"Bomber blows himself up as Saudis foil terror plot in Mecca" by Abdullah Al-Shihri Associated Press June 24, 2017
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A suicide bomber blew himself up near the Grand Mosque in Mecca as police disrupted a plot to target the holiest site in Islam just as the fasting month of Ramadan ends, Saudi security forces said Saturday.
My first reaction to reading it was false flag or fiction since Saudi Arabia seems to be heel bent on going to war with Iran. They officially have a new successor, even though he is the one running the show. You combine that with the Qatar stuff, and you know.... they seem to be spoiling for a fight.
The Interior Ministry said it launched a raid around Jiddah on Friday, as well as two areas in Mecca itself, including the Ajyad Al-Masafi neighborhood, which is near the Grand Mosque.
In Ajyad Al-Masafi, police said they engaged in a shootout at a three-story house with a suicide bomber, who blew himself up and caused the building to collapse.
Now it isn't just airplanes; a lone suicider can drop a building (he was killed, btw).
Saudi state television aired footage after the raid near the Grand Mosque, showing police and rescue personnel running through the neighborhood’s narrow streets. The Interior Ministry did not name the group involved in the attack. The ultraconservative Sunni kingdom battled an Al Qaeda insurgency for years and more recently has faced attacks from a local branch of the Islamic State.
With Saudi blessings, if you remember.
Neither group immediately claimed involvement, though. The disrupted attack comes at a sensitive time in Saudi Arabia. King Salman earlier this week short-circuited the kingdom’s succession by making his son, Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman, first in line to the throne.
The newly appointed 31-year-old crown prince is the architect of Saudi Arabia’s stalemated war in Yemen against Shiite rebels. He has also offered aggressive comments about the kingdom confronting Shiite power Iran.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday condemned the Mecca plot and said it remains willing to work with other countries in confronting terrorism.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have cut diplomatic ties to neighboring Qatar and are trying to isolate the energy-rich country over its alleged support of militants and ties to Iran. Qatar long has denied those allegations.
As the Interior Ministry announced the raid, more than 1 million Muslim faithful prayed at the Prophet’s Mosqu in Medina to mark the end of Ramadan. Millions of Muslims from around the world visit the mosque, the burial site of the Prophet Muhammad, every year as part of their pilgrimage.
The Grand Mosque has been the target of militants before, in part because it represents a symbol of the ruling Al Saud family’s clout in the Islamic world.
Where I stopped reading print, and where web added a bit more:
[Meanwhile] a top officials of the United Arab Emirates said Saturday that it and the other Arab countries isolating Qatar do not seek to force out the country’s leadership but are willing to cut ties altogether if it does not agree to their demands.
The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Bahrain presented a 13-point list of demands to Qatar on Thursday and gave it 10 days to take action. They have signaled that if Qatar refuses to comply by the deadline, they will continue to restrict its access to land, sea and air routes indefinitely amid mounting economic pressure on the Persian Gulf nation....
--more--"
Related:
"A Swiss journalist has died of injuries suffered from a mine blast in Iraq earlier this week while covering a military operation to root out Islamic State extremists from Mosul. State-owned France Televisions said Saturday that Veronique Robert, a reporter working with it, died in a military hospital outside Paris where she had been taken from Iraq."
"Jordan’s Parliament is poised to abolish a provision that exempts a rapist from punishment if he marries his victim. It is expected to do so after the end of Ramadan. Women’s rights advocates say repealing the rule would be a victory, but that more work lies ahead."
The jihad must have been suppressed.
The Iraq mosque destruction was only a one-day wonder, tipping the scales of suspicion towards airstrikes.
"Death toll from Pakistan attacks hits 85" by Riaz Khan Associated Press June 24, 2017
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The death toll from twin blasts in the northwestern town of Parachinar climbed to 67 Saturday, bringing the overall death toll from three separate attacks in Pakistan to 85, with several others in critical condition, officials said.
Shahid Khan, a government official in Parachinar, confirmed the toll Saturday, saying residents who had been preparing to celebrate the end of Ramadan and Eid feast were now in mourning.
He said that another 12 critically wounded died at different hospitals. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni extremist group, claimed the Friday twin bombings at a crowded market in the Shi’ite-dominated town, linking them to sectarian fighting in Syria.
That seems like a difficult link to draw; however, one does wonder about the sudden flare-up in Pakistan. Is it part of setting the battle lines for WWIII, or has the government strayed from the West in some way?
