Meanwhile, In Libya...

[swerve]

Typo caused by brain fart. I think I'm still suffering a little from my accident last week, which left me unconscious for a while, & has given me a gap of some hours in my memory. Now corrected.

Edited February 27, 2015 by swerve

[BansheeOne]

 

You know, you have a finite supply of brain cells, so take care of them.

[swerve]

I'm trying. But I still don't know how I crashed. Apparently I looked over my shoulder to check on Mrs S (she was cycling behind the bloke behind me, & I'm relying on his account), then crashed. Looking over the shoulder is a routine action, so there must have been more to it than that. Maybe next week I'll take a look at the road, but the 5 km or so to it is still too long a trip.

 

At least I'm not entirely cut off. Done some work (freelance proofreading - reminds me I'm slacking on Russian America - for a Japanese firm), which I do sitting at home, but still get tired quickly. Spent most of the first two days after the accident sleeping. Normal, apparently. I'm going to have a scar on the bridge of my nose, but otherwise I think I'll be unmarked, despite using my face against tarmac for braking.

[Mr King]

I'm trying. But I still don't know how I crashed. Apparently I looked over my shoulder to check on Mrs S (she was cycling behind the bloke behind me, & I'm relying on his account), then crashed. Looking over the shoulder is a routine action, so there must have been more to it than that. Maybe next week I'll take a look at the road, but the 5 km or so to it is still too long a trip.

 

At least I'm not entirely cut off. Done some work (freelance proofreading - reminds me I'm slacking on Russian America - for a Japanese firm), which I do sitting at home, but still get tired quickly. Spent most of the first two days after the accident sleeping. Normal, apparently. I'm going to have a scar on the bridge of my nose, but otherwise I think I'll be unmarked, despite using my face against tarmac for braking.

 

Wanting to sleep after something like that can be the sign of a head injury. You might want to get yourself checked out.

Edited February 27, 2015 by Mr King

[Adam Peter]

Get well soon, and Mr King is right, get a through check, talk to your doctor about your accident and sleepiness!

[swerve]

Definitely a brain injury. I was unconscious for a while, & failing to move anything from short-term to long-term memory for a few hours, leading to repetitive questions which Mrs S has described to me in detail.The hospital did a brain scan & other tests (or so I'm told), & has since done more tests, & they think that I'm healing well. & there's nothing to be concerned about. But I have warnