Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Europe on Edge

Got you walking on eggshells over there!

"Jitters amid fear of new attacks after Nice bloodshed" by Frank Jordans and Maria Sanminiatelli Associated Press  July 19, 2016

NICE, France — An axe attack on a German train. Four people stabbed in the French Alps. A shooting in Britain.

Scattered violence across Europe is sparking fears that copycats may be striking out after the truck rampage that killed dozens on a Nice beachfront, prompting panicked police deployment and leading to a likely extension of France’s eight-month-old state of emergency.

The incidents are drawing greater attention than usual from police and on social media after last week’s Bastille Day attack on Nice fiercely interrupted the European vacation season, killing at least 84 people.

On Tuesday, a Moroccan man stabbed a woman and three girls in the French Alps. In southern France, jittery authorities evacuated a hotel after a man refusing to pay his bill barricaded himself in his room. A shooting in Britain prompted concern that it was more than an isolated incident.

Except the shooting was isolated despite this pre$$ attempt to link it all together, while the hotel reminds me of the old George Carlin solution -- a man has barricaded himself inside his house; however, he is not armed and nobody is paying any attention to him

It’s just the kind of fear that extremist groups like Islamic State want to sow. The group is boasting about the violence in statements, videos, and graphics — and about a stabbing in Bavaria by an angry 17-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker, the first Islamic State-claimed violence in Germany.

OMG, big stinking pile of propaganda on a plate!!

Related: 

"The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack Monday night, but authorities say so far they have found no direct links to the group and believe the suspect, a 17-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker whose name was not released, received word that a friend had died in his home country days before he went on a rampage with an ax and knife on a German train."

Was it a SITEing?

ISIS™ has become a bunch of pathological liars claiming responsibility for everything! 

And CUI BONO?

That fear drove French President Francois Hollande to push for an extension of a state of emergency that’s been in place since deadly attacks on Paris in November.

What impeccable timing by ISIS™! 

If only they had waited! The order would have lapsed.

While critics note that the state of emergency didn’t prevent the Nice attack, the French Parliament is expected to prolong it for three or six months. It allows greater police powers to search homes and hold people under house arrest.

Hmmmm!

Six people are currently in custody in the Nice attack investigation, and five are undergoing questioning in the French antiterrorism agency headquarters near Paris and face likely charges of complicity in the violence, authorities said Tuesday.

Driver Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel rammed his truck through revelers watching fireworks after praising the Islamic State, researching attacks against a gay nightclub in Orlando and on police officers in Dallas, and plotting out his own attack route, according to the Paris prosecutor.

Who was he anyway?

French authorities have been on extra-high alert since the attack, and a mystery stabbing in the Alps on Tuesday set many on edge.

Not me. 

I'm dull and jaded when it comes to constantly staying on a high level of fear. Can't keep it up.

Authorities say police detained a Moroccan man who attacked a woman and her three daughters — 8, 12, and 14 — at a resort as they ate their breakfast.

All four were expected to recover, said Jean-Marc Duprat, a deputy mayor for the town of Laragne-Monteglin. Duprat initially said the man was upset that the girls were wearing shorts and T-shirts, but later said that didn’t appear to be the case and that the attacker’s motive wasn’t known.

C'MON! 

You expect us to believe this swill, or is it just get it out there? Throw it at the wall and whatever sticks?

In the southern French town of Bollene, authorities evacuated a hotel Tuesday after a man with a knife barricaded himself in his room. There were unconfirmed reports the man had been seen with a suspicious parcel with wires showing.

(Snort)

In the eastern English town of Spalding, three people were shot dead near a swimming pool, but British police said it’s not thought to be terrorism-related.

I never go swimming -- except in the sh** stream that is a Globe.

Back in the Nice region, fear gave way to mourning, as Mourners rallied around 4-year-old Kylan Mejri’s father, Tahar Mejri, who said he plans to sue the authorities over what happened.

‘‘A festival like that with nearly 33,000 and the promenade was open,’’ he said. ‘‘There was no security.’’

UH-OH! 

Then it was either a LIHOP false flag or a completely staged and scripted crisis drill fake.

The attack has sparked a national debate about whether security officials did all they could to prevent the attack — the third mass slaughter in France over the past 18 months.

French failures!

Elsewhere in Nice were signs that the city is coming back to life. Joggers, cyclists, and sun-seekers were back on the Riviera coast under a blazing sun.

OMG! 