Dr. Sabir Hussain, an official at a government-run hospital in Parachinar, said they had received 261 victims of the twin blasts, with 62 listed in critical condition.
Another 14 people were killed Friday in a suicide car bombing near the office of the provincial police chief in the southwestern city of Quetta, police spokesman Shahzada Farhat said. That attack was claimed by a breakaway Taliban faction and the Islamic State.
All these groups lead back to western intelligence agencies. They give it away with the "breakaway" faction.
In another attack, gunmen in the port city of Karachi attacked police officers at a roadside restaurant, killing four of them before fleeing, senior police officer Asif Ahmed said.
You wonder if theirs are the same as ours at a certain point.
Major General Asif Ghafoor, a military spokesman, linked the attacks to alleged militant sanctuaries in neighboring Afghanistan and promised greater border security. The two countries often accuse each other of turning a blind eye to militants.
Security forces raided a militant hideout in the northwestern city of Peshawar before dawn Saturday, triggering a shootout in which three Pakistani Taliban were killed and two police officers and a soldier were wounded, senior police official Sajjad Khan said. He said the militants were making bombs that likely would have been used to target holiday festivities.
That's not the Taliban's schtick.
Khan said the identity of the slain militants was not immediately known. But intelligence officials said one of the men has been identified as a wanted militant commander linked to ISIS. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
ISIS™ is the U.S. catch-all for recalcitrant governments or attempted overthrows.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attacks, which came just days before Eid-al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
Parachinar, a majority Shi’ite town, has been targeted by Sunni militants group several times in recent years, leaving dozens dead. Sectarianism, in my mind, is nothing but a divisive cover used for covert operations.
Like with the mosques, the people and parties have more or less gotten along for centuries -- until the West gets there. Then all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose.
In March, a car bomb exploded near a Shi’ite mosque in Parachinar, killing 24 people, mostly Shiites. In January, a bomb ripped through the crowded market of Parachinar, killing 22 people and wounded over 100. In December 2015, the same market was targeted by a suicide bomber, killing 22.
The fact that my propaganda pre$$ cites them leads me to believe they are either false flags or fictions. Sorry.
--more--"
Went in to get story and Globe had this leading their World news:
148 killed in Pakistan oil tanker explosion
Maybe, but the timing is awfully odd after my paper has been mostly quiet about Pakistan since I returned (maybe get a post ready soon?).
For more regarding where Pakistan fits into all this see the analysis by Greencrow.
Also see:
Middle East Rapidly Heading To Another Military Conflict. Threat Of Global War Growing
Israeli Aggression Against Syrian Tanks
Is that why he was taken down?
Nothing regarding the fiasco in Afghanistan, at least in my front section, although war-torn Syria did make the front page. We'll see what the Court has to say about that. $crew the voters.
***************************
"The Philippine military on Saturday declared an eight-hour halt to its air and ground offensive against Islamic militants aligned with the Islamic State in southern Marawi city to allow residents to celebrate the end of Ramadan. The pause is to take effect at 6 a.m. Sunday but will be lifted if the militants threaten troops and civilians."
"Hopes fade for 140 people after landslide destroys Chinese village" by Chris Buckley New York Times June 24, 2017
NEW YORK — A landslide struck around 5:40 a.m. after a night of rain, with no warning, and many residents in the village of Xinmo, in Mao County, Sichuan province, were apparently sleeping or awakened too late by the roar of a falling hillside.
The landslide caused huge rocks and a mass of earth to come crashing into a one-mile section of Xinmo, a mountain village in Mao County, burying about 60 houses and a hotel, the Associated Press reported. “The entire village was shattered,” Deng Zusong, a 25-year-old resident of a nearby village, said in a telephone interview. “It was just like an earthquake.”
I used to just accept weather as all natural; however, some have suggested weather weapons and who knows? Perhaps the two combined together, or maybe it is just a natural disaster. All I know is this will keep China's military busy when they may be needed elsewhere soon.
After rescue workers and members of support teams converged on Xinmo, there were initially heartening bulletins of a survivor who yelled from under the debris and another who answered a telephone call, but as night came, the rescuers had little good news to share. Fearful of setting off another landslide, the rescuers could not dig deeply over a large area, Xinhua news agency said. They also had a hard time moving the boulders that had crashed down onto the village.
