Reader’s links for May 29 – 2015

This post has all its contents in the comments. For the newest freshest videos and news stories of interest to the Counter-Jihad and the Geopolitics of Islam, please click comments and add to, or read what is posted there.

Some will be integrated into the day’s posts and others not. But this way we can keep a great news flow going without interfering with the conversations about the issues under the various essays and news items in the posts that will be presented throughout the day.

Thank you all for your informative and important contributions.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

43 Replies to “Reader’s links for May 29 – 2015”

  1. Sorry if this is a double post, however I dont recall having this one yet…

    Nomads attack central Nigerian villages; 23 dead (CNN, May 26, 2015)
    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/26/africa/nigeria-violence/index.html

    “A nomadic group attacked three villages in central Nigeria over the weekend, leaving 23 people dead, police said Tuesday.

    Members of the Fulani — Muslim nomads — attacked three villages in the Logo area of Benue state on Saturday, state spokesman Austin Ezeani said.

    “It is not clear what the motive was,” Ezeani said, adding that the victims were buried Monday.”

  2. The folly of Morsy’s death sentence (CNN, opinion, Ed Husain, May 28, 2015)
    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/27/opinions/husain-morsy-death-sentence/index.html

    “This month, former Egyptian President and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsy was sentenced to death by an Egyptian court. More trials and harsh sentences are expected. Today, more than 40,000 Islamists are in prison in Egypt.

    “In Egypt, we have now broken the back of the Muslim Brotherhood,” a senior government official there told me recently. Part of me wishes he were right.

    At times, I have felt only contempt for Islamists such as the Brotherhood. They have politicized my religion and made ordinary Muslims the sacrificial fodder of their self-serving plots and protests across the Arab world.

    Last month, an adviser to Morsy, Gehad El-Haddad, was sentenced to life in prison. I knew Gehad. I met him in Egypt in 2012. He was not a radical, but a pluralist Muslim democrat within the Muslim Brotherhood. He spoke to me passionately about economic prosperity, the rule of law and checks and balances in government; imposing Sharia was not of any interest to his generation….”

    L
    O
    L

  3. North Korean hackers ‘could kill’, warns key defector (BBC, May 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32925495

    “North Korean hackers are capable of attacks that could destroy critical infrastructure and even kill people, a high-profile defector has warned.

    Speaking exclusively to BBC Click, Prof Kim Heung-Kwang said the country had around 6,000 trained military hackers.

    The warning follows last year’s Sony Pictures hack – an attack attributed to North Korea.

    Korean technology expert Martyn Williams stressed the threat was only “theoretical”.

    Prof Kim has called for international organisations to step in to prevent North Korea launching more severe attacks.

    North Korean hackers are capable of attacks that could destroy critical infrastructure and even kill people, a high-profile defector has warned.

    Speaking exclusively to BBC Click, Prof Kim Heung-Kwang said the country had around 6,000 trained military hackers.

    The warning follows last year’s Sony Pictures hack – an attack attributed to North Korea.

    Korean technology expert Martyn Williams stressed the threat was only “theoretical”.

    Prof Kim has called for international organisations to step in to prevent North Korea launching more severe attacks.

    Speaking at a location just outside the South Korean capital, Prof Kim told the BBC he has regular contact with key figures within the country who have intimate knowledge of the military’s cyber operation.

    “The size of the cyber-attack agency has increased significantly, and now has approximately 6,000 people,” he said.

    He estimated that between 10% to 20% of the regime’s military budget is being spent on online operations….”

  4. Talk about mahoundian infiltration at the Rutgers Law School… Do people still buy into this kind of quackery in 2015?

    What ISIS — and the West — gets wrong about ‘jihad’ (CNN, opinion, Abed Awad, May 29, 2015)
    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/29/opinions/isis-jihad-meaning/index.html

    “The Lord is “a man of war” with little patience for unbelievers, we are told in the pages of the ancient text.

    “When the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with them nor show mercy unto them”, the Lord directs.

    “But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their Asherah poles.”

    Upping the ante against the unbeliever even further, God demands: “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who hath known a man by lying with him. But all the women children, who have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

    The divinely-ordained carnage reaches its climax when God directs believers: “But of the cities of these people which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.”

