Reader’s links for July 29 – 2016

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In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.

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Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

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

48 Replies to “Reader’s links for July 29 – 2016”

  1. ‘Sanctions are coming’ European Union bureaucrat threatens to FREEZE job offers for men (express, July 29, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/694520/european-union-Kristalina-Georgieva-job-offers-men-freeze-eu-women

    “THE European Union will “freeze” job offers for men if gender targets are not reached, a top Eurocrat has warned.

    The Commission’s budget and human resources chief said the freeze would come if institutions did not hire more women.

    Kristalina Georgieva set the target of making sure 40 per cent of the top jobs in the EU went to women.

    However after a meeting with other commissioners in the Brussels bloc, she admitted more needed to be done to reach that goal.

    She said: “My determination is that if it is necessary, I will freeze appointments.

    “Some departments have to reach their targets, and if they don’t, sanctions are coming.”

    The 62-year-old admitted the EU institution was falling short of their ambitious targets.

    Only 30 percent of Commission senior managers and 33 percent of middle managers are female.

    She did lace her disappointment with a hint of optimism, saying some Commission departments had met the 40 percent targets in some of the lesser departments, including communications and research and innovation.

    Yet the Commission is far behind its targets in the powerful departments, such as competition, single market and anti-fraud office.

    Just 10 of the 41 director-generals – the highest rank in the commission apart from the commissioners themselves – are women.

    Georgieva said: “We have to seek more women to step into the pipeline, to get more women up.

    “You make better decisions when you have a more diverse working place.””

  2. Switzerland to strip jihadis of citizenship in major terror crackdown (express, July 28, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/694462/Switzerland-cracks-down-on-jihad-by-removing-terrorists-passports

    “SWITZERLAND has passed a law that allows the government to remove dual nationality from jihadists.

    The Swiss State Secretariat for Migration has made changes to its Civil Rights bill to deal with the increasing issue of terrorism in Europe.

    A case was brought before the courts when the government applied to strip a 19-year-old of his dual nationality.

    The unnamed man, who joined Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria in 2015, also held Italian nationality but posted photos of himself with the decapitated head of one of his victims.

    Now the jihadi from Winterthur in the canton of Zürich in northern Switzerland is no longer a citizen although he is also believed to be dead.

    Since 2001, the country says 77 people have fled Switzerland to fight in the Middle East.

    And the Federal Intelligence Service says 17 of those believed to have travelled to Iraq and Syria had dual nationality.

    The country has now toughened up laws which will come into full force in January that allows them to strip terrorists of their status and their passports in a bid to expel them from the country.

    According to reports the laws state that those convicted of crimes in connection with terrorist activities, violent extremism or organised crime can have their citizenship revoked.

    Dual citizens could also lose their Swiss passport if they “endanger in the long term Switzerland’s good relations with another state by insulting that state”.

    The latest clampdown comes just weeks after the majority of the country came out to vote on immigration issues.

    The Swiss State Secretariat for Migration said: “The population has adopted the law on accelerated asylum procedures with 66.8 per cent in favour on June 5 2016.

    “Thus, the electorate has anchored two principles law: First, the asylum procedures are accelerated.

    “Second, the rapid asylum procedure in Switzerland continues to be conducted to ensure it is constitutionally correct.

    “This is the basis of a consistent, fair and credible asylum system.”

    The government previously had the ability to remove citizenship based on a law from just after the Second World War.

    But critics are worried the 1952 legislation which had never been enacted did not go far enough.

    This latest law is set to come into practice in January 2017.”

  3. Indian Authorities Re-Impose Curfew in Kashmir’s Main City (abcnews, July 29, 2016)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indian-authorities-impose-curfew-kashmirs-main-city-40985109

    “Authorities have re-imposed curfew in the main city of Srinagar in Indian-controlled Kashmir to prevent a protest march to the main mosque called by separatist leaders before Friday afternoon prayers.

    Residents say government forces visited homes in Srinagar before dawn and asked them to stay indoors. One resident, Bashir Ahmed, says police didn’t allow bakers and milkmen to deliver supplies in the area. The previous curfew that had been in place since the latest anti-India violence erupted on July 9 was lifted from the city on Thursday.

    Areas of southern Kashmir where most of the deadly street protests have been centered have remained under curfew. At least 49 civilians, mostly teenagers and young men, and a policeman have been killed in violence triggered by the killing of a rebel leader.”

  4. Migrant ‘who fled Syria arrested on suspicion of terror after taking pilot lessons in UK’ (express, July 29, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/694524/migrant-terror-syria-egypt-arrest-investigate-suspect-high-court-london

    “A MAN claiming to be a Syrian migrant fleeing persecution in his home country has been investigated by anti-terror officials.

    The migrant, who is being investigated after he started pilot training, has been accused of supporting extreme Islamic terrorists, a court heard.

    The unnamed 34-year-old was allowed to stay in Britain but his wife said the migrant lied about his nationality, claiming he is actually Egyptian and not Syrian.

    In an interview with police, his 31-year-old wife said her husband “expressed glorification of war” and wanted to have a child called ‘War’ in Arabic.

    She also alleges he bought bullet-proof clothes, gas masks, knives and night vision goggles to send to “friends in Syria”.

    The migrant’s wife says he bought a fake AK-47 with a laser as a first birthday present for one of their sons.

    He is also alleged to have shown his son violent films and had an “expectation” of how the boy “should fight and exposed his son to ideas around “freedom fighters”.