A scientist said the landslide might have been caused by a buildup of rainfall under the surface of the hillside, apparently acting as a lubricant that let a slab of earth slide down.
Related: Cumbre Vieja
In a statement, China’s president, Xi Jinping, ordered the rescue efforts to continue at full intensity, and he said officials elsewhere should be on guard for signs of danger during the rainy season.
Initial Chinese news reports contained no suggestion that officials had been warned that the steep, thinly vegetated hillside could collapse. But the region has been rife with landslides and other geological hazards, and officials may be questioned about whether more could have been done to protect or move villagers.
Like here in AmeriKa.
An enormous earthquake in 2008 rippled across much of Sichuan province and nearby areas, leaving about 90,000 people dead or missing and presumed dead. And in 1933, an earthquake in Mao County killed nearly 10,000 people, according to Chinese news reports.
Those were before this blog.
The county government has issued repeated warnings in documents about the continued risks from landslides, and it has been involved in a program to identify areas at greatest risk. A county government directive issued late last year counted 769 places across the county vulnerable to landslides and similar hazards.....
The more local the government, the more responsive it is.
--more--"
"Dalai Lama begins two-day Boston visit with joy and blessings" by Jeremy C. Fox Globe Correspondent June 24, 2017
Saturday was a day of joy for Buddhists from across the region, as the Dalai Lama arrived in Boston and greeted the 400 faithful who had gathered on the street outside his hotel.
After arriving about 4 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency, where he will stay during his surprise two-day visit to Boston, the Dalai Lama emerged from the hotel’s parking garage and walked up to the barricades to greet followers and bless silk scarves and prayer beads brought by the crowd.
He paused for a long moment to speak with 93-year-old Jampa Phunkhang of Medford, who in his youth had been a monk in the Dalai Lama’s personal entourage, serving his meals and joining him in the flight from Tibet to India in 1959, according to his daughter, Langze Phunkhang.
The Dalai Lama had previously told Jampa Phunkhang that he should write his autobiography. When the men spoke Saturday, the Dalai Lama asked if Phunkhang had written the book. He replied that he had, and then gave the Dalai Lama a copy, his daughter said.
The Dalai Lama will remain in the city until Monday, giving a speech Sunday morning at the Sheraton Boston Hotel that is expected to attract about 2,000 and meeting in the afternoon with members of the nonprofit Mind & Life Institute, an organization that works to bridge science and spirituality.
His stay in Boston concludes a visit to the United States that included a speech at the University of California, San Diego, a stop that was met with opposition on a campus where about 13 percent of students hail from China. The Chinese government has accused the Dalai Lama, who advocates for greater Tibetan autonomy from China, of being a separatist and sowing discord.
In Boston on Saturday, no protesters were visible, and most greeted the Dalai Lama with smiles and open arms.
“What he says rings true. It’s the universal truth,” said Annette Kramer, 55, a Buddhist from Brimfield. “And then if you go deeper into his teachings, it guides you on the spiritual path toward ultimate enlightenment.”
He's got you fooled, too, huh?
--more--"
We at war with Korea yet?
*************************
Fire safety concerns lead London officials to evacuate 4 housing towers
The facade they are using to explain it all is a refrigerator on the fourth floor burst into flames, thus igniting the fire.
"British officials were investigating a cyberattack Saturday on Parliament after discovering unauthorized attempts to access user accounts. The incident affected the ability of lawmakers and the parliamentary staff to log in to the system and use e-mail accounts. It was not immediately clear how many people were affected or how much damage there was (AP)."
A call was immediately placed to Langley, Virginia.
*********************************
"US dealing blows to ISIS with risky commando raids" by Eric Schmitt New York Times June 24, 2017
WASHINGTON — One late afternoon in April, helicopter-borne American commandos intercepted a vehicle in southeastern Syria carrying a close associate of the Islamic State’s supreme leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The associate, Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, was a rare prize whom US Special Operations forces had been tracking for months: captured alive, Uzbeki could be an intelligence bonanza. As the commandos swooped in, however, a firefight broke out. Uzbeki, a combat-hardened veteran of shadow wars in Syria and Pakistan, died in the gunbattle, thwarting the military’s hopes of extracting from him any information about Islamic State operations, leaders, and strategy.
What a bunch of BS!! It was an assassination squad to eliminate an asset, then used as propaganda to show how we are winning even as the war goes on.
I'm sorry, folks, but this stuff has been sooooooo played!
The last one we heard about was in Yemen where I guy died.