Now this is REEKING of a FAKE EVENT, although the SCRIPT is ALWAYS the SAME in the PRE$$!!!

On the famed Promenade des Anglais, there were few visible reminders Tuesday of the July 14 carnage, save for a handful of flags flying at half-staff and armed soldiers patrolling. Some beachside restaurants reopened for business, and the final section of the road reopened to traffic following three days of official mourning.

Everything ALL CLEANED UP, huh?

Resident Clare Spencer was determined to reclaim the city for its residents and tourists and rejected the attempt of extremists to instill fear.

‘‘They will not take the promenade away from us,’’ she said. ‘‘They will not win, the evil ones . . . The people are back.’’

Now I'm convinced it was a Nice production, nothing more.

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RelatedEuropean officials impose record $3.2b fine for truck price-fixing

Maybe that will prevent the suicide truck bombs.

I'm feely edgy, but....

"An unapologetic Boris Johnson, diplomat, meets the press" by Gardiner Harris New York Times  July 19, 2016

LONDON — In his first news conference as British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson stood beside Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday and said he would not apologize for his past insults of President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

“I’m afraid that there is such a rich thesaurus now of things that I have said that are being one way or another, through what alchemy I do not know, somehow misconstrued that it would really take me too long to engage in a full, global itinerary of apology to all concerned,” Johnson said.

“And I think most people who read these things in their proper context can see exactly what was intended,” he continued. “And indeed, I find that virtually everybody I’ve met so far in this job understands that very well, particularly on the international scene.”

Johnson recently described Obama as “part-Kenyan” with an “ancestral dislike of the British Empire.” In 2007, he likened Clinton to Lady Macbeth and wrote that she has “got dyed blond hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital.”

A leader of the successful campaign to have Britain leave the European Union, Johnson made exaggerated claims of the benefits of leaving and then quickly abandoned his effort to become prime minister in its wake, enraging many in Britain with his refusal to deal with the consequences.

Look who is making that claim, a lying war-promoting pre$$ that has engaged in claims of exaggeration.  At least you know what side they are on, and if this is all so then May should be immediately be impeached. She put him in charge of the foreign office.

In the news conference, Kerry, like a teacher lecturing a younger pupil, listed myriad conflicts around the world he was working to resolve, including in Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, North Korea, and the South China Sea, and he made clear that he needed Britain’s help. 

OMG!! Kerry was CONDESCENDING to him!

“I’m convinced that this UK government intends to lead strongly as ever in NATO, the UN security, the G-7, the G-20, the counter-Daesh coalition, which will meet in Washington in a couple of days,” Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL.

Kerry said that any new trade agreement with Britain would have to wait until the British formally leave the EU, although discussions about future trade relations between the countries could begin in the interim.

Yeah, the wars come first.

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I'm sorry, but I've got nothing left to give and at least Johnson hasn't committed to burning us all to a crisp like May

All takes your attention off Turkey, doesn't it?

"Turkey fires tens of thousands in coup plotters hunt" by Dominique Soguel and Suzan Fraser Associated Press  July 20, 2016

ISTANBUL — The Turkish government on Tuesday escalated its wide-ranging crackdown against people it claims have ties to plotters of last week’s attempted coup, firing tens of thousands of public employees across the country.

The dismissals touched every aspect of government life: Education; Interior; the office of the prime minister; the Directorate of Religious Affairs; and the Family and Social Policy Ministry.

The firings come on top of the roughly 9,000 people who have been detained by the government, including security personnel, judges, prosecutors, religious figures and others. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said courts have ordered 85 generals and admirals jailed pending trial over their suspected roles in the coup attempt. Dozens of others were still being questioned.

Orhun Gedik, a 22-year-student in Istanbul, protested the new purges, saying politics and education shouldn’t mix. ‘‘A government should not decide the hiring and firing,’’ he said. ‘‘This government doesn’t want to listen to others.’’

I know that feeling.

Critics of the government were also targeted for their social media postings. At least two people were reportedly arrested for insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on social media, while one also praised the coup.

President Obama and Erdogan discussed the status of Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim cleric, during a telephone call.

Gulen is a fall guy for something much larger!

Apart from the conversation Tuesday, Turkey provided the US government with documents and ‘‘would like to see cooperation from the US authorities on this issue.’’

Anadolu Agency said Erdogan’s Air Force adviser, Lieutenant Colonel Erkan Kivrak, had been detained at a hotel where he was vacationing in Turkey’s southern province of Antalya. No reason was given for the detention.

