position:brigadier general

Dear Europe, take note: If you want to, Israel can be pressured - Palestinians - Haaretz.com

A recent case involving Dutch solar panels shows how friendly states can make Israel back down when it violates international humanitarian law

Amira Hass Oct 23, 2017
read more: ▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-1.818549

The High Court justices once more found an escape hatch; once again, they would not have to discuss the basic, outrageous fact that Israel is not connecting thousands of Palestinians (on both sides of the Green Line) to the national electricity and water infrastructure. This time the way out was found in the village of Jubbet ad-Dhib at the foot of Herodion, southeast of Bethlehem. It needed a hybrid (solar plus diesel) electrical system that was installed by the Comet-ME Israeli-Palestinian aid organization, because Israel had not met its international obligation to connect it to the electrical grid.
All those who accuse the High Court of being leftist can relax. It has missed hundreds of opportunities to rule that withholding water and electricity is illegal according to international law, illegal according to Israeli law, and unacceptable according to Jewish law. Hundreds of times – to count by the number of petitions that have been submitted – the court had the opportunity to instruct the state to connect the Palestinian communities to the water and electrical infrastructure, but it avoided doing so, often citing technicalities. Back when current Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked was still a toddler, the court was already repeatedly missing opportunities to salvage the reputation of Jewish morality from downing in the sludge of nationalism and the lust to expel.
The escape hatch in Jubbet ad-Dhib was shown to the justices by Brigadier General Ahvat Ben Hur, but it was none other than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who created that opening. The Dutch government, which had funded the hybrid electrical system, was furious over the confiscation of the solar panels, and Netanyahu promised the Dutch in writing that the panels Israel had confiscated from the village in late June would be returned. And then what does Ben Hur, the direct commander of the confiscators from the Civil Administration do? He informs the state prosecutor, which informed the High Court, that he’d decided to return the panels.
Ben Hur did not do so to honor the state’s obligation to a protected population. Rather, he cited a technicality. The panels were confiscated eight months after they had been installed and operate, he explained. Thus, the petition written by attorneys Michal Sfard and Michal Pasovsky was rendered redundant. That’s a shame. It would have been interesting to see what contortions the justices would have got into in response to the arguments (also accepted by the Dutch government) that denying access to electricity and destroying electricity systems are offenses that violate international humanitarian law.
Ben Hur’s statement enabled the state prosecutor and the justices to also avoid addressing the fact that the Civil Administration had made improper use of a military order. The seizure orders that were given to the Jubbet ad-Dhib residents on the day of the confiscation cited Article 60 of the order regarding security provisions. This article makes seizure contingent upon a criminal offense having been committed using the equipment slated for seizure. The confiscation order did not specify what offense was supposedly committed with the solar panels. The lawyers’ inquiries to the Civil Administration about this went unanswered. Presumably, then (also based the COGAT spokesperson’s response to journalists), the suspected offense is related to planning and building laws. But this is an administrative offense that does not come under the military order regarding security provisions. The procedures for dealing with it are different – cease work orders and demolition orders, hearings, arguments against the orders, appeals, negotiations, a petition to the High Court.
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Bruxelles offre 200 millions d’euros à la Libye pour freiner l’immigration

La Commission européenne a mis sur la table de nouvelles mesures pour freiner l’arrivée de migrants via la mer méditerranée, dont 200 millions d’euros pour la Libye. Un article de notre partenaire Euroefe.

►http://www.euractiv.fr/section/l-europe-dans-le-monde/news/bruxelles-offre-200-millions-deuros-a-la-libye-pour-freiner-limmigration/?nl_ref=29858390

#Libye #asile #migrations #accord #deal #réfugiés #externalisation
cc @reka

British made cluster bombs used by Saudi-led forces in Yemen, Government research shows - Mirror Online
▻http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/british-made-cluster-bombs-used-9483580

British-made cluster bombs have been used by Saudi Arabia-led forces in Yemen, Government research has indicated.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon is set to make a statement on the analysis in the House of Commons this afternoon.

Cluster bombs are made up of dozens of small explosives, which deliver widespread and indiscriminate damage. The sale of cluster munitions is illegal.

The Government said it takes the allegations “very seriously” and has raised them with the Saudi-led coalition.