Cellphones and other material swept up by Special Operations forces proved valuable for future raids, though the missions fell short of their goal to capture, not kill, terrorist leaders in order to obtain fresh, firsthand information about the inner circle and war council of the group, also known as ISIS.
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!
“If we can scoop somebody up alive, with their cellphones and diaries, it really can help speed up the demise of a terrorist group like ISIS,” said Dell L. Dailey, a retired commander of the military’s Joint Special Operations Command and the chairman of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
US military and intelligence officials caution that the Islamic State is far from defeated, particularly with a sophisticated propaganda apparatus that continues to inspire and, in some cases, enable its global following to carry out attacks.
I know. Despite their ma$$ive lo$$es, the newspapers are still published and printed. That's why I'm still here.
But in the self-proclaimed caliphate across swaths of Iraq and Syria, the terrorist group’s last two major strongholds are under siege, many senior leaders have fled south to the Euphrates River Valley, and its legions of foreign fighters are battling to the death or slipping away, possibly to cause havoc in Europe.
The hyperbole is becoming too much.
The race to drive the jihadis out of eastern Syria, where they have held sway for three years, has gained new urgency as rival forces converge on ungoverned parts of the region.
New urgency to push the agenda because Syria, Iran, the US, and Russia are battling over a land route from the Mediterranean to Tehran. It's putting the whole PNAC-Yinon plan in jeopardy.
This highly volatile environment puts an increasing premium on the Special Operations missions.
Despite his nom de guerre, Uzbeki, 39, was a native of Tajikistan, not Uzbekistan, and honed his fighting skills with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a Taliban-allied jihadi group, according to a US military official.
About 10 years ago, he moved to Pakistan, where he had extensive contacts with Al Qaeda, the official said. In recent years, he had moved to Syria and joined the Islamic State’s fighting ranks.
Meaning he is/was an AmeriKan mercenary.
Uzbeki was close to Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s leader, and helped plot a deadly attack on a nightclub in Istanbul on New Year’s Day.
Well, the Russians took care of that US creation.
He was targeted for his role in the Islamic State’s plotting of attacks around the world, said Colonel John J. Thomas, a spokesman for the US Central Command. “He facilitated the movement of ISIS foreign terror fighters and funds,” Thomas told reporters in April.
Though Uzbeki died in the April raid, the soldiers were able to recover cellphones and other materials, a military official said.
Which means NSA could track him and the CIA could spy on him.
Of course, where do you think he got the phone in the first place?
William Wechsler, a former top counterterrorism official at the Pentagon, said the goal is to capture targets alive when possible because that can provide more valuable information through interrogations.
“All of this helps us better understand the enemy network, prioritize new targets, and identify external terrorist plots,’’ he said.
Yup.
--more--"
Yeah, speaking of torture:
"Yemen to investigate alleged rights abuses by UAE, US" by Ahmed Al-Haj Associated Press June 24, 2017
SANA, Yemen — Yemen’s government on Saturday ordered the creation of a committee to investigate allegations of human rights violations, following reports that US military interrogators worked with forces from the United Arab Emirates who are accused of torturing detainees in Yemen.
The order, issued by Prime Minister Ahmed Obaid bin Daghr, said the investigation would focus on areas liberated by government forces from Shi’ite rebels known as the Houthis and their allies.
The six-member committee will be chaired by Justice Minister Jamal Mohamed Omar and include representatives from the Human Rights Ministry, security agencies, and the prosecution. It will immediately start work and have 15 days to conclude its investigation and report back to bin Daghr.
An Associated Press investigation detailed a network of secret prisons across southern Yemen where hundreds are detained in the hunt for Al Qaeda militants. American defense officials said US forces have interrogated some detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in, or knowledge of, human rights abuses.
And you thought all those disappeared after Bush.
Defense officials said the department had looked into reports of torture and concluded that its personnel were not involved or aware of any abuses.
The American officials confirmed that the United States provides questions to the Emiratis and receives transcripts of their interrogations. The officials said the United States also provides information to the UAE on suspected Al Qaeda militants that the United States believes should be apprehended or questioned.
Do the transcripts include the screams, and if the U.S. government is providing information it is an accessory to the crime.
The 18 lockups mentioned in the AP investigation are run by the UAE and by Yemeni forces it created, according to accounts from former detainees, families of prisoners, civil rights lawyers, and Yemeni military officials. At the Riyan airport in the city of Mukalla, former inmates described shipping containers smeared with feces and crammed with blindfolded detainees.
