UnrepentantLiberal
UnrepentantLiberal's JournalNew jihadist group emerges in Syria
By Bill Roggio
Threat Matrix
December 27, 2012
Jund al Sham (Soldiers of the Levant), a new Salafi jihadist group in Syria, announced its formation in the Syrian city of Homs on Dec. 23, in a statement published on the group's Facebook page, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. Jund al Sham's media arm, Sada al Sham, also released two subsequent statements announcing the goals of the group, SITE reported.
The group's emir is identified as Abu Suleiman al Muhajir; his nom de guerre -- Muhajir, or 'immigrant' -- indicates he may be a foreigner. His real identity is unknown.
Abu Suleiman al Muhajir's short statement indicates that the group is focused on jihad in Syria. From the SITE translation:
After the hoards of the al-Assad gangs, and their Rafidah (Shi'ite) allies, united and attacked Muslims in Syria, it became incumbent upon the monotheists from among the Sunnis who chose the path of jihad and fighting the disbelievers in all their forms and types, to unite on supporting the truth with harmony and love among each other, while rejecting disbelief, and demanding a goal without deviation or backing out ....
However, in one of the two other statements released by Jund al Sham's media arm, another official, Abu Abdul Rahim al Muhajir, suggests that the group is supportive of jihad in other theaters outside of Syria. Again, from the SITE translation:
These are words of support for Jund al-Sham, who rolled up their sleeves of seriousness and wanted to join the convoy of jihad that is ongoing until the Day of Judgment, which no one would miss except those who have an excuse or lost their way.
And:
Their (Jund al Sham's) position is clear towards everyone who raised the banner of (monotheism) and jihad, that they are with them and they support them as much as they can, and they are their brothers in the religion and the creed, while holding with them onto the strong rope of Allah and the Sunnah [traditions] of their Prophet, Allah's peace and prayer be upon him.
They see themselves as servants for the religion of Allah, and the Muslims in general and the people of jihad in particular.
The name 'Jund al Sham' is not new to the Levant, which includes Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the slain emir of al Qaeda in Iraq, is said to have established a group called Jund al Sham in the late 1990s. That group was made up of Jordanians, Syrians, and Lebanese, and was trained in a camp in Herat. Zarqawi purportedly received seed money from Osama bin Laden to establish the camp.
More: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/12/new_jihadist_group_emerges_in_1.php
Log Cabin Republicans take out ad against Hagel
A group representing gay Republicans took out a full page newspaper ad Thursday lambasting former Sen. Chuck Hagel, who President Barack Obama is considering for his next defense secretary.
“Chuck Hagel: Wrong on gay rights, wrong on Iran, wrong on Israel,” the ad from the Log Cabin Republicans read. It appeared in Thursday’s New York Times.
“Tell President Obama that Chuck Hagel is wrong for Defense Secretary. Help us create a stronger and more inclusive Republican Party,” it read.
Hagel, who represented Nebraska as a Republican in the U.S. Senate, has come under fire from both conservatives and liberals for past remarks on gays, and for his positions on Iran and Israel.
Gay rights groups hit Hagel for his 1998 remarks questioning whether a nominee for an ambassadorship was suitable because he was “openly, aggressively gay.” Hagel issued an apology for the remark last week.
More: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/27/log-cabin-republicans-take-out-ad-against-hagel/
Asian-Americans speak out against Google app they call offensive
The maker of a Google app thinks it’s fun to make yourself look Asian by changing the shape of your eyes and wearing a Fu Manchu mustache and rice paddy hat.
Another app — “Make Me Indian” — makes you a Native American with brown skin, war paint and a feather headband.
“This is just a fun app (that) lets you indulge you and your friends,” says the description of the “Make Me Asian” app created by user KimberyDeiss and available on Google Play.
“You can for a few seconds to make (yourself) a Chinese, Japanese, Korean or any other Asians,” the description says.
Not amusing or cute, say Asian-American organizations that launched a petition to get Google to remove both apps.
More: http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/26/asian-americans-speak-out-against-google-app-they-call-offensive/
Just so we're clear: Does the automatic "fiscal cliff" that will kick in involve cuting SS
or Medicare or Medicaid? If so, who set this in motion? Why would the Democrats allow this to happen in the first place?
Educate me. I'm all ears.
Dark “Clouds” Forming After Netflix Outage Blamed On Amazon
PHILADELPHIA – From Christmas Eve through noon on Christmas Day, Netflix customers couldn’t watch any TV shows or movies on the service.
Over the holiday, a glitch at Amazon’s facility in suburban Washington, DC left Netflix users with nothing on their screens.
“Part of the reason is that it’s the largest and oldest of Amazon data centres and it’s also the data centre on which Amazon deploys new services first,” Darrow says. “While companies are supposed to be dividing their workloads among different data centers, sometimes you don’t have the choice because you’re using a new service that is available only from Amazon US-East.”
An outage there in October affected sites and services like Pinterest, Instagram, Reddit, and FourSquare. Darrow says such issues are a PR problem for cloud providers like Amazon, and worse for companies who have no control over what’s happening.
“Especially because Amazon is really wanting businesses to let them handle more of their mission-critical workload. It’s one thing for an online video site to go out — it’s an inconvenience and a pain. But if it’s a business database or accounting system, that’s a whole other issue. Things like this will spook CEOs going forward. Because this gets huge coverage. If I’m a CIO, and I want to go to Amazon, my boss is going to say, ‘isn’t that the cloud that went out over Christams eve?’”