A thousand pro-government demonstrators gathered for a rally in Istanbul Tuesday, waving flags and chanting slogans and songs praising Erdogan. The demonstrators amassed in the conservative district of Fatih and demanded the death penalty for those responsible for the failed coup....

That was the total verbatim print I wanted to present to you. Web went on.

Pro-democracy meetings and rallies have been held in all of the major cities of Turkey.

In a bid to calm markets roiled by the coup attempt, Turkey’s central bank cut a key interest rate Tuesday to shore up liquidity in the economy. The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said it has reduced its overnight marginal funding rate from 9 percent to 8.75 percent.

Erdogan, meanwhile, made a series of televised appearances in which he disclosed dramatic details of his survival on the night of a failed coup and raised the specter of reintroducing the death penalty to punish conspirators.

He told US broadcaster CNN that he narrowly escaped death after coup plotters stormed the resort town of Marmaris where he was vacationing.

‘‘Had I stayed 10, 15 additional minutes, I would have been killed or I would have been taken,’’ he said in the interview late Monday.

The president and other officials have strongly suggested the government is considering reinstating the death penalty, a practice abolished in 2004 as part of Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. Several European officials have said such a move would be the end of Turkey’s attempts to join.

Addressing hundreds of supporters outside his Istanbul residence early Tuesday, Erdogan responded to calls for the reintroduction of the death penalty with the simple statement: ‘‘You cannot put aside the people’s demands.’’

‘‘In a country where our youths are killed with tanks and bombs, if we stay silent, as political people we will be held responsible in the afterlife,’’ Erdogan said, pointing out that capital punishment exists around the world, including in the US and China. 

I'm against it in all cases now. Lets the afterlife take care of it.

Turkey’s deputy prime minister said dossiers containing details of Gulen’s activities have been sent to the US. Numan Kurtulmus would not provide details about the files but said they include the past actions of the group that Gulen leads. They may also include new evidence that has emerged from the current investigation. Kurtulmus said an extradition request will follow.

Speaking to parliament, the chairman of the opposition Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahceli, said his party would back legislation to reintroduce the death penalty if it was put forward by the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

‘‘If the AKP is ready, we are in for the death penalty,’’ Bahceli said.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, meanwhile, reflected the triumphant mood of authorities. He said the victory over the plotters was ‘‘epic’’ and that no coup in the history of Turkey had been as brutal as the one that this government survived.

‘‘The force of the tanks could not beat the force of the people,’’ he said.

Yildirim also lashed out at Europe, whose leaders have expressed concerns over the purges underway across Turkey’s key state institutions.

‘‘We thank our European friends for their support against the coup, however their sentences starting with ‘but’ did not please us at all,’’ he said.

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If you want to talk Turkey.....

Turkey's "Keystone Coup": A Failure to Project Power 

I'm rolling in that Penny's direction.

Was the Military Uprising in Turkey a False Flag? 

That's as the Green Crow flies.

Erdogan’s Staged Coup Has Resulted In A Purge Of 50,000 Teachers, Judges, Soldiers And Government Officials 

POLICE RAID 60 HOMES OVER FACEBOOK POSTS 

That Collapses some of my faith about WRH.

All Turkish academics banned from traveling abroad amidst widening post-coup purge

I'm not going BlackList 'em, but....

TURKEY – Erdogan ready to restore regional peace together with Iran and Russia  

That's the Ugly Truth.

ISRAEL PROTECTS THE BAD GUYS

Says a good guy?

False Flag Coup in Turkey 

Is it the the Peoples Voic?

"Bangladesh seeks Islamic State conduits to local terror attacks" by Ellen Barry New York Times  July 19, 2016

NEW DELHI — Bangladesh, reeling from a sudden intensification of terrorism this summer, is urgently searching for men suspected of building an Islamic State presence in the country and recruiting young Bangladeshis to fight in Syria and Iraq.

I guess the propagandists finally caught on to bloggers questioning why terrorists didn't hide out in places like this rather than always huddle near vital energy supplies and shipping routes.

Doesn't cost 'em anything to insert their agents and assets there, and can only help provide cover narrative like this.

Bangladesh’s government has maintained that the escalating attacks there were the work of domestic terrorists supported by domestic patrons, and it has dismissed claims of responsibility from such groups as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, but a list released this month of 10 high-value suspects, after the harrowing siege of a restaurant in Dhaka, tells another story.