They said they were beaten, roasted alive on a spit, and sexually assaulted, among other abuses. One witness, who is a member of a Yemeni security force, said American forces were at times only yards away.
Would that be considered a hate crime?
American forces yards away but couldn't see or hear anything!
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Friday that the allegations are ‘‘completely untrue’’ and a ‘‘political game’’ by Yemeni militias to discredit a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE and which has been fighting since 2015 on the side of the internationally-recognized government against the rebels.
I guess you can go either way on it.
It says it does not run or oversee any prisons in Yemen, and that any such facilities are under ‘‘the jurisdiction of the legitimate Yemeni authorities.’’
Most of the clandestine sites are run by either the Hadramawt Elite or Security Belt, Yemeni forces that were created, trained, and financed by the UAE. Officially, they are under the authority of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government, but multiple Yemeni government officials said they have no control over them and they answer to the Emiratis.
More Western ally war crimes!!
It was not immediately clear whether the committee set up on Saturday by the Yemeni government would gain access to any of the lockups and whether its findings could lead to action that may end the abuses.
Yemeni rights lawyers and activists were skeptical about the outcome, saying they did not expect commanders of the two UAE-backed military outfits to meaningfully assist in the investigation.
Relations between Saudi-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the UAE have been fraught with tension, chiefly over allegations by the Yemeni leader that the Emiratis are offering patronage to southern Yemeni politicians campaigning for secession as well as what he sees as UAE violations of his country’s sovereignty.
Is that also part of the plan?
--more--"
Well, this isn't really surprising given the new president, and I wouldn't expect to see any war crimes trials in the future.
I think the use of the word monsters is quite correct.
RELATED:
"They Were ‘Grilled Alive’: US Govt Exposed Running Nazi-Like Torture Program; The US is once again facing allegations of torture, this time during the interrogation of detainees in more than a dozen secret prisons in Yemen
by Claire Bernish - June 22, 2017
An unprecedented report from the corporate press claims U.S. forces have participated in extreme torture and abuse of detainees accused of affiliation with Al Qaeda in Yemen — including “the ‘grill,’ in which the victim is tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire,” the Associated Press finds.
A network of secretive prisons in southern Yemen provide the backdrop for the alleged barbaric acts allegedly carried out by forces from the U.S. and United Arab Emirates — many of those detention facilities remain hidden in plain sight.
That some of the covert prisons sit inside military bases might not be much of a shock, but others are located in ports, an airport, private villas, and even a nightclub — and all, according to the AP, remain untouchable by the embattled Yemeni government.
American officials unsurprisingly balked at the accusation troops have participated in the astonishingly heinous behavior described in the AP’s report.
Reports the AP:
“Senior American defense officials acknowledged Wednesday that U.S. forces have been involved in interrogations of detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in or knowledge of human rights abuses. Interrogating detainees who have been abused could violate international law, which prohibits complicity in torture.
“The AP documented at least 18 clandestine lockups across southern Yemen run by the United Arab Emirates or by Yemeni forces created and trained by the Gulf nation, drawing on accounts from former detainees, families of prisoners, civil rights lawyers and Yemeni military officials. All are either hidden or off limits to Yemen’s government, which has been getting Emirati help in its civil war with rebels over the last two years.”
Notably, this is the first ‘official’ acknowledgment the United States participates in interrogations inside the borders of Yemen.
Forces transported some detainees to an Emirati base in Eritrea, according to Yemen Interior Minister Hussein Arab.
Unnamed and unverifiable U.S. defense officials told the Associated Press ‘senior U.S. military leaders’ have been aware of alleged torture taking place in Yemen for some time — but have investigated the charges, and apparently found nothing amiss, as U.S. troops, they claim, were never present during detainee torture.
Perhaps beyond tellingly, neither the AP nor the anonymous officials elucidated on whether the lack of U.S. troop presence during the alleged grilling alive of detainees meant senior military leaders indeed discovered forces from other nations roasting people alive and said nothing, or that the torture allegations were completely baseless.
Those defense officials further “told AP that American forces do participate in interrogations of detainees at locations in Yemen, provide questions for others to ask, and receive transcripts of interrogations from Emirati allies.”