    The verses sound like propaganda used by ISIS to justify their blood-drenched reign of terror in Iraq and Syria. But these words aren’t from the Quran — they’re from the Bible (21st Century King James Version).

    Seemingly every day brings a new story about the horrific violence and bigotry carried out by ISIS in the name of “jihad” for the Lord. Not surprisingly, the term has become associated with carnage, holy war and terrorism.

    But what is jihad anyway?

    Western readers assume that jihad means “holy war,” but that is not exactly accurate.

    Jihad means the striving, effort and exertion to do good, according to most Arabic dictionaries and authoritative books on Islamic law.

    When I was teenager, my mother would remind me all the time that my father’s job was part of performing jihad to provide for our family. Working hard to feed your family or supporting the poor are examples of jihad. This understanding is second nature to the majority of Muslims.

    On the other hand, from a technical jurisprudential perspective, the concept of jihad also includes the rules that govern war and peace treaties. In this regard, jihad against occupation or against political regimes could be described as justified war, or war that draws legitimacy from Allah to spread his message to defend Muslims or to remove oppression.

    Jihad also includes the inner spiritual struggle of life. The Prophet Muhammad emphasized the spiritual core of jihad to his followers. When he returned from war he told them that the jihad of the battlefield is a lesser form of the concept when compared to the greatest jihad — “jihad ul-nafs,” the inner struggle to lead an ethical and pious life.

    Jihad as a concept is complex and multi-layered. ISIS doesn’t want to acknowledge the historical context nor the Quranic context to accurately understand jihad. They don’t want to see the overriding compassionate moral Quranic message, they just want to manipulate the text to feed their political violence.

    The word jihad (including its different forms) appears in about 19 chapters (in 35 verses) in the Quran — most of them revolving around the spiritual and non-violent aspects of the word.

    And yes, some of the verses address war and self-defense, but the word “qital” is used more than jihad, like in the following verse:

    “And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush.

    But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them (go) on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.” (All Quran quotes are from The Saheeh International translation).

    At the time this and similar verses were revealed, the Muslim community was under constant attack by the non-Muslim Arabs who had one objective in mind — to annihilate the entire nascent Muslim community. This was a time of war, a time of utter survival.

    This verse can only be read within its historical context — and with the numerous other verses in the Quran directing the faithful to strive hard in the way of Allah.

    Fight those who fight you and fight them until there is no more oppression, God commanded in the Quran — although he prohibited the Muslims from war during the holy months.

    Even though God permitted Muslims to fight back, he ordered them to keep prisoners humanely — and if an unbeliever asks a Muslim for asylum, God directs Muslims to grant it and to escort the person to safety. If the enemy is inclined toward peace, a Muslim must reciprocate.

    Islamic law, or Sharia, is a jurist-made law based on the Quran and the example of the Prophet Mohammed.

    The jurists prohibited violence towards women, children, the elderly, the sick, and the wounded. They prohibited fighters from attacking religious figures, and places of worship for Christians and Jews. They prohibited the burning of harvest, the cutting down of trees and the like.

    After Omar Ibn al-Khattab — the second successor to the Prophet — defeated the Romans in Palestine, he made a pledge to residents that he would protect their homes and their places of worship, and guaranteed the freedom of access and protection of Christian crosses. Khattab also warned his commanders not to mutilate the enemy and not to kill women, children or the elderly.

    While in Jerusalem, Khattab discovered that a large building covered in dirt was in fact a Jewish temple that had destroyed by Romans. Angry at the desecration of this house of worship, he and his soldiers began to remove the dirt with their bare hands, restoring the temple for the city’s Jewish residents.

    Six hundred years later, Saladin — in accordance with the Quranic message of tolerance — treated Christian Crusaders with humanity and respect, something the Crusaders had not done to the Muslims.

    ISIS and groups like it seek regime change. They advance supposed religious justifications for their own violent political means.

    But those violent means directly contradict and violate the fundamental tenets of Islam. In the hands of these political ideologues, jihad has been bent into a destructive tool for very un-Islamic political violence couched in Islamic terminology.