    The migrant started studying a university course in air transport and pilot training at Buckinghamshire New University in September 2013, just six months after being allowed to stay in Britain, the court heard.

    Counter-terrorism units looked into his background in early 2014 but he was not charged on any terror-related offences.

    Ms Justice Russell heard the man had been convicted of unrelated offences in 2015, where she was told he remained in custody and was subject to a deportation order.

    The man dismissed his wife claims, saying she was lying and “start a conspiracy against me”.

    But the judge said he showed “an active interest in the conflict in Syria”.”

  5. ‘I’m just here to f*** girls’ Migrant ‘sexually harassed group of women and SPAT at them’ (express, July 29, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/694519/migrant-sexual-harrased-just-here-to-sweden-immigration-asylum-seeker-europe

    “A MIGRANT who is believed to have sexually harassed a group of women told them he was only in the country to “f*** Swedish girls”, one of his alleged victims has claimed.

    The man is believed to have followed the four girls into the central square of Vimmerby, Sweden in the early hours of the morning.

    A 20–year-old victim of the alleged harassment recalled that the 27-year-old failed asylum seeker became agitated by the group after they told him to stop.

    He reportedly began to scream that he hated Sweden and was only in the country to “f*** Swedish girls” and spend their money, his victim has claimed.

    He reportedly went on to pull down his trousers and spit at the women, before urinating on a nearby bench.

    Police found the migrant on a nearby side street where he was arrested for indecent exposure and sexual harassment…”

  6. ‘People in the UK need to WAKE UP’ Soldier fighting ISIS issues urgent warning to Britain (express, July 29, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/694333/LBC-British-soldier-harsh-words-UK-terror-attacks

    “A FORMER British Army soldier who is fighting ISIS has warned “people in the UK need to wake up” after the wave of horrific terror attacks in Europe.

    Britain has been named by ISIS as the next terrorism target after the recent massacres in Germany and France.

    Hours after the brutal murder of 84-year-old French priest Jacques Hamel in Normandy, images threatening atrocities in London and other capital cities were widely posted on a jihadi messaging app.

    Leading a debate on Britain’s security in the wake of the horrendous attacks, LBC’s Tom Swarbrick invited listeners to phone in.

    Quick to answer the request was Alan Duncan, a former British Army soldier who is fighting ISIS in Kurdistan.

    Speaking to Tom, Alan warned: “Liberal lefties need to wake up.”

    He urged: “People in the UK need to wake up. The liberal leftie brigade screaming about armed police and all the rest of it? Sorry, but wake up.

    “Does it have to be on your street?”

    Working as a sniper with the Peshmerga, Alan said he couldn’t stand by and watch the rise of ISIS and so flew to Iraq 19 months ago to join the fight.

    As well as sharing his horrifying stories of the terror that ISIS are inflicting on innocent people in Iraq and Kurdistan, the fighter spoke strongly about what he feels should happen in the UK.

    He continued: “Daesh are losing, they’re losing big time.

    “We have airstrikes in front of my location…[British] people who were screaming about these airstrikes and drones?

    “You come across here and see the crimes that are being committed? Then you scream against all of that.

    “Then you scream against armed police in the street.

    “Because they’re losing on the battlefield, any PR is good PR for them… it makes them look strong. They want fear, they want hate, they want division in the West.”

    While there are no specific threats to the UK’s Christian community, churchgoers should be alert, according to police advice which was sent out on Tuesday (July 26).

    Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said: “Following recent events in France, we are reiterating our protective security advice to Christian places of worship and have circulated specific advice today.

    “We are also taking this opportunity to remind them to review their security arrangements as a precaution.

    “While the threat from terrorism remains unchanged at severe, we urge the public to be vigilant.””

  7. Pokémon Go Reaches Islam’s Holiest Site (And Some People Aren’t Happy About It)

    The Pokémon Go craze which has been sweeping around the world has now made it as far as Mecca, the holiest site in Islam.

    According to a report in Arab News, an English language paper in Saudi Arabia, characters from the augmented reality smartphone game have been found at gates of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and even at the top of the Kaaba, the central point of the mosque to which all Muslims direct their prayers. The paper reported that several players were found inside the grounds of the mosque.

    Unsurprisingly, that is causing angst for some clerics. The paper cited Sheikh Abdullah Al-Munea, a member of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, as saying that the game was a national security hazard and treasonous, as it aims to uncover secret locations.

    But others have taken a more conciliatory stance. Sheikh Issa Al-Ghaith, an appeals court judge and a member of the Shoura Council (the closest thing Saudi Arabia has to a parliament), said he saw no problem. “In general, I do not think there is anything ‘haram’ [forbidden] in it as it is,” he said.

    The game has caused a lot of debate in Saudi Arabia in recent weeks. Earlier this month the General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars told the Reuters news agency that, contrary to some media reports, it had not issued a fatwa (religious ruling) banning the game. The original Pokémon Go card game was banned in the kingdom in 2001.

    However, the authorities have felt compelled to warn motorists not to play the game while driving. Abdullah Al-Zahrani, director general of the Eastern Province Traffic Department, told the Saudi Gazette on July 21 that any violators would be fined SR300 ($80), although he admitted that no driver has yet been caught playing the game.

    Smartphones are hugely popular in Saudi Arabia and offer an easy route to entertainment in a country where few other options exist. There are around 16 million smartphone users in the country, providing a large pool of potential Pokémon Go players.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2016/07/28/pokemon-go-reaches-islams-holiest-site-and-some-people-arent-happy-about-it/amp/

  8. Police officer killed, another wounded in Southcrest shooting
    Suspect in custody, search underway for other possible suspects

    SAN DIEGO — A traffic stop late Thursday night led to a shooting that killed a San Diego police officer and wounded a second officer and a suspect in Southcrest, where police searched for hours for other possible suspects.