Torture this horrific, if proven true, harkens immediately back to Bush-era implementation of barbaric human rights violations by the CIA — which included waterboarding and other acts the agency, itself, knew to be utterly inefficacious — which temporarily halted adherence to the law and all semblance of ethics under the premise of extracting information from detainees following the attacks of 9/11.
“We always adhere to the highest standards of personal and professional conduct,” chief Defense Department spokeswoman, Dana White, told the AP on perusal of its report. “We would not turn a blind eye, because we are obligated to report any violations of human rights.”
In a statement, the UAE government also balked, insisting, “There are no secret detention centers and no torture of prisoners is done during interrogations.”
“The UAE was one of the countries involved in the CIA’s torture and rendition program,” reminds New York University Professor of Law Ryan Goodman. “These reports are hauntingly familiar and potentially devastating in their legal and policy implications.”
To repeat, the U.S. Department of Defense must report violations of human rights — yet the vagueness of the claim senior military brass investigated allegations of excruciating torture, but would only offer that U.S. troops had not been present. Without further explanation, that detail could indicate a troubling sin of omission — in short, a failure to report violations of human rights.
Not one of the dozens interviewed by the AP accused U.S. troops of witnessing torture, but the malicious, degrading, deplorable, torturous abuses described by former inmates of the secret prisons would seem impossible to have taken place without their cognizance.
AP continues:
“At one main detention complex at Riyan airport in the southern city of Mukalla, former inmates described being crammed into shipping containers smeared with feces and blindfolded for weeks on end. They said they were beaten, trussed up on the ‘grill,’ and sexually assaulted. According to a member of the Hadramawt Elite, a Yemeni security force set up by the UAE, American forces were at times only yards away. He requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
“‘We could hear the screams,’ said a former detainee held for six months at Riyan airport. ‘The entire place is gripped by fear. Almost everyone is sick, the rest are near death. Anyone who complains heads directly to the torture chamber.’ He was flogged with wires, part of the frequent beatings inflicted by guards against all the detainees. He also said he was inside a metal shipping container when the guards lit a fire underneath to fill it with smoke.”
As in the first revelations on the renewed use of the gross physical and psychological abuses comprising torture, human rights advocates admonished such practices cannot be carried out without the broad knowledge of military and intelligence officials at the scene — particularly not for the duration described.
“It would be a stretch to believe the US did not know or could not have known that there was a real risk of torture,” Amnesty International Director of Research in the Middle East, Lynn Maalouf, told the Associated Press. Amnesty called for a swift investigation by the United Nations into the torture allegations against the UAE and other possible participants or knowledgeable parties.
Torture has been championed as acceptable by the president and other U.S. officials, despite its illegality internationally — almost exclusively as a tool of the War on Terror to extract information from prisoners — but torture has been proven repeatedly to be ineffective for that very purpose.
At least 2,000 people have vanished in Yemen — their families left agonizing over their fate, tragically wondering whether a torturous interrogation took their lives.
“Wives, mothers, and daughters in the north and south of Yemen want to know whether their husbands, sons, and brothers are all right, if they are even alive,” noted Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, after issuance of a similar report on torture in Yemen by her organization, on Thursday.
“Yemen, the UAE, Houthi-Saleh forces, and any other party disappearing people should immediately inform families of where their loved ones are and release those held arbitrarily.”
Despite denial of allegations by the United States military and government of the United Arab Emirates, the report from the Associated Press most likely will be remembered as the beginning of yet another torture scandal embroiling perpetually-ethicless entities during a complex and violent conflict — one, again, involving the U.S., which fights for freedom and against terror by, apparently, eviscerating freedom and waging terror.
--MORE--"
Just paying it forward.
Reports the AP:
“Senior American defense officials acknowledged Wednesday that U.S. forces have been involved in interrogations of detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in or knowledge of human rights abuses. Interrogating detainees who have been abused could violate international law, which prohibits complicity in torture.
“The AP documented at least 18 clandestine lockups across southern Yemen run by the United Arab Emirates or by Yemeni forces created and trained by the Gulf nation, drawing on accounts from former detainees, families of prisoners, civil rights lawyers and Yemeni military officials. All are either hidden or off limits to Yemen’s government, which has been getting Emirati help in its civil war with rebels over the last two years.”
Notably, this is the first ‘official’ acknowledgment the United States participates in interrogations inside the borders of Yemen.
Forces transported some detainees to an Emirati base in Eritrea, according to Yemen Interior Minister Hussein Arab.
