just as good.