    The names and service history of the male officers, both part of the department’s gang suppression unit, were not released.

    The slain officer suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died at a hospital despite life-saving efforts, San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said early Friday. The wounded officer underwent surgery early Friday and was expected to survive.

    The male suspect, who had been shot, was being treated at a hospital, Zimmerman said. His name was not released.

    Police offered few details about how the shooting unfolded.

    The two officers had pulled over a vehicle about 11 p.m. somewhere in the area of Acacia Grove Way and 38th Street. Immediately after, they called for emergency cover.

    Other officers were in the area and arrived swiftly. They found the two officers suffering from gunshot wounds to the upper torso. The critically injured officer was rushed to a hospital in a police vehicle.

    http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jul/28/2-officers-shot-southcrest/

  9. ATTACK OF THE DRONES Fears ISIS could use drones for terror bombings in Britain as Government reveals they do same in Syria and Iraq

    Ex-security minister Admiral Lord West says it would be ‘even easier’ to use the toys as weapons here than the Middle East

    TWISTED IS jihadis have begun using off-the-shelf drones to carry makeshift bombs – sparking fears they will be used to attack Britain.

    Foreign Office minister Baroness Anelay said there was growing proof that Daesh militants are converting the popular toys into weapons in their Middle East heartlands.

    A NATO chemical weapons expert also claimed the killer drones could be fitted with World War I mustard gas.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1519921/fears-isis-could-use-drones-for-terror-bombings-in-britain-as-government-reveals-they-do-same-in-syria-and-iraq/

  10. France detains Syrian refugee as church attack investigation widens

    PARIS (Reuters) – French police have detained a Syrian asylum seeker in connection with the Normandy church attack, two sources said on Friday, as security services widened their investigation into the killing of an elderly priest at the altar by two would-be jihadists.

    Three days after teenagers Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Nabir Petitjean chanted in Arabic as they slit the throat of Father Jacques Hamel, investigators are probing their network of associates from the northern Normandy region to the alpine east.

    A police source said the Syrian man was arrested near a refugee center in the rural Allier region of central France, where Petitjean lived for four years with his parents until 2012, according to French media.

    A copy of the Syrian’s passport was found at Kermiche’s family home, the police source said.

    A judicial source confirmed a Syrian was being held in custody. Two other individuals with suspected ties to the attackers are also being interrogated by police, the source said.

    http://www.oann.com/france-detains-syrian-refugee-as-church-attack-investigation-widens/

  11. 2 police officers shot in San Diego, 1 killed

    The latest scene of a cop killing is San Diego, where two police officers were shot late Thursday, one of them fatally wounded. The second officer was taken to an area hospital and is expected to survive.

    According to the Fox News, the incident occurred after a driver the two officers had pulled over opened fire on them.

    http://libertyunyielding.com/2016/07/29/2-police-officers-shot-in-san-diego-1-killed/
    The suspected shooter, who has since been apprehended and is now under arrest, apparently drove off following the shooting, prompting “a manhunt in the city’s Southcrest neighborhood involving SWAT teams, helicopters and squad cars.”

    http://libertyunyielding.com/2016/07/29/2-police-officers-shot-in-san-diego-1-killed/

  12. Obama’s Navy to name ship for gay activist Harvey Milk

    The U.S. Naval Institute reports that Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus will be naming a Military Sealift Command support ship after slain San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, a 1970s crusader for gay issues.

    The ship class is the John Lewis class “fleet oiler,” and USNS Harvey Milk will be T-AO-206, the second unit of the class.

    In company with Milk and John Lewis, the admired civil rights leader, will be Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, who is credited with jump-starting the Supreme Court in a career of political activism; Robert F. Kennedy, JFK’s brother and attorney general, assassinated in 1968 during a presidential run; Lucy Stone, the first American woman to obtain a college degree, and an activist for abolition and women’s rights; and Sojourner Truth, the remarkable former slave who also became a fiery abolitionist and civil rights activist.

    http://libertyunyielding.com/2016/07/28/obamas-navy-name-ship-gay-politician-harvey-milk/

    • Obama to Name Navy Ship After Child Molester

      http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/263682/obama-name-navy-ship-after-child-molester-daniel-greenfield

      This is what Obama thinks of the military. This is what he thinks of children. This is what he thinks of us.

      As J.E. Dyer reports, Obama will be naming a Naval vessel after Harvey Milk…

      The U.S. Naval Institute reports that Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus will be naming a Military Sealift Command support ship after slain San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, a 1970s crusader for gay issues.

      The ship class is the John Lewis class “fleet oiler,” and USNS Harvey Milk will be T-AO-206, the second unit of the class.

      In company with Milk and John Lewis, the admired civil rights leader, will be Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, who is credited with jump-starting the Supreme Court in a career of political activism;

      Harvey Milk was a major gay activist and the usual suspects will be getting a kick out of this. Except that, aside from everything else, Harvey Milk was also the creepy guy trying to lure kids into his van.

      Gerard Dols told of how – as a physically disabled teen – the “very nice” Harvey Milk had encouraged him in 1977 to run away from his Minnesota home and come to San Francisco.