In June, the Ministry of Defence denied British-made cluster bombs discovered in Yemen by Amnesty International had been dropped by Saudi-led forces.

Commandos Without Borders
America’s Elite Troops Partner with African Forces But Pursue U.S. Aims
▻http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176223/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_washington%27s_america-first_commandos_in_afri

#Al-Qaeda doesn’t care about borders. Neither does the Islamic State or #Boko_Haram. Brigadier General Donald Bolduc thinks the same way.

#etats-unis #ISIS

US Officials Ask How ISIS Got So Many Toyota Trucks - ABC News
▻http://abcnews.go.com/International/us-officials-isis-toyota-trucks/story?id=34266539

http://a.abcnews.com/images/International/ht_isis_toyota_july2014_lf_151006_16x9_992.jpg

U.S. counter-terror officials have asked Toyota, the world’s second largest auto maker, to help them determine how ISIS has managed to acquire the large number of Toyota pick-up trucks and SUVs seen prominently in the terror group’s propaganda videos in Iraq, Syria and Libya, ABC News has learned.

Toyota says it does not know how ISIS obtained the vehicles and is “supporting” the inquiry led by the Terror Financing unit of the Treasury Department — part of a broad U.S. effort to prevent Western-made goods from ending up in the hands of the terror group.

“We briefed Treasury on Toyota’s supply chains in the Middle East and the procedures that Toyota has in place to protect supply chain integrity,” said Ed Lewis, Toyota’s Washington-based director of public policy and communications.

Toyota has a “strict policy to not sell vehicles to potential purchasers who may use or modify them for paramilitary or terrorist activities,” Lewis said. He said it is impossible for the company to track vehicles that have been stolen, or have been bought and re-sold by middlemen.

Obtained by ABC News
ISIS militants race through Raqqa in a propaganda training film released online in September 2014.more +
Toyota Hilux pickups, an overseas model similar to the Toyota Tacoma, and Toyota Land Cruisers have become fixtures in videos of the ISIS campaign in Iraq, Syria and Libya, with their truck beds loaded with heavy weapons and cabs jammed with terrorists. The Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, Lukman Faily, told ABC News that in addition to re-purposing older trucks, his government believes ISIS has acquired “hundreds” of “brand new” Toyotas in recent years.

“This is a question we’ve been asking our neighbors,” Faily said. “How could these brand new trucks... these four wheel drives, hundreds of them — where are they coming from?”

ISIS propaganda videos show gunmen patrolling Syrian streets in what appear to be older and newer model white Hilux pick-ups bearing the black caliphate seal and crossing Libya in long caravans of gleaming tan Toyota Land Cruisers. When ISIS soldiers paraded through the center of Raqqa, more than two-thirds of the vehicles were the familiar white Toyotas with the black emblems. There were small numbers of other brands including Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Isuzu.

“Regrettably, the Toyota Land Cruiser and Hilux have effectively become almost part of the ISIS brand,” said Mark Wallace, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who is CEO of the Counter Extremism Project, a non-profit working to expose the financial support networks of terror groups.

“ISIS has used these vehicles in order to engage in military-type activities, terror activities, and the like,” Wallace told ABC News. “But in nearly every ISIS video, they show a fleet — a convoy of Toyota vehicles and that’s very concerning to us.”

Toyota says many of the vehicles seen in ISIS videos are not recent models. “We have procedures in place to help ensure our products are not diverted for unauthorized military use,” said Lewis, the Toyota executive.

But, Lewis added, “It is impossible for Toyota to completely control indirect or illegal channels through which our vehicles could be misappropriated.”

Questions about the ISIS use of Toyota vehicles have circulated for years. In 2014, a report by the radio broadcaster Public Radio International noted that the U.S. State Department delivered 43 Toyota trucks to Syrian rebels. A more recent report in an Australian newspaper said that more than 800 of the trucks had been reported missing in Sydney between 2014 and 2015, and quoted terror experts speculating that they may have been exported to ISIS territory.

Attempts to track the path of the trucks into ISIS hands has proven complicated for U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Toyota’s own figures show sales of Hilux and Land Cruisers tripling from 6,000 sold in Iraq in 2011 to 18,000 sold in 2013, before sales dropped back to 13,000 in 2014.

Brigadier General Saad Maan, an Iraqi military spokesman, told ABC News he suspects that middlemen from outside Iraq have been smuggling the trucks into his country.