    Allah in the Quran set the moral and ethical framework for Muslims. No political doctrine of jihad and the associated political violence can supersede or transcend the divine humanitarian message laid out in the Quran.

    This unequivocal divine voice prohibits the killing of women, children and the elderly. It prohibits torture, compulsion in religion, destruction of houses of worship, the rape and pillaging of towns and the humiliation of fellow humans.

    The criminals of ISIS do not want to hear this divine voice because it contradicts their reign of terror. But it is the only absolute divine voice of jihad that the rest of us Muslims hear loud and clear.”

  5. Mediterranean migrant crisis: Hundreds rescued off Sicily (BBC, May 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32926374

    “A total of 741 migrants travelling in six boats have been rescued off Sicily, the Italian coastguard says.

    The migrants, who had set sail from Libya, were picked up by EU naval vessels on Thursday, a coastguard spokesman told AFP news agency.

    Last month the EU pledged to beef up maritime patrols and fight trafficking.

    The UN estimates that 60,000 people have already tried to cross the Mediterranean in the past five months, and that about 1,800 people have died.

    The death toll represents a 30-fold increase on the same period in 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

    The rise has been attributed to chaos in Libya – the staging post for most crossings – as well as milder weather.

    Many migrants are trying to escape conflict or poverty in countries such as Syria, Eritrea, Nigeria and Somalia….”

    • Saudi Arabia: Suicide bomber attack on Shi’ite mosque in Dammam

      An alleged suicide attack has struck outside a Shi’ite mosque in Dammam, eastern Saudi Arabia, during Friday prayers on 29 May, one week after the deadly suicide bombing in Qatif that left 21 people dead, including two children.

      The Saudi interior ministry confirmed that four people were killed after a car exploded in a parking lot near the Shi’ite Imam al-Hussein mosque in Dammam, close to Qatif. The bomber detonated his explosives after being stopped by security guards. It is unclear if the bomber was among the four.

      Pictures showed black smoke billowing into the sky at the entrance of the mosque.

      http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/saudi-arabia-suicide-attack-shiite-mosque-dammam-video-1503472
      ————————————————————————
      Saudi Arabian mosque hit by bomb attack

      A bomb has exploded outside a Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia, reportedly killing at least four people.

      Officials said a suicide bomber blew up a car in the city of Dammam in Eastern Province.

      The Islamic State (IS) group has said that it was behind the attack in a statement released on social media.

      Quick explosion’

      In Dammam on Friday, a vehicle reportedly exploded outside the al-Anoud mosque in a busy neighbourhood.

      A witness told Reuters news agency that he had seen a “quick explosion” and that he had been told that men had tried to stop the bomber.

      http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32929928

  6. Turkish Paper Probed Over Images of Spy Agency Trucks (abcnews, May 29, 2015)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkish-paper-probed-images-spy-agency-trucks-31387804

    “The Istanbul prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation of newspaper editor following the publication of images of truckloads of ammunition, which the paper says proved that a convoy which was stopped on its way to Syria on a Turkish intelligence mission was carrying arms to rebels.

    The state-run Anadolu Agency said Friday that Can Dundar, chief editor of the Cumhuriyet daily, was under investigation for possible breach of anti-terrorism laws.

    The newspaper says the photographs showed an incident in January 2014 when local authorities stopped the convoy for searches, touching off a standoff with intelligence officials.

    Government officials insisted the convoy contained humanitarian aid. They said the searches were part of a conspiracy by U.S.-based cleric Fetullah Gulen to destabilize the government.

    Officials who ordered the search were arrested recently.”

  7. National Post – Hussein HamdaniHero or extremist?: Tables turn on man who helped Canadian government with would-be jihadists

    […]Following recent reports on a Quebec blog, then a news network, however, Hamdani now stands accused of being a radical Islamist – and the federal government has stopped returning his emails.

    But is Hamdani, by day a corporate and commercial lawyer, really a fox in the henhouse?

    Or is he, as some suggest, the latest target in a fear and smear campaign, made in Quebec and imported to Ottawa?

    At the end of April, the TVA news network reported that Hamdani had been suspended from the Cross Cultural Roundtable on National Security, which he has sat on since 1995.