      According to Dols, Milk told him, “Don’t tell your parents,”

      In his glowing book “The Mayor of Castro Street,” Randy Shilts wrote of Milk’s “relationship” with the McKinley boy: ” … Sixteen-year-old McKinley was looking for some kind of father figure. … At 33, Milk was launching a new life, though he could hardly have imagined the unlikely direction toward which his new lover would pull him.”

      Years later McKinley committed suicide.

      This is what Obama’s America looks like. It’s a nightmare of pure evil. And yes, things don’t get more evil than some of Harvey Milk’s associates.

  13. Great news: Corrupt ‘Lois Lerner’ division of IRS to review Clinton Foundation activities

    Republicans in Congress have requested three federal agencies to investigate the Clinton Foundation, following disclosures about its activities that suggests a high-level “pay to play” scheme with Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state. The agencies are the FBI, the IRS, and the Federal Trade Commission.

    In late July, Commissioner John Koskinen wrote to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) that the IRS was on the case. He hasn’t promised a formal investigation; his people will consider whether one is warranted.

    The really great news: Koskinen assigned the Clinton Foundation case to the crack investigators in the IRS Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division — the division that has been unfairly targeting conservative (and pro-Israel) non-profits since 2010.

    Although it will be the Dallas IRS office looking into the Clinton Foundation, rather than the Cincinnati office at the center of the conservative-targeting controversy, that won’t matter. The complicity of the IRS headquarters in the conservative-targeting effort was established early on – and as the Kimberley Strassel article at WSJ indicates (link above), it’s still happening, even though queenpin Lois Lerner has long since resigned. (She left the IRS in 2013.)

    http://libertyunyielding.com/2016/07/28/great-news-corrupt-lois-lerner-division-irs-review-clinton-foundation-activities/

    • So how will this work, will they seek advice form James Comey or will they be able to figure out on their own that Clintons have the right to be corrupt.
      As hillary herself says repeatedly; ( https://youtu.be/TJF9qwoX_TM ) “there is the Hillary standard and a standard for everyone else”. A direct quote.

      • The IRS will determine that there was no crime, the FBI investigation may drag on long enough to get some new Federal Attorney’s so there is hope, not much but hope that something will be done.

        What is scary is that if nothing is done the rule of law is dead.

  14. USA – Muslim inmates sue Cass County Jail, claim they were fed pork

    Four Muslim inmates have sued the Cass County Jail and several of its jailers, claiming they secretly were fed pork, according to a complaint filed in federal court.[…]

    The inmates are seeking $100 million, a public apology and the firing of jail staff connected to serving pork to Muslim inmates, according to the complaint.

    “They fed us pork during the holy month of Ramadan,” Alau said, “which is completely disrespectful. It’s the most disrespectful thing you could do to somebody.”[…]

    http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/region/4083691-muslim-inmates-sue-cass-county-jail-claim-they-were-fed-pork

  15. SKY NEWS – Inside Iran | Special Report ( 12 min 21 )

    Sky News has been given unprecedented access inside Iran, a deeply conservative nation….

  16. Al Qaeda splits in two. Terrorist civil war?

    The Al Qaeda branch in Syria — the Nusra Front — has announced that, for the first time in the history of the terror group, tthey are leaving the terror network.

    The announcement appeared to show a deep division within the terror organization — but terror experts were quick to caution that there may be more behind the split than it readily apparent.

    A leader from Syria’s Nusra Front said in a recording aired Thursday that his group is changing its name, claiming it will have no more ties with Al Qaeda in an attempt to undermine a potential U.S. and Russian air campaign against its fighters.

    The move took place with the endorsement of Al Qaeda’s central leadership, and its ideology remains the same, raising questions whether the change really goes beyond the new name, the Levant Conquest Front.

    The United States, which considers Nusra a terrorist organization, immediately expressed its skepticism. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday the U.S. continues to assess that Nusra leaders intend to attack the West and said the U.S.-led military campaign is focused on a number of extremist groups, including Nusra and the Islamic State group.

    But the step could complicate U.S. efforts in Syria — and it appears to be the motive behind the move.

    Without the Al Qaeda name, the group will now seek to expand its alliances with other Syrian rebels, including relative moderates backed by Washington and its allies. Those factions may then oppose international airstrikes against Nusra fighters, arguing that they are now simply fellow rebels against President Bashar Assad, not an Al Qaeda affiliate.

    Nusra’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, made his first appearance showing his face in the video message, aired on the Syrian opposition station Orient TV and Al-Jazeera.

    https://thehornnews.com/terrorist-civil-war/

    • The MB has been doing this for a long time, everytime someone starts targeting the main group they split with the spinoff group being called the radicals. This is just a maneuver to cause the west to stop attacking the groups while they figure out what is happening.

  17. Giuliani: This is the most anti-police convention I’ve seen

    No uniformed police allowed.

  18. Taken To Saudi Arabia And Locked in a Cage
    British-Saudi dual citizen Amina al-Jeffrey was taken to Saudi Arabia by her father after she kissed a boy at 16. She is desperate to return to the UK.

    Amina al-Jeffrey was born in Swansea, UK, and taken at age 16 to Saudi Arabia by her father, who disapproved of her Western lifestyle.

    Now 21, she is fighting a court battle in the High Court in London against her father to be allowed to return to the UK.

    She alleges that her father, Mohammed al-Jeffrey, put “metal bars” on her bedroom and described being a “locked-up girl with a shaved head.”

    Still a judge in the High Court, Justice Holman, has asserted, “We have to be careful about asserting the supremacy our cultural standards.”

    Holman also said that it is unclear whether or not Britain had jurisdiction in the matter since al-Jeffrey was an adult with dual Saudi and UK citizenship.