“We are spending our time to fight those terrorists so we cannot say we are controlling the border between Iraq and Syria,” he conceded. “We are deeply in need for answers.”

In a statement to ABC News, Toyota said it is not aware of any dealership selling to the terror group but “would immediately” take action if it did, including termination of the distribution agreement.

Toyota distributors in the region contacted by ABC News said they did not know how the trucks reached ISIS.

Sumitomo, a Japanese conglomerate that ships vehicles to the region, wrote to ABC News, “In terms of how anyone operating outside of the law obtain vehicles for misappropriation, we have no way to know and therefore cannot comment.”

A spokesman for former owners of the Toyota dealership in Syria said its sales operation was halted in 2012.

The former owners, a Saudi company called Abdul Latif Jameel, said it “made the decision to cease all trading activities in the country and fully divested the business in October, 2012,” according to a spokesperson.

Wallace, of the Counter Extremism Project, said his organization wrote directly to Toyota earlier this year to urge the company to do more to track the flow of trucks to ISIS, and noted that the trucks are stamped with traceable identification numbers.

“I don’t think Toyota’s trying to intentionally profit from it, but they are on notice now and they should do more,” Wallace said. “They should be able to figure it out... how are these trucks getting there. I think they should disclose that, put a stop to that, and put policies and procedures in places that are real and effective to make sure that we don’t see videos of ISIS using Toyota trucks in the future.”

Earlier this year, Toyota responded to Wallace’s organization with similar language the company has used to answer questions from ABC News, writing that Toyota stopped entirely its sales of vehicles in Syria several years ago.

Toyota told ABC News that after company officials briefed the U.S. Treasury team and that Treasury indicated the meeting was “helpful.”

“We cannot provide further details of our interaction with Treasury as we do not want to compromise its efforts to understand and prevent diversion, or make it easier for illicit groups to penetrate our supply chains or those of any other company,” Lewis said.

Treasury officials told ABC News they could not comment publicly about the agency’s engagement with specific private companies. But in response to questions about Toyota, the officials said investigators are “working closely with foreign counterparts and stakeholders” on the issue.

ABC News’ Randy Kreider and Mazin Faiq contributed to this report.

Baghdad Wall

The Baghdad Wall is the name being given by some media outlets to a 5 km long (3 mile) wall being built by the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army around the predominantly Sunni district of Adhamiya in Baghdad, Iraq. Construction of the 3.6 m high (12 ft) concrete wall began on 10 April 2007.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the senior spokesman for coalition forces in Iraq, was reportedly[1] unaware of the construction of the Baghdad wall, saying on 18 April 2007, “We have no intent to build gated communities in Baghdad. Our goal is to unify Baghdad, not subdivide it into separate [enclaves].”

However, a news release on the same day from the Multi-National Corps-Iraq announced that “the wall [in Adhamiyah] is one of the centerpieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence.[2] Planners hope the creation of the wall will help restore law and order by providing a way to screen people entering and exiting the neighborhood — allowing residents and people with legitimate business in, while keeping death squads and militia groups out.”[3]

Dawood al-Azami, acting head of the Adhamiya council, said on 21 April that construction of the wall had begun before the council had approved the American proposal: “A few days ago, we met with the U.S. army unit in charge of Adhamiya and it asked us, as a local council, to sign a document to build a wall to reduce killing and attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces. I told the soldiers that I would not sign it unless I could talk to residents first. We told residents at Friday prayers, but our local council hasn’t signed onto the project yet, and construction is already under way.”[4]

On 22 April, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called for the building work to cease. Subsequently, on 23 April, an estimated 7,000 Iraqis engaged in a peaceful demonstration against the wall, several carrying banners reading (in English) “No to the sectarian barrier.” [5]

Following the demonstration, the U.S. military issued a statement that “the construction of the wall is under review” and that they would “coordinate with the Iraq government to establish effective appropriate security measures.” However, at a news conference later on the same day, spokesmen for the U.S. and Iraqi military stated that they had no plans to stop building temporary separation barriers, with Brigadier General Qassim Atta describing the media reports that the Iraqi Prime Minister was protesting about as “groundless.”[5]