    “I’ve been there longer than Stephen Harper has been prime minister,” Hamdani said from his office in Hamilton.

    The Roundtable, which has 15 members from different ethno-cultural communities, is meant to be a bridge between those communities and the government, meeting every few months to “focus on emerging developments in national security matters and their impact on Canada’s diverse and pluralistic society.”

    That was until a Quebec blog, Point de Bascule, re-published some of his student writings in April and alleged he was linked, through his charitable donations, to organizations like IRFAN-Canada, designated a terrorist group by the federal government in 2014 for its links to Hamas.

    Point de Bascule, which has been active since 2006, describes itself as an “an independent and non-partisan website describing the means and methods used by Islamist organizations and leaders in order to further their program in Canada.” It is run by Marc Lebuis.

    Point de Bascule highlighted the fact that Hamdani urged Muslims to vote against same-sex marriage, for example.

    The man behind Point de Bascule, Marc Lebuis, was invited to speak before the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence in February, where he first aired accusations against Hamdani.

    But it wasn’t until after Hamdani organized a fundraiser for Justin Trudeau on April 14, and sent a letter to sub-committee members about his intention to speak before the committee, that he was suspended from the roundtable.

    […]But Hamdani and others believe the suspension is also a way to promote the “fear industry.”

    “There’s a campaign to make Canadians afraid of Muslims and the religion of Islam,” Hamdani says. “The corollary is that only the Conservatives can save us from the Muslims, so they frighten people before the federal election.”

    Ihsaan Gardee, the Executive Director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said it was deeply troubling that the government would choose to act on allegations from a Quebec blogger rather than information provided by Canada’s security agencies.

    […]So who is Marc Lebuis, and who is behind his website?

    Efforts to reach Lebuis through the website, by phone, or through his Twitter account over the last week have been unsuccessful.

    Adam Thompson, the clerk for the Senate’s Committee on National Security and Defence, said the committee had no CV or other form of biography on file for Lebuis. Lebuis was presented by the chair of the committee, Conservative Senator Daniel Lang, as the “founding director of the Montreal-based independent research organization Point de Bascule,” but no further qualifications were given.

    There is no business or charity listed as Point de Bascule, or under Lebuis’s name, although the website does accept donations.

    Duss believes Point de Bascule may be part of an international “Islamophobia network.”

    Anyone who is an active member of the Muslim Community has a dossier on Point de Bascule. It was almost a badge of honour. But this has been devastating,” says Hamdani, who is planning to sue various parties for defamation.

    “I live and die by my reputation and these are such stigmatizing allegations. There is probably no worse thing to call someone than a pedophile. The second worst is a terrorist. It’s been immensely hurtful and stressful and deeply concerning.”

    http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/hero-or-extremist-tables-turn-on-man-who-helped-ottawa-with-would-be-jihadists

  8. UK – Muslim teenager jailed for planning copycat Lee Rigby murder

    A Muslim teenager has been jailed at the Old Bailey for eight years for grooming a young man with learning difficulties to carry out a copycat killing of Lee Rigby’s murder in Woolwich.

    Kazi Islam tried to persuade 19-year-old Harry Thomas to buy the ingredients for a pipe bomb and to attack one or more soldiers with a kitchen knife or meat cleaver on his command.

    The 19-year-old encouraged Thomas to start calling himself Haroon instead of Harry and attempted to radicalise him with stories of innocent children murdered by military forces.

    But Islam’s schemes were foiled when Thomas failed to buy any of the right ingredients for a bomb and let slip to “a few friends” what they were up to.

    The defendant, who will serve his sentence in a young offenders institute, denied wrongdoing, saying that he only talked to Thomas about getting the components for a bomb as an “experiment” in radicalisation.

    Sentencing, judge Richard Marks QC told him that his behaviour towards Thomas, who suffered from Aspergers syndrome and ADHD, was an aggravating feature.

    He said: “Even on your own account, that you knew he was an extremely vulnerable young man, your treatment of him was as callous as it was manipulative.”

    Judge Marks said that since his conviction Islam had shown neither remorse nor insight into the seriousness of what he had done.