    Al-Jeffrey said her father hit her, deprived her of water and forced her to urinate in a cup.

    Although “metal bars are no longer in her room” according to her lawyers, “she is still locked up in the house” and “not allowed to use the phone or internet.”

    https://www.clarionproject.org/news/taken-saudi-arabia-and-locked-cage

  19. Turkey’s Erdogan Slams US Reaction to Failed Coup (abcnews, July 29, 2016)
    http://abcn.ws/2amqyIz

    “Turkey’s president slammed the United States on Friday, claiming it was not standing firmly against a failed military coup and accused it of harboring the plot’s alleged mastermind, as a government crackdown in the coup’s aftermath strained Turkey’s ties with key allies.

    Turkey has demanded the United States extradite Fethullah Gulen, a cleric living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania whom it accuses of being behind the violent July 15 coup attempt that left 290 people dead. It is accusing Western nations of not extending sufficient support to its efforts to counter further threats from followers of the Gulen movement, which it says have infiltrated the country’s state institutions.

    Turkey considers Gulen’s movement a terrorist organization. Gulen has denied any prior knowledge of the plot and says his movement espouses interfaith dialogue. The United States has asked Turkey for evidence of his involvement, and said the U.S. extradition process must take its course.

    “Instead of thanking this nation that quashed the coup in the name of democracy, on the contrary, you are taking sides with the coup plotters,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an angry speech Friday at a police special forces headquarters in Ankara. The facility was bombed and fired upon during the attempted coup, and 47 police officers were killed.

    “The putschist is already in your country,” Erdogan said.

    The president also lashed out at an American military official who expressed concern that the failed coup may have longer-term effects on the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.

    Gen. Joseph Votel said Thursday the unrest could affect U.S. relations with the Turkish military, noting that some of its leaders have been jailed.

    “We’ve certainly had relationships with a lot of Turkish leaders, military leaders in particular. And so I’m concerned about what the impact is on those relationships as we continue to move forward,” Votel said at the Aspen Security Forum.

    Erdogan criticized the comment.

    “It’s not up to you to make that decision. Who are you? Know your place,” he said, and hinted the United States could be behind the failed plot.

    “My people know who is behind this scheme … they know who the superior intelligence behind it is, and with these statements you are revealing yourselves, you are giving yourselves away,” he said.

    Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also criticized the comments, saying the jailed officers are “not the only ones with the capacity to fight” the Islamic State group. Speaking to reporters in Ankara, Cavusoglu said the purge of those suspected of being involved in the coup is rendering the Turkish army more efficient.

    “When we weed out these bad apples… then our army is more trustworthy, more dynamic, cleaner and more effective,” Cavusoglu said.

    The foreign minister said Turkey wanted Gulen’s extradition process to conclude rapidly and has asked the United States to make sure he does not escape to another country.

    He also criticized Turkey’s European and Western allies for their stance on the government’s broad crackdown, which has included a purge of the civil service, military, judiciary and education sectors, and the closures of hundreds of schools and dozens of media outlets.

    “We are disturbed by our European and Western friends’ approach,” Cavusoglu told reporters. “Very few have given us a clear support against the coup. They started to give us lessons in democracy, to talk down to us, to warn us.”

    The European Union and other countries, as well as human rights groups, have voiced increasing concern about the crackdown. According to recent figures from the interior ministry, more than 18,000 people have been detained since the coup attempt. Of those, more than 3,500 have since been released, a senior government official said.

    A total of 49,211 people have had their passports revoked, according to the interior minister. The government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with his office’s regulations, said the revocations were a precaution against the flight risk of possible terror suspects.

    More than 66,000 people in the wider civil service have been suspended from their jobs.

    Ankara says the crackdown targets followers of Gulen and is necessary to prevent a new threat. It has also been seeking to extend its crackdown on the network of schools and institutions abroad connected to his movement.

    In Germany, the governor of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said his regional government received a letter from the Turkish consul-general in Stuttgart asking it to check and “reevaluate” organizations, facilities and schools “which in the opinion of the Turkish government are, it says, ‘controlled’ by the Gulen movement.”

    “That surprised me greatly,” Winfried Kretschmann told the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Of course we will not do that.”

    Kretschmann said he has seen no evidence to back Turkey’s assertion that the Gulen movement was responsible for the coup attempt or that Islamization is taking place at schools in Germany.

    Germany’s foreign minister said it was good that the coup had been foiled “but now the reactions are getting far out of proportion.”

    “When tens of thousands of civil servants, teachers and judges are dismissed, thousands of schools and education facilities shut and dozens of journalists arrested without any direct connection with the coup being discernible, we cannot simply stay silent,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier was quoted as saying Friday in the Ruhr Nachrichten paper.

    Steinmeier said bringing back the death penalty would be “a major step backward” for Turkey.

    Cavusoglu, in an interview with Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to be published Saturday, raised the possibility of a referendum on reintroducing capital punishment.

    This decision should not be taken “in the heat of the moment,” he was quoted as saying. “Perhaps the decision on this will be taken in a referendum. These are very serious questions.”

    He argued that officials are getting thousands of tweets and texts saying “‘if you don’t reintroduce the death penalty, we won’t vote for your party anymore.'”

    “The EU doesn’t have the right to give us lessons on this matter,” Cavusoglu was quoted as saying.

    Separately, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Turkey would shut down an air base in the outskirts of Ankara that the coup plotters used as their headquarters. He said several army barracks used in the attempted coup would be moved away from Ankara and Istanbul to new locations.”