At the news conference, Brigadier General Atta said: “The prime minister is in agreement with the work of the security forces and the issue of security barriers. We will continue to set up these barriers in Adhamiya and other areas.” According to Atta, the barriers — which were to consist, he said, of sand barriers, trenches, barbed wire and concrete barriers constructed from moveable sections each weighing 6.3 tonnes (6.9 short tons) – would be only a temporary measure, to secure specific areas of Baghdad, and would be moved once each area was considered secure.[5]

One wall was dismantled in Baghdad in September 2008.[6] In June 2009, the Iraqi government announced it would begin dismantling the remaining walls in Baghdad.[7]

#Baghdad_Wall #Mur_de_Baghdad #Iraq #us_army

Why Assad’s Army Has Not Defected – Article clairement partisan, mais (1) publié dans un canard républicain influent, désormais éloigné des néo-conservateurs, (2) ce paragraphe relativise la ségrégation des sunnites dans l’armée habituellement présentée sur le ton de l’évidence.
▻http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-assads-army-has-not-defected-15190

The Syrian Arab Army has held its own for more than five years; its numbers might have been depleted, as is normal for any wartime military, but a close glance at its military reveals that its core, perhaps unexpectedly to many, is Sunni. The current minister of defense, Fahd al-Freij, is one of the most decorated officers in Syrian military history and hails from the Sunni heartland of Hama. The two most powerful intelligence chiefs, Ali Mamlouk and Mohammad Dib Zaitoun, have remained loyal to the Syrian government—and are both Sunnis from influential families. The now-dead and dreaded strongman of Syrian intelligence, Rustom Ghazaleh, who ruled Lebanon with an iron fist, was a Sunni, and the head of the investigative branch of the political directorate, Mahmoud al-Khattib, is from an old Damascene Sunni family. Major General Ramadan Mahmoud Ramadan, commander of the Thirty-Fifth Special Forces Regiment, which is tasked with the protection of western Damascus, is another high-ranking Sunni, as is Brigadier General Jihad Mohamed Sultan, the commander of the Sixty-Fifth Brigade that guards Latakia.

How PowerPoint is killing critical thought | Andrew Smith

Notamment pour les liens internes, et une analyse assez éclairante des slides projetées pendant les réunions où les dirigeants de la NASA ont décidé de ne pas pousser les recherches sur les dommages de la navette Columbia avant qu’elle ne revienne dans l’atmosphère

▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/23/powerpoint-thought-students-bullet-points-information?CMP=share_btn_fb

And bored is the least of it. It’s no coincidence that the two most famous PowerPoint presentations are: a) the one presented to Nasa managers by engineers, explaining with unarguable illogic why damaged tiles on the space shuttle Columbia were probably nothing to fret about; and b) General Colin Powell’s equally fuzzy pitch for war with Iraq. Now, blaming PowerPoint for Iraq would be a bit like blaming Darwin for Donald Trump, but the program made scrutiny of the case harder. Not for nothing did Brigadier General McMaster, of the US military, subsequently liken the proliferation of PP presentation in the military to an “internal threat”, saying: “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems are not bullet-izable.”

#Powerpoint #Columbia #NASA

Coalition vows to bring captured soldiers back | GulfNews.com
▻http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/coalition-vows-to-bring-captured-soldiers-back-1.1588114

Two Saudi soldiers have been captured by Al Houthi militia in Yemen, the Saudi-led coalition confirmed on Monday, vowing to bring them back.

“We have evidence that they are alive and they are in captivity with the militia,” Brigadier General Ahmad Al Assiri said after Al Houthi militia in Yemen last Wednesday broadcast footage of a man claiming to be a captured soldier.

Why has Israel embraced al-Qaida’s branch in Syria? | The Electronic Intifada
▻https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-has-israel-embraced-al-qaidas-branch-syria/14619
▻https://electronicintifada.net/sites/electronicintifada.net/files/styles/original_800w/public/epalive709502.jpg?itok=ZCJwz909

Une compilation rigoureuse des preuves de l’#alliance #Israel/#al-qaeda

Once it became undeniable, Israel confessed it was treating fighters, but claimed that they were moderates.

But after al-Nusra captured and ejected UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights last August, there was no longer any doubt that al-Nusra was the dominant force among opposition fighters in the area.