Unnamed and unverifiable U.S. defense officials told the Associated Press ‘senior U.S. military leaders’ have been aware of alleged torture taking place in Yemen for some time — but have investigated the charges, and apparently found nothing amiss, as U.S. troops, they claim, were never present during detainee torture.
Perhaps beyond tellingly, neither the AP nor the anonymous officials elucidated on whether the lack of U.S. troop presence during the alleged grilling alive of detainees meant senior military leaders indeed discovered forces from other nations roasting people alive and said nothing, or that the torture allegations were completely baseless.
Those defense officials further “told AP that American forces do participate in interrogations of detainees at locations in Yemen, provide questions for others to ask, and receive transcripts of interrogations from Emirati allies.”
Torture this horrific, if proven true, harkens immediately back to Bush-era implementation of barbaric human rights violations by the CIA — which included waterboarding and other acts the agency, itself, knew to be utterly inefficacious — which temporarily halted adherence to the law and all semblance of ethics under the premise of extracting information from detainees following the attacks of 9/11.
“We always adhere to the highest standards of personal and professional conduct,” chief Defense Department spokeswoman, Dana White, told the AP on perusal of its report. “We would not turn a blind eye, because we are obligated to report any violations of human rights.”
In a statement, the UAE government also balked, insisting, “There are no secret detention centers and no torture of prisoners is done during interrogations.”
“The UAE was one of the countries involved in the CIA’s torture and rendition program,” reminds New York University Professor of Law Ryan Goodman. “These reports are hauntingly familiar and potentially devastating in their legal and policy implications.”
To repeat, the U.S. Department of Defense must report violations of human rights — yet the vagueness of the claim senior military brass investigated allegations of excruciating torture, but would only offer that U.S. troops had not been present. Without further explanation, that detail could indicate a troubling sin of omission — in short, a failure to report violations of human rights.
Not one of the dozens interviewed by the AP accused U.S. troops of witnessing torture, but the malicious, degrading, deplorable, torturous abuses described by former inmates of the secret prisons would seem impossible to have taken place without their cognizance.
AP continues:
“At one main detention complex at Riyan airport in the southern city of Mukalla, former inmates described being crammed into shipping containers smeared with feces and blindfolded for weeks on end. They said they were beaten, trussed up on the ‘grill,’ and sexually assaulted. According to a member of the Hadramawt Elite, a Yemeni security force set up by the UAE, American forces were at times only yards away. He requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
“‘We could hear the screams,’ said a former detainee held for six months at Riyan airport. ‘The entire place is gripped by fear. Almost everyone is sick, the rest are near death. Anyone who complains heads directly to the torture chamber.’ He was flogged with wires, part of the frequent beatings inflicted by guards against all the detainees. He also said he was inside a metal shipping container when the guards lit a fire underneath to fill it with smoke.”
As in the first revelations on the renewed use of the gross physical and psychological abuses comprising torture, human rights advocates admonished such practices cannot be carried out without the broad knowledge of military and intelligence officials at the scene — particularly not for the duration described.
“It would be a stretch to believe the US did not know or could not have known that there was a real risk of torture,” Amnesty International Director of Research in the Middle East, Lynn Maalouf, told the Associated Press. Amnesty called for a swift investigation by the United Nations into the torture allegations against the UAE and other possible participants or knowledgeable parties.
Torture has been championed as acceptable by the president and other U.S. officials, despite its illegality internationally — almost exclusively as a tool of the War on Terror to extract information from prisoners — but torture has been proven repeatedly to be ineffective for that very purpose.
At least 2,000 people have vanished in Yemen — their families left agonizing over their fate, tragically wondering whether a torturous interrogation took their lives.
“Wives, mothers, and daughters in the north and south of Yemen want to know whether their husbands, sons, and brothers are all right, if they are even alive,” noted Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, after issuance of a similar report on torture in Yemen by her organization, on Thursday.
“Yemen, the UAE, Houthi-Saleh forces, and any other party disappearing people should immediately inform families of where their loved ones are and release those held arbitrarily.”
Despite denial of allegations by the United States military and government of the United Arab Emirates, the report from the Associated Press most likely will be remembered as the beginning of yet another torture scandal embroiling perpetually-ethicless entities during a complex and violent conflict — one, again, involving the U.S., which fights for freedom and against terror by, apparently, eviscerating freedom and waging terror.
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Just paying it forward.
It's a forced fast for others, for the u$ual rea$ons. Sad.