    • Let’s face it, the Catholic Church is a huge part of the problem of Islam’s growing influence and is enabling Muslims to terrorize the West. The Catholic Church does not fulfil its duty to protect the innocent. The Catholic Church has been invaded and overrun with liberalism. Is Jesus even a memory?

      • The more conservative Catholics still believe, what I think is going to happen is a split with the liberal and conservatives forming their own Church. There will probably be two Popes competing and much arguing over which Catholic Church gets the Vatican.

        • If the catholic church were to split, I think we can count on pope Francis to turn over the Vatican to the invading muslims as a gesture of peace and unity.

          • True, the would then proceed to destroy all of the historical artifacts that has been stored there over the Centuries.

    • Bergoglio at Stations of Cross: Credibility of Christians is not in ideas but in accepting marginalized

  20. Thousands Of Turks Storm NATO Base Screaming ‘Death To America’

    Thousands of Turks stormed the Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey on Thursday. The demonstrators burned American and Israeli flags and demanded the immediate closure of the NATO base located there.

    Incirlik is the base U.S. warplanes use to bomb ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria and is home to a 1,500 U.S. military personnel. An estimated 90 tactical American nuclear weapons are stored on the base which is located 60 miles from the Syrian border.

    The mob, which consisted mainly of supporters of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, shouted “Death to America”; anti-Israeli slogans and “Allah Hu Akhbar.” After the protesters began to move in the direction of the NATO base, police finally arrived at the scene and broke up the demonstration.

    • Does anyone know how big a tactical nuclear weapon is? Could several fit on a plane?
      Because the US needs to get the nukes out of Turkey pronto.

  21. CBC – Nuttall and Korody to be freed after B.C. judge issues stay of proceeding in terror entrapment case

    Justice Catherine Bruce says police went too far, using trickery and subterfuge to manipulate the pair

    John Nuttall and Amanda Korody will be set free after a B.C. Supreme Court judge entered a stay of proceedings in their terror plot entrapment case, overturning their convictions.

    The common-law couple was found guilty by a jury of conspiring to murder persons unknown and making or possessing an explosive substance for planting pressure cooker bombs outside the B.C. Legislature in 2013. Both were facing a sentence of life in prison.

    But their defence team argued before the Supreme Court that the couple had been entrapped by the RCMP and were not capable of carrying out a terrorist plot on their own.

    In her ruling, Justice Catherine Bruce said police went too far and used trickery and subterfuge to manipulate the pair. She also said the two did not have the mental capacity to have planned and carried out the plot themselves.

    Bruce described Nuttall and Korody as “frightened” and “marginalized,” and said the RCMP used that to their advantage, aiding and abetting the pair, and going to “enormous effort” to get them to carry out the plan, including providing inducements like an elaborate escape plan and offers of jobs.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/nuttall-and-korody-to-be-freed-after-b-c-judge-issues-stay-of-proceeding-in-terror-entrapment-case-1.3700599

    Judge says RCMP manufactured B.C. terror plot, overturns guilty verdict

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/judge-says-rcmp-entrapped-bc-couple-in-terror-case-overturns-guilty-verdict/article31199892/

  22. Erdogan tells West ‘mind your own business’ over crackdown criticism

    Ankara (AFP) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday told the European Union and United States to “mind your own business” after the West expressed alarm over the growing crackdown against suspected accomplices in the failed coup.

    “Some people give us advice. They say they are worried. Mind your own business! Look at your own deeds,” Erdogan said at the presidential palace, complaining no senior Western official had visited Turkey in the wake of the coup.

    “Not a single person has come to give condolences either from the European Union… or from the West,” said Erdogan.

    “And then they say that ‘Erdogan has got so angry’!” he fumed.

    “Those countries or leaders who are not worried about Turkey’s democracy, the lives of our people, its future — while being so worried about the fate of the putschists — cannot be our friends.”

    Erdogan vowed to take all steps “within the limits of the law” as Turkey seeks legal retribution for the perpetrators of the coup.

    The president also announced that as a gesture of goodwill after the coup he was dropping hundreds of lawsuits against individuals accused of insulting him.

    “I am going to withdraw all the cases regarding the disrespectful insults made against me,” said Erdogan.

    The authorities had said earlier this year that over 2,000 people were being prosecuted on charges of insulting the president.

    He said 237 people — not including the coup plotters themselves — had been killed in the coup attempt, a rise of one from the previous toll.

    Turkish authorities blame the coup on US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen and are now seeking to eradicate his influence from all aspects of Turkish life, especially the military.

    Speaking at the same event to remember the “martyrs” of July 15, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Turkey has succeeded in eradicating all elements linked to Gulen from the military after sacking nearly half of its generals following the failed coup.

    “We have cleaned out from the military the FETO elements who disguised themselves as soldiers,” said Yildirim. Turkey accuses Gulen of running the Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO), charges he denies.

    “We are going to make our armed forces stronger and we are going to work towards making this country more secure.”

    https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/32191327/erdogan-tells-west-mind-your-own-business-over-crackdown-criticism/#page1

    ======================================

    Erdogan: US is “standing by the plotters” | DW News

    • Erdogan is setting things up so he can order the US out without giving them time to take things like the Nukes. Things are reaching a tipping point and once that point arrives it will be impossible for any politician to say that political Islam (that is to say Islam as a whole) is dangerous and out to destroy the west.

    • How can we get more people to understand what is in the video?

      The only thing I can think of is keep fighting and wait for more terror attacks to wake up more people.

      Trumps popularity and the massive support for his temporary ban on allowing in Moslems (until we can figure out how to vet them) shows that more people either support us or are on the edge of supporting us.

  23. Priest’s killer was cleared to work as airport baggage handler

    A French Islamic State fanatic who ended up murdering a Catholic priest “easily” passed a police investigation to become an airport baggage handler, it was revealed today.

    Abdelmalik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, both 19, were on terrorist watchlists when they slit Father Jacques Hamel’s throat in Normandy on Tuesday.

    Now it has emerged that Petitjean worked full-time at Chambery airport in the Savoie region, which is used by more than 250,000 passengers a year including many Britons, until just three months ago.

    He started as a porter there in December after completing his baccalaureate at the Marlioz high school in nearby Aix-les-Bains, where he lived.

    There have been numerous security scares at French airports over the years, and all employees are now meant to undergo stringent tests.

    “Petitjean had no trouble getting through a police investigation and psychological evaluation,” said a source. “He was considered to be a hard-working, friendly young man who did not pose any danger to passengers or others using the airport. He got through the police investigation easily.”

    Petitjean left the airport in April, and in June was caught by Turkish intelligence services as he tried to join IS in Syria.

    Last Friday a warning was issued that Petitjean was back in France and ready to strike, and police were desperately trying to find him when he killed Father Jacques.

    This morning a second video showing Petitjean calling for more attacks on France was released by IS. It came a day after another film was circulated in which Petitjean and Kermiche, who was electronically tagged since last March, were seen swearing allegiance to the terror group.

    French prime minister Manuel Valls, who is facing calls to resign, today said the anti-terrorism judges who let Kermiche out of prison with the tag should not be blamed.

    They had to take a “different, case-by-case, approach,” he said, while admitting the decision to free Kermiche under such weak bail conditions was “a failure”.

    He also said he was “open” to the idea of stopping foreign financing for building mosques in France.

    http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/priest-s-killer-was-cleared-to-work-as-airport-baggage-handler-a3307441.html

    France: Muslims and Christians gather in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray’s mosque

  24. the telegraph – ‘Lone wolf’ attacks in Europe are nothing of the sort

    Since early 2014, at the latest, the Islamic State (Isil) has been plotting terrorist attacks in Europe. There has been a tendency, including during the wave of attacks in the last month in Europe, to favour the “lone wolf” explanation for Isil-claimed terrorist attacks, where the killer’s only connection to Isil is to be “inspired” by their online propaganda, but in reality the institutions of the caliphate stand behind this campaign.

    The infiltration of Isil’s enemies for the purposes of espionage and terrorism, whether this is government-held areas of Iraq and Syria or Western Europe, is led by Amn al-Kharji, the foreign service within Isil’s sophisticated intelligence apparatus, as explained in a new report by The Henry Jackson Society.

    Isil conceives of its foreign terrorist operations in three broad categories: (1) directed or commanded attacks, where Isil operatives trained, instructed, and dispatched from the caliphate conduct operations abroad, sometimes after recruiting local agents; (2) suggested or endorsed attacks, where individuals who have fought in Syria and Iraq return with a broad outline of an attack approved by Isil but minimal oversight during their plotting, or else—and more often—individuals have received approval and encouragement via contact with an Amn al-Kharji officer online or via an encrypted messaging service; and (3) inspired attacks where Isil sympathisers respond to the command of Isil’s leadership to conduct attacks in their country of residence.

    In the final category, theoretically, one would find “lone wolves,” but even the inspired attacks have tended to occur within the context of a network—in other words, accomplices, which means by definition they are not “lone”—and most of the IS foreign attacks have fallen into categories one and two above.

    Even where Isil’s hand has been more indirect, this terrorism takes place within the framework of a strategic vision laid down by Isil. Unlike al-Qaeda which tries to preserve its sympathisers, Isil wishes to mobilise as many attacks as it can in the shortest time possible and regards its sympathisers in Europe as its “soldiers” every bit as much as those fighting on the ground for it in Syria and Iraq. Foreign terrorism was in Isil’s DNA from the start as part of its state-building project, and now its networks are mature enough to bring off this mayhem.

    In just the last two weeks there have been four Isil-claimed terrorist attacks in Europe, two in France—the ramming attack with a truck in Nice on 14 July that massacred eighty-four people and the assault by two men on a church in Normandy that murdered a priest on 26 July—and two in Germany, an attack with a knife and a hatchet on a train in Würzburg on 18 July and a suicide bombing at a music festival in Ansbach on 24 July.

    Luckily, the only fatalities in these attacks in Germany were the perpetrators. (Germany was not so lucky with a shooting rampage in Munich on 22 July and the macheteing to death of a woman in Reutlingen, which appear so far to be unrelated to Islamism.) None of these cases can be described as a “lone wolf” attack. In Nice, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s mass-killing on Bastille Day was made by possible by several accomplices, some of them seen on CCTV with him in the truck he used just hours before the rampage, and text messages in the same period make clear that Bouhlel had assistance packing the truck with weapons, among other things.

    The would-be killers in Wurzburg (Muhammad Riyad) and Ansbach (Mohammed Daleel) and the murderers in Normandy (Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Petitjean) had all passed video footage of themselves swearing allegiance to Isil’s caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to Amaq, Isil’s “news” agency before their attacks; that Isil played these videos afterward can be taken as testimony that IS approved this terrorism in advance.