Since then, Ynet has resorted to whitewashing al-Nusra’s connections to al-Qaida. Citing unnamed Israeli officials, the publication claims that al-Nusra’s members are “simply local residents who joined the organization to benefit from the logistical and financial support it offers them.”

Retired Brigadier General Michael Herzog, a former chief of staff for Israel’s defense minister, told The Wall Street Journal that “Nusra is a unique version of al-Qaida. They manage to cooperate with non-Islamist and non-jihadi organizations in one coalition … They are totally focused on the war in Syria and aren’t focused on us. But when Hizballah and Iran and others are pushing south, they are very much focused on us.”

Israeli soldiers have also been seen providing Syrian opposition fighters dominated by al-Nusra with material aid.

Dozens of interactions between Israel and opposition fighters, as far back as 2012, have been documented by the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), the peacekeeping mission responsible for monitoring the 1974 ceasefire line between Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights.

The UN has good reason to observe these interactions closely.

In August last year, al-Nusra detained 43 UN peacekeepers and seized their equipment, prompting the UN to evacuate many of its soldiers to the Israeli-occupied side of the ceasefire line.

Quarterly UNDOF reports since the pullback reveal an ongoing pattern of Israeli coordination with those armed groups.

According to the December 2014 report, UNDOF observed two Israeli soldiers “opening the technical fence gate and letting two individuals pass from the [Syrian] to the [Israeli] side” on 27 October. Unlike most fighters seen entering the Israeli side, these individuals were not wounded and the purpose of their visit remains a mystery.

UNDOF “sporadically observed armed members of the opposition interacting” with the Israeli military across the ceasefire line, the report states.

The next UNDOF report, released in March, notes that UN forces witnessed Israeli soldiers delivering material aid to armed Syrian opposition groups.

“During the evening of 20 January, in the area north of observation post 54, UNDOF observed two trucks crossing from the [Syrian] side to the [Israeli] side, where they were received by IDF [Israeli military] personnel,” the report states. “The trucks were loaded with sacks before returning to the [Syrian] side.”

The coordination between Israel and armed opposition groups continued into May, according to the June UNDOF report.

Israel appears determined to keep the nature of these interactions as low key as possible, something Sidqi Maqt, a Druze resident of the Golan Heights, understands better than most.

In February, Maqt was arrested by Israeli intelligence for posting photos and videos to his Facebook page of Israeli army interactions with armed opposition groups. Maqt paid particular attention to documenting encounters he believed demonstrated the Israeli army’s alliance with al-Nusra.

Released in 2012 after serving 37 years in prison for engaging in armed resistance against Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, Maqt is once again behind bars. He has been charged with “espionage, assisting an enemy during wartime and contact with a foreign agent,” according to Al Jazeera.

On top of providing al-Nusra with material aid and punishing those who expose it, Israel has launched airstrikes almost exclusively against forces fighting al-Nusra.

On 18 January, for example, an Israeli air strike on a convoy near Quneitra killed six members of Hizballah and a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Days later, rockets landed in the Golan Heights, according to UNDOF. The Israeli army retaliated by shelling a location it said was the source of the fire.

A Syrian army official, however, told the UN that “terrorists” had fired the rockets and that the Syrian army planned to target their positions. The UN relayed this message to the Israeli army, which responded with airstrikes against two Syrian army artillery positions.

Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has said that some in Syria joke, “How can you say that al-Qaida doesn’t have an air force? They have the Israeli air force.”

While Assad’s policies, including the bombardments that have devastated cities and towns forcing millions to flee their homes, have contributed to the chaos and vacuum that has enabled extremist groups to flourish in some areas, Israel’s actions on behalf of those groups grant credence to his claim.

Iran Warns of War if Aid Ship to Yemen Attacked
▻http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20150513/1022078061.html

The deputy chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces warned on Tuesday that Iran would retaliate in force against any country, which attacks an Iranian ship heading to Yemen with humanitarian aid cargo on board.

“Attacking the Iranian Red Crescent aid ship will spark war in the region”, Brigadier General Massoud Jazzayeri told the Arabic-language TV Alalam.

“The US and Saudi Arabia should know that Iran’s self-restraint has a limit,” he cautioned.