    He ordered Islam to be subject to a terrorism prevention requirement for 15 years.

    http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-05-29/teenager-jailed-for-planning-copycat-lee-rigby-murder/

  9. Boko Haram clash ‘kills 4 Chad soldiers, 33 Islamists’ (yahoo, May 29, 2015)
    http://news.yahoo.com/boko-haram-clash-kills-4-chad-soldiers-33-002743041.html

    “A clash between Chad’s army and Boko Haram on a Lake Chad island has killed four soldiers and 33 Islamists, a military spokesman said Friday.

    “Boko Haram elements on Wednesday attacked our forces in Choua,” military spokesman Colonel Azem Bermandoa Agouna told AFP, referring to an island on the lake in Chadian territory.

    “The Chadian army violently repelled the attack. We killed 33 Boko Haram members and recovered several light arms and anti-tank grenades. We regret the loss of four soldiers and also recorded four wounded,” Agouna said.

    He added that Chadian military planes had been targeting Boko Haram positions on the lake since Thursday and had destroyed food, fuel and munitions belonging to the insurgents….”

  10. FOUR Muslim men have pleaded guilty to illegally slaughtering sheep after they killed the animals without stunning them as part of an Islamic tradition.

    Inspectors found headless carcasses, meat, knives and a table inside the boot of a car after paying a random visit to Llechrydau Farm on the Wrexham/Shropshire border.

    The animals had been tied up and slaughtered in October last year so the men could eat them as part of a Muslim festival.

    The inspectors turned up on the day before Eid al-Adha – the Islamic festival of sacrifice

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/580745/Islam-Muslim-halal-slaughter-farm-UK-Llechrydau-Farm-court

  11. REBEL MEDIA – The RCMP have released the full video manifesto recorded by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau moments before he began his terrorist attack and despite media reports to the contrary, he does no name accomplices.

  12. REBEL MEDIA – CBC’s Omar Khadr doc made in partnership with Al Jazeera

    CBC didn’t mention it on their website, but Al Jazeera is one of the other collaborators on their highly touted Omar Khadr documentary.

    Why did CBC make a deal with “the go-to station for terrorists,” as TheRebel..media’s Ezra Levant calls them, and what were the details? As taxpayers, we deserved to know why a crown corporation partnered with a station owned by an OPEC dictatorship that supports ISIS.

  13. BREITBART – Family of ‘Draw Muhammad’ Contest Organizer Under Threat: His Attendance at Contest in Jeopardy

    Jon Ritzheimer–organizer of the Phoenix “Draw Muhammad” contest scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday night–will have to cut his own attendance at the event short in order to stay home and protect his family after his home address was published, and his wife and children were threatened.

    Breitbart News previously reported that Ritzheimer’s event begins at 5 p.m. at Washington Park on N. 23rd Ave. Bikers are going to rally there and then go to the center’s mosque to hold a “Draw Muhammad” contest at approximately 6 p.m.

    Ritzheimer made clear his intentions that “this is purely 100% a freedom of speech rally,” but he asked participants to be sure to bring a gun with them for protection in case attacked.

    Now Ritzheimer’s own attendance at the contest is in jeopardy because someone posted his physical addres,s and threats against his wife and children ensued.

    more :

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/29/family-of-draw-muhammad-contest-organizer-under-threat-his-attendance-at-contest-in-jeopardy/

  14. PAKISTAN –Gunmen hijack Pakistan buses in deadly attack

    Around 20 armed men hijacked two buses in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province, killed 19 passengers and battled with security forces on Friday, a Pakistani official said.

    Baluchistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said the gunmen let around 50 passengers go and took at least 25 into the mountains. Security forces surrounded and battled the gunmen, and were able to recover six passengers, one of whom was wounded.

    Baluchistan Information Minister Abdur Rahim Ziaratwal said the abductors killed the 19 passengers and left their bodies behind as they escaped deeper into the mountains.

    He said the assailants still hold some passengers, without giving an exact number, and that the operation to recover them is still underway.

    Baluchistan is the scene of a low-intensity insurgency by Baluch nationalists, separatists and other groups demanding more autonomy and a greater share of the province’s gas and mineral resources.