    So far, messages between Bouhlel and Isil in advance of the Nice attack have not been found. It is crucial, however, to understand how early in the investigation France is, and how much they have already got wrong with the bias toward the “lone wolf” thesis. For example, the Interior Minister initially asserted that the Bouhlel must have “radicalised very quickly”.

    It is now clear the slaughter was months in the making. Given the scale of the attack, it is also reasonable to assume greater Isil resource investment in operational security and with the nature of encrypted communications, the contact between Bouhlel or his co-plotters and Isil might never be found.

    Even more interesting is the Ansback suicide bomber, Mohammad Daleel, who appears to have conducted a directed attack. According to Isil’s newsletter al-Naba, Daleel was a long-term secret agent of Isil’s, having joined the organisation in 2006 and infiltrated Europe after an injury as early as the spring of 2013.

    Daleel is alleged by al-Naba to have built his bomb over three months and been in constant contact with an Isil handler in Syria during this time. The level of centralised coordination from Isil that has often heretofore been dismissed is of real-world importance.

    The downplaying of Isil’s direct role in the European attacks had deadly consequences last year when the connections between a series of plots in France were missed, and the diversion of the security forces helped open the way to the devastating 13 November 2015 attacks in Paris that struck at the Stade de France with suicide bombers, shot-up restaurants, and slaughtered concert-goers at the Bataclan, leaving 130 people dead.

    Britain has understandably alerted churches in the wake of the Normandy attack, but there is little that can be done to protect soft targets in free countries without the countries ceasing to be free. And there are costs no matter how the West proceeds now.

    There are measures related to immigration and integration that can help, but their rewards would not be seen for some years. Allowing jihadists to leave—putting aside the cruelty they inflict on foreign populations—allows them to train and return even more lethal.

    But as Kermiche, who had twice been prevented from joining Isil in Syria, showed, there are costs to preventing emigration, too. In his Ramadan speech in May, inciting this wave of attacks, Isil’s spokesman Taha Falaha (Abu Muhammad al-Adnani) said: “If the [governments] have shut the door ofhijra (emigration to the caliphate) in your faces, then open the door of jihad in theirs.” Kermiche did exactly that in Normandy.

    The destruction of Isil’s statelet will still leave Isil networks in Europe, but it would remove the training field that allows those networks to be replenished. The crucial component of this is the stabilisation of Syria that will prevent Isil’s revival and achieving this requires the West to alter course and finally implement the policy as it exists on paper: the removal of the Assad regime and the formation of a representative transitional government that can unite the country against terrorism, rather than massacring civilians and all armed groups except the terrorists.

    The perception—that has an increasing basis in reality—of Western complicity with the pro-regime coalition feeds straight into Isil’s narrative of a global conspiracy against which only it can defend Sunnis, granting it the legitimacy it will need to recover and in the meanwhile enabling Isil to mobilise foreign sympathisers for terrorist strikes in the West and beyond at an unprecedented rate.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/29/lone-wolf-attacks-in-europe-are-nothing-of-the-sort/

    • The loss of Syria and Iraq will mean that most of the fighters and leaders who survive will migrate to Libya which is being turned into an ISIS (we need to start calling them Daesh (sp?) since they are being kicked out of Iraq and Syria. There they will generate a lot more “refugees” to hide their infiltrators among.

      (there are costs to preventing emigration, too. In his Ramadan speech in May, inciting this wave of attacks, Isil’s spokesman Taha Falaha (Abu Muhammad al-Adnani) said: “If the [governments] have shut the door ofhijra (emigration to the caliphate) in your faces, then open the door of jihad in theirs.”) Many times Eeyore has said let them leave but prevent them from returning. This is the only solution that makes sense.

  25. German satirists mock Erdogan (and his penis) (thelocal, July 29, 2016)
    http://www.thelocal.de/20160729/german-satire-magazine-puts-erdogans-penis-on-front-page

    “Satire magazine Titanic has advised fans to snap up its August issue quickly, before it is banned.

    And it is not likely to go down well with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    “Erdogan stressed: Even his penis is staging a coup,” taunts the headline of the August issue.

    On the cover is a photo of a concerned-looking Erdogan, while a sausage has been strategically Photoshopped over his groin area…”

  26. ‘Topple Danish government to drive through Muslim ban’ (thelocal, July 29, 2016)
    http://www.thelocal.dk/20160729/topple-danish-government-to-drive-through-muslim-ban

    “One of the Danish People’s Party’s most influential figures has called for it to topple the minority centre-right government of Lars Løkke Rasmussen in a bid to force through a temporary ban on Islamic immigration.

    Søren Krarup, the priest regarded as the party’s chief ideologue, said he supported the call made on Thursday by the party’s deputy leader Søren Espersen for a total ban on immigration from Muslim countries for a period of 4-6 years, and believed that the best way to achieve this was to withdraw support from the government.

    “In my opinion, the Danish People’s Party should topple the [Lars] Løkke [Rasmussen] government without reflection,” Krarup told Denmark’s Berlingske newspaper. “Løkke is a completely unqualified leader, who would rather cultivate a European supra-nationalism than to treat Denmark as a Christian country with our own historical context.”

    Søren Espersen on Thursday proposed the ban in an opinion piece written for the Berlingske newspaper, only to have his proposal shot down by the ruling Liberal Party government, on the grounds that it was not willing to begin discriminating against immigrants on the basis of their religion.

    Krarup argued that while the current government had moved to tighten immigration, its progress would be hobbled so long as it refused to recognise the particular threat posed by newcomers with Muslim backgrounds…”