More: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/12/26/dark-clouds-forming-after-netflix-outage-blamed-on-amazon/
Fleeing Civil War, Syria’s Kurds Enter Another Geo-Political Minefield
By Jay Newton-Small
Time
Dec. 27, 2012
Samira Selo cradled her two-year-old on her hip and looked across the low valley towards Syria, a country that until a month ago she called home. Some sheep and goats grazed nearby. Behind her, in the old, tiny tent she, her husband and three kids call home, her family’s possessions were rolled up under two thin mattresses still damp from a week’s worth of rain. The floor of her tent was mud, the same mud that formed, often knee-deep, every lane zigzagging through Domiz refugee camp in the north of Iraqi Kurdistan.
It is never easy being the new arrivals, especially in a refugee camp like this one where resources have been stretched beyond their limits as more and more Syrian Kurds pour across the border each day. “Two weeks ago we had 35,000,” says Iraqi Kurdish Foreign Minister Falah Mustafa Balik. Before Christmas they topped 60,000.
Selo, 28, and her family fled Damascus in November “as the massacre was getting too close.” But they have found life on the fringes of this mushrooming refugee camp extremely difficult. The UN High Commission of Refugees, which oversees the camp, ran out of tents before they got there. They borrowed their hand-me-down one from a friend, but can’t afford to buy a nicer one; used UNHCR tents are going on the black market for hundreds of dollars, says Selo. When it rains—and in Iraq in the winter it rains constantly— they and everything they own get soaked. Their kids have developed colds and the weather is about to turn frosty, something that scares Selo even more than the damp.
They could have gone to Jordan, which is much closer to Damascus, but as Kurds they felt it was safer with their ethnic compatriots, even if it meant driving all the way across war-torn Syria. Almost all of the Syrian refugees Iraq has accepted are Kurds into Iraqi Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous state in the north that exercises many of its own policies. Authorities elsewhere in Iraq have refused all but 9,000 Arab refugees for fear that the highly sectarian violence across the border in Syria may whip up similar flames in Iraq. The Kurds, though, are eager to help out their brethren, even if their resources are already stressed. So far, the Kurdish government has spent $11 million for the camp, but much more is needed. “We plan an international appeal,” Bakir says.
Aside from the tent shortage, there is also a shortage of food, especially for single men who have their own area on the far side of the camp. Families also have a shortage of water. The newer arrivals have to share one water drum per three or four families, which doesn’t translate to enough drinking or cooking water, let alone water to bathe with. The lucky ones get one shower a week. Electricity hasn’t been a problem –there’s enough for everyone to run lights and cookers. But there’s not enough for heaters and the chills of winter are setting in.
More: http://world.time.com/2012/12/27/fleeing-civil-war-syrias-kurds-enter-another-geo-political-minefield/
Bhutto's Son Vows to Fight for Democracy in Pakistan
Source: VOA News
The son of Pakistan's slain former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, launched his political career Thursday, vowing to continue his mother's fight for democracy.
In a speech marking the fifth anniversary of the leader's death Thursday, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said his Pakistan People's Party pledged to work for the poor and protect Pakistan against "terrorists."
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a gun and suicide bomb attack on December 27, 2007 while campaigning in the city of Rawalpindi. Bhutto was running as leader of the PPP in national elections. Shortly after her death, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari came to power as president.
Their son, Oxford-educated Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, 24, is too young to run in a general election set for next year. Bilawal co-chairs the PPP with his father, President Zardari, who is unpopular and has been accused of corruption.
Read more: http://www.voanews.com/content/bhuttos-son-vows-to-fight-for-democracy/1573159.html
Not even trying to hide it anymore
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2078487Dark “Clouds” Forming After Netflix Outage Blamed On Amazon
PHILADELPHIA – From Christmas Eve through noon on Christmas Day, Netflix customers couldn’t watch any TV shows or movies on the service.
Over the holiday, a glitch at Amazon’s facility in suburban Washington, DC left Netflix users with nothing on their screens.
“Part of the reason is that it’s the largest and oldest of Amazon data centres and it’s also the data centre on which Amazon deploys new services first,” Darrow says. “While companies are supposed to be dividing their workloads among different data centers, sometimes you don’t have the choice because you’re using a new service that is available only from Amazon US-East.”
An outage there in October affected sites and services like Pinterest, Instagram, Reddit, and FourSquare. Darrow says such issues are a PR problem for cloud providers like Amazon, and worse for companies who have no control over what’s happening.
“Especially because Amazon is really wanting businesses to let them handle more of their mission-critical workload. It’s one thing for an online video site to go out — it’s an inconvenience and a pain. But if it’s a business database or accounting system, that’s a whole other issue. Things like this will spook CEOs going forward. Because this gets huge coverage. If I’m a CIO, and I want to go to Amazon, my boss is going to say, ‘isn’t that the cloud that went out over Christams eve?’”
More: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/12/26/dark-clouds-forming-after-netflix-outage-blamed-on-amazon/
Israel builds new fence along Syria border
Source: The Australian
ISRAEL is building a new and better fence along its border with Syria to prepare for likely instability after the expected fall of President Bashar al-Assad, a military official says.
The new obstacle aims to strengthen an existing barrier along the 90-kilometre armistice line between the Israeli- and Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights, Major Arye Shalicar said.
It will include cameras and trenches, he said.
Israel's border with Syria, secured in some areas by a relatively basic fence, has been considered stable for years.
The Syria conflict is the main reason for the construction of a new one, but the protests of June 5 and May 15, 2011 also played a role, when hundreds of Syrians and Palestinians took Israel by surprise by storming the border to mark the so-called "Naksa" (setback) and "Nakba" (catastrophe).
Read more: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/israel-builds-new-fence-along-syria-border/story-fn3dxix6-1226544016836
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