Gaza in Arizona: How Israeli High-Tech Firms Will Up-Armor the US-Mexican Border

It was October 2012. Roei Elkabetz, a brigadier general for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was explaining his country’s border policing strategies. In his PowerPoint presentation, a photo of the enclosure wall that isolates the Gaza Strip from Israel clicked onscreen. “We have learned lots from Gaza,” he told the audience. “It’s a great laboratory.”

▻http://truth-out.org/news/item/28731-gaza-in-arizona-how-israeli-high-tech-firms-will-up-armor-the-us-me

http://www.truth-out.org/images/Images_2015_01/2015_0126im_.jpg

#gaza #israël #frontières #états_unis #sécurité #murs

Gaza in Arizona : How Israeli High-Tech Firms Will Up-Armor the US-Mexican Border

It was October 2012. Roei Elkabetz, a brigadier general for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was explaining his country’s border policing strategies. In his PowerPoint presentation, a photo of the enclosure wall that isolates the Gaza Strip from Israel clicked onscreen. “We have learned lots from Gaza,” he told the audience. “It’s a great laboratory.”

http://www.truth-out.org/images/Images_2015_01/2015_0126im_.jpg

Audio allegedly leaked from Sisi’s office enrages Egyptian tweeters

Media roundup by BBC Monitoring on 28 December

Egyptian Twitter users have been infuriated by the audio clip reportedly leaked from Al-Sisi’s office, who was the defence minister at the time, revealing an official’s intention to speak to a judge about a case involving a brigadier general’s son.

Following the broadcast of the clip on 27 December evening, several hashtags were created, most prominently an Arabic one called “#AlSharq_leak_from_AlSisi_office” which attracted more than 35,000 tweets in less than 24 hours. Comments ranged between rage and sarcastic criticism. No posts supporting or doubting the leaked clip were observed.

The leaked audio, the second of its kind in less than one month, revealed a conversation between two men reportedly Al-Sisi’s Bureau Chief Gen Abbas Kamil and Defence Minister’s Assistant Mamduh Shahin. The man identified as Kamil can be heard as asking the one said to be Shahin to do something about the case of the killing of 37 detainees after they were gassed in their deportation van after allegedly trying to escape, as one of the four officers accused of manslaughter is the son of Brigadier General Abd-al-Fattah Hilmi, the assistant director of the War Veterans Association. Shahin could then be heard promising to “talk to the judge” about it.

“What will they tell God?”
Several Tweeters circulated pictures of the corpses of the gassed detainees.

“#AlSharq_leak_from_AlSisi_office these are the corpses of those who died in the police deportation van, which Mamduh Shahin promised to talk to the judge about in order to acquit their killers,” @ba7ibik_ya_masr tweeted in Arabic.

Another user @OmShahd18 tweeted the victims’ picture along with a photo for the officer, who is the subject of the leaked clip, while smiling. “His daddy’s spoilt kid is laughing because his father spoke to Shahin who had a word with the judge; what will they tell God - the judge of all judges? #AlSharq_leak_from_AlSisi_office,” she said.

“An officer kills 37 citizens and gets acquitted; an officer gets killed so 528 people receive a death sentence; see how as a citizen you have no value in the military men’s state,”@hamdi_ali93 tweeted in Arabic.

“Judiciary under rule of military men”
Others ridiculed what they saw as the military’s control over the judiciary.

@tareekelhedaya posted two cartoons; one showing a statue of a blindfolded woman holding in one hand the justice scale and in the other hand a sword while a soldier uncovers her feet to reveal she is wearing military boots. The other cartoon shows a judge surrounded by three officers - one whispering in his ears, another holding his tie while raising a paper in front of his eyes and the third holding his gavel - with an Arabic sentence reading: “The judiciary under the rule of military men” written at the top of the cartoon.

“#AlSharq_leak_from_AlSisi_office if anyone asks you about the judiciary in Egypt tell him wait I will talk to the judge,” @hamdy_ali93 tweeted in Arabic.

“Soap opera”
Some also poked fun at the leaking of two clips from Al-Sisi’s office in less than a month.

@Ronna56 tweeted in Arabic: “Oh no! If we stay like this we can have a 20-episode soap opera that attracts commercials as well #AlSharq_leak_from_AlSisi_office.”

@AmrKhairi tweeted in Arabic: “These are no longer mere leaks they have become the Star Academy [a famous singing competition in the Arab region] dailies.”

Source: as listed in Arabic 28 Dec 14

Wave of bombings hit #Yemen's #Sanaa, kills one
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/wave-bombings-hit-yemens-sanaa-kills-one

Five bombs exploded on Tuesday in Sanaa’s old quarter, where many supporters of the Houthi movement live, killing a member of the group and wounding another person, a senior security official said. One of the bombs was placed near the home of Ismail al-Wazir, a professor at Sanaa University, state news agency Saba quoted the director general of the Sanaa police, Brigadier General Abdelrazzaq al-Mo’ayad, as saying. Wazir, who is close to the Houthi group, escaped an assassination attempt in April when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle, killing two of his security guards. read more

#AQAP #Houthis

U.S. arms could create Syria ’warlords’, rebel commander says
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/09/us-syria-crisis-opposition-idUSKBN0EK1EH20140609

Brigadier General Abdelilah al-Bashir, who defected in 2012 and led rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces in the Golan before becoming chief-of-staff of the FSA’s Supreme Military Council in February, told Reuters that Washington was bypassing the SMC in sending weapons directly to groups that were hard to control.

“The Americans are leading the distribution of weapons on the northern front and in the southern front. We demand that we be responsible,” Bashir, 56, said in an interview in Istanbul.

Iraqi helicopters attack jihadi convoy across Syrian border
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/iraqi-helicopters-attack-jihadi-convoy-across-syrian-border

Iraqi army helicopters attacked a jihadi convoy inside eastern #syria on Sunday as it tried to approach the border, killing at least eight people, an interior ministry spokesman said. “The army struck eight tanker trucks in Wadi Suwab inside Syrian territory as they were trying to enter Iraqi territory to provide the Islamic State of #Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) with fuel,” Brigadier General Saad Maan said. It was the first time Iraq’s military has said it carried out an attack in Syria, and Maan said “there was no coordination with the Syrian regime” over the strike. read more

#Top_News

#syria: FSA appoints new leader as it moves south
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/syria-fsa-appoints-new-leader-it-moves-south

http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/4cols/leading_images/240432-01-08.gif

Former #Free_Syrian_Army Brigadier General Selim Idriss speaking during a press confrence at the European Union Parliament in Brussels. The Free Syrian Army announced on February 16, 2014, it had fired Selim Idriss as its military chief and appointed Abdel al-Ilah al-Bachir to replace him. In a video broadcast on the Internet, the rebel coalition said its military council had decided to replace Idriss because of “the difficulties faced by the Syrian revolution” in its battle with President Bashar Former Free Syrian Army Brigadier General Selim Idriss speaking during a press confrence at the European Union Parliament in Brussels. The Free Syrian Army announced on February 16, 2014, it had fired Selim Idriss as its military chief and appointed Abdel (...)

#Mideast_&_North_Africa #Abdul-Ilah_al-Noeimi #Ahmad_al-Jarba #Articles #Quneitra #Salam_Idriss #Syrian_National_Coalition

Thanku4theAnger
Allahu Akbar ... FSA Fuqan Brigade capture Tayseer Turshan a Brigadier General of Syria Army High Command ►http://t.co/OFEOynrx #Damascus

MuhandisMundas
BRK: A Brigadier General + 300 others defected in #Idlib and blasted 12 regime tanks. #FSA attacked the governate bldg. #Syria

markito0171

#Syria Defection of a Brigadier General Mohammad Anwar Saad Al-Deen joined the Free Syrian Army #FSA ►http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfy_XF8ld8M&feature=g-u-u

28 août 2009 - 09BEIRUT971
IRAN PUSHES INTO LEBANESE DEMINING OPERATIONS
►http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/08/09BEIRUT971.html

Lebanese Mine Action Center (LMAC) director Brigadier General Mohammad Fehmi separately confirmed that LMAC was offered donations by Iranians for demining and victims assistance, but he claimed to have refused the offer because the grants would come with “Hizballah tied to them.”

Après le ministre de la défense qui refuse une énorme offre d’armes russes pour l’armée libanaise, voici le responsable libanais du déminage qui refuse des dons iraniens pour subventionner le déminage et aider les victimes, et qui va s’en vanter auprès des américains.

Mais c’est quoi ces gens ?

#cablegate #liban