The list includes three Bangladeshi expatriates — residents of Canada, Australia, and Japan — who have long been sought by the police and suspected of setting up training and recruitment pipelines for the Islamic State. A fourth man on the list vanished last year after telling his brother he planned to fight for the Islamic State in Iraq, the police said.

The most talked-about of the suspects, Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, is believed by some analysts to act as a coordinator of the Islamic State’s activities in Bangladesh and parts of northeast India. None of the suspects has been arrested because some operated in countries with stronger legal protections, the police said, and others have disappeared.

The profiles of these men offer a snapshot of a militancy undergoing a metamorphosis, as links develop between domestic and international terrorist groups.

I'm always amazed at how the pre$$ knows so much about the secretive, hard-to-find, always on the move terrorists.

“It is possible that they have become the link, the liaison between the local militants and the transnational groups, particularly in providing strategic guidance,” said Ali Riaz, a professor of politics at Illinois State University. “The question is, are there more like them that we don’t know?”

Until last fall, officials openly discussed fledgling efforts by a handful of Islamic State recruiters to lure Bangladeshis to Turkey, and on to Iraq or Syria. They did not seem to pose an urgent problem for Bangladesh: The number of recruits was not large, believed to be several dozen, and officials did not think they aspired to carry out domestic attacks.

“We have good intelligence about Islamic State supporters,” Monirul Islam, then the joint commissioner of the Dhaka metropolitan police, said in an interview last year. “They have confided that they want to go to Syria and participate in jihad. Not in Bangladesh. Their plan does not include anything like they would kill anyone in Bangladesh.”

He added, though, that “these boys, if they return, that is a potential threat all over the world.”

After that, the question of Islamic State involvement in attacks in Bangladesh became a matter of dispute. In September, the United States warned the Bangladeshi authorities, based on intercepted communications, that the Islamic State was preparing an attack on foreigners in Bangladesh. Shortly thereafter, two foreigners were shot, and claims of responsibility began to appear on social media accounts linked to the Islamic State.

Ah, gees!

Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister, responded with skepticism and mistrust, complaining that the United States had not shared any “actionable intelligence” with Dhaka. There was little evidence of Islamic State involvement beyond claims on social media, and investigators had traced dozens of attacks to well-established domestic networks.

Attributing the attacks to the Islamic State, moreover, threatened the country’s vital garment industry, which depends on annual visits from Western buyers.

What won't threaten them:

"A Bangladesh court on Monday indicted 41 people for murder in the deaths of more than 1,100 people in the collapse of a building that housed five garment factories and became known as the country’s worst industrial disaster. Investigators initially said those accused of wrongdoing in the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building would be charged with culpable homicide, which carries a maximum punishment of seven years in jail. But they later changed the charges to murder due to the gravity of the disaster. Masud Rana, who owned the building outside Dhaka, and 33 other people pleaded not guilty when the charges against them were read out in court. Another seven who absconded will be tried in absentia, said Mizanur Rahman, a public prosecutor. The building collapse triggered uproar at home and abroad, with a call for reforms in a sector that helps Bangladesh earn more than $20 billion a year from exports, mainly to the United States and Europe."

Also seeBangladesh tribunal sentences 3 to death for 1971 war crimes

Now if that isn't that a SWIFT Kick in the.... 

After militants killed 22 people in a siege on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka this month, the government said the attack was solely the handiwork of “homegrown” militants from Jama’atul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, despite the fact that the perpetrators sent photos to an Islamic State-linked private e-mail account during the operation.

That's where they lost me as to the actual reality of the event. Had time to Snapchat!

Officials softened their position as the investigation proceeded, acknowledging in recent days that the attackers may have had foreign links, including to the Islamic State. Now the police are seeking several suspected Islamic State operatives.

A senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak, said the men being sought acted as contact points between militants in Bangladesh and outside organizers.

The official said two to three dozen fighters had returned from Syria and were serving as operatives in Bangladesh. Others, the official said, had returned after receiving training in Turkey, and a third group may be training in Bangladesh.

Chowdhury, in particular, he said, “is the connection from Bangladesh to Syria.”

Where the U.S. and its allies just blew up a whole bunch of families, oops!

Air war against the Islamic State ramped up in June

Somehow those stories (and photo) are missing from the website.

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I'm exhausted and burned out, folks. Sorry. Plus it's time for lunch.