    Elsewhere in Pakistan, a suicide bomber blew himself up near a stadium in Lahore where a cricket match was underway between Pakistan and Zimbabwe, Information Minister Pervez Rashid said on Geo TV.

    He said the bomber had tried to get closer to the stadium but was stopped by police. The bomber then detonated his payload, killing a police officer and wounding six others.

    Police had initially said the explosion, which was heard during the match, was caused by an electric transformer nearly a kilometer (mile) away from the Gaddafi Stadium.

    No one immediately claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, but the Pakistani Taliban, which has been at war with the government for years, has carried out past suicide bombings targeting civilians.

    http://www.france24.com/en/20150529-pakistan-gunmen-hijack-buses-attack

    Pakistan gunmen kill at least 19 in Baluchistan bus attack

    Bus passengers killed in Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan region, where separatists have been fighting insurgency in for decades

    Gunmen killed at least 19 passengers they had forced off buses travelling through Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan region on Friday night.

    The assault occurred in the town of Mastung, around 25 miles south of Quetta, said the home minister for Baluchistan. The bus was travelling from the western Pakistani city of Quetta to Karachi on the southern coast.

    “The armed men were wearing the uniforms of the security forces,” Sarfaraz Bugti told Reuters. The bodies of 19 passengers had been found so far, he said.

    Security officials said around 25 passengers were taken off two buses, and an operation began to find them. The bodies were discovered in nearby hills, the officials said.

    The circumstances of their deaths could not immediately be established, and the motives of the assailants was unclear.

    Separatists have been fighting a low-intensity insurgency in Baluchistan, of which Quetta is the capital, for decades. They are demanding an end to what they see as the exploitation of their resources by people from other parts of Pakistan.

    Islamist militants also regularly attack civilian and military targets, and earlier this month at least 43 commuters were killed on a bus in Karachi by a group that has declared allegiance to Islamic State.

    All of the victims in that attack were Ismailis from Pakistan’s minority Shia community, but one security official said the Mastung incident was unlikely to have been a sectarian attack.

    As well as the 19 killed, one person was injured and five more people rescued unharmed.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/11640134/Pakistan-gunmen-kill-at-least-19-in-Baluchistan-bus-attack.html

  15. Islamic State militants in Libya ‘seize Sirte airport’ (BBC, May 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32935412

    “Islamic State militants in Libya say they have seized the airport in the city of Sirte, as the group continues to make advances in the country.

    The news was announced by the group and by a Libyan militia that withdrew from the coastal city’s airport on Thursday.

    Most of Sirte, former leader Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown, fell to IS last week.
    In a statement, the group said it had also seized the Great Man Made River water project.

    The irrigation project, the world’s largest, supplies fresh water to Libyan cities and was also the base for the opposition Battalion 166, which has now fled.

    The battalion, and other Islamist militias, run the capital, Tripoli, although their government is not recognised by the international community….”

  16. Pakistan bus raids: Balochistan gunmen kill at least 19 (BBC, May 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32940272

    “Gunmen in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province have attacked two buses, killing at least 19 passengers, officials have said.

    The province’s Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti said unidentified militants boarded the vehicles travelling to Karachi on Friday evening.

    Passengers were then ordered off and shot dead, officials said.

    Balochistan has seen a long-running conflict between separatists and security forces.
    No group has yet said it carried out the attack on the two buses, which happened near the town of Mastung, south of the provincial capital, Quetta.

    “The armed men were wearing the uniforms of the security forces,” Mr Bugti told Reuters.

    An operation was launched after reports of the incident emerged, and at least five people have been rescued, officials say…”

  17. Italy rescues 3,300 migrants in Mediterranean in one day (BBC, May 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32940557

    “Italy helped rescue a total of more than 3,300 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean on Friday, the country’s coastguard has said.

    In one operation, 17 bodies were found on three boats. Another 217 people who were on board were rescued.

    The coastguard said distress calls were made from 17 different boats on Friday.
    The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says at least 1,826 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean so far in 2015.

    It represents an almost 30-fold increase on the same period last year, the IOM says….”

  18. Houthi rebels in Yemen are holding multiple Americans prisoner

    The rebel group that has seized power in Yemen has taken at least four U.S. citizens prisoner, according to U.S. officials who said that efforts to secure the Americans’ release have faltered.

    One of the prisoners had been cleared for release in recent days only to have that decision reversed by members of the Houthi rebellion that toppled the U.S.-backed government earlier this year and now controls most levers of power in Yemen.

    The Americans are believed to be held at a prison in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, which has been bombed repeatedly as part of an air campaign led by Saudi Arabia aimed at dislodging the Houthis from power. The United States has provided intelligence support to that operation.

    The detention of the Americans has complicated U.S. efforts to navigate the chaotic aftermath of the Houthi takeover, which displaced a government that had cooperated extensively with the United States on drone strikes and other counterterrorism operations against a dangerous al-Qaeda affiliate in the country.

    U.S. officials said three of the prisoners worked in private-sector jobs and that a fourth, whose occupation is unknown, has dual U.S.-Yemeni citizenship. The officials said none of the four were employees of the U.S. government.

    The Washington Post is withholding some details about the prisoners at the request of U.S. officials and relatives who cited concerns for their safety.

    A fifth U.S. citizen, Sharif Mobley, also remains in Houthi custody in connection with terrorism-related charges brought against him by the previous government more than five years ago. Mobley’s incarceration has been previously reported.

    The recently detained prisoners are among dozens of U.S. citizens who were either unable to leave Yemen or chose to remain in the country after the U.S. government closed its embassy in February and began pulling out its employees and U.S. military personnel.

    Details of the Americans’ detention remain murky, including where they are being held and whether they are together. In part this lack of detail is because there is little if any direct exchange of information between the United States and the Houthi movement, which has frequently employed chants of “Death to America.”

    With no formal contact, U.S. officials said efforts to secure the prisoners’ release have gone mainly through intermediaries, including humanitarian groups that continue to have a presence in Sanaa.

    U.S. officials said there is no indication that the prisoners have been physically harmed or are being treated as hostages. Still, they expressed concern about the well-being of one of the prisoners, who began to behave erratically in recent days as efforts to arrange for his departure unraveled.

    The prisoner was initially detained “because he overstayed his visa,” a senior U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. But Houthi leaders early this week cleared him for release, with flights arranged by the International Organization for Migration.

    The Houthis abruptly withdrew that travel authorization on May 27, however, and accused the prisoner of having traveled without permission to “sensitive” regions in the country, the U.S. official said. Among those locations, the official said, was Abyan province in southern Yemen, which has been a stronghold for al-Qaeda fighters who are adversaries of the Houthis.

    After being returned to a Yemeni prison, the American “acted as if he were mentally unstable” and removed his clothes, the U.S. official said, citing reports from sources in the Yemeni capital.

    A member of the prisoner’s family declined to comment when reached by phone on Friday.

    The Houthis are part of a Shiite sect that receives backing from the government of Iran. The United States and Iran are engaged in tense negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, and U.S. officials have denounced Iran’s detention and trial of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. But U.S. officials said there have been no contacts with Iran over the Americans being held in Yemen.

    Saudi airstrikes have reportedly killed more than 1,600 people in Yemen over the past several months.

    In telephone conversations with his lawyers, Mobley has said he is being held in an area of the capital that has been targeted repeatedly. The site appears to have been struck again this week, killing 40 people, according to a statement released Friday by the Reprieve organization, which has represented Mobley.

    “This raises some pretty disturbing questions about U.S. support for the bombing campaign,” said Namir Shabibi, a Reprieve official. Shabibi said that Reprieve has repeatedly asked U.S. officials to persuade the Saudis to avoid bombing Mobley’s location, but that “given the established Saudi record of hitting the same spot multiple times, there’s a high risk Sharif will be hit again.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/houthi-rebels-in-yemen-are-holding-multiple-americans-prisoner/2015/05/29/ac349cc8-0618-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html

  19. CHOUDARY – LONDON UK – An attack resembling those of September 9/11 and London 7/7 would hardly be surprising “under the current political climate,” British Muslim and political activist Anjem Choudary said in London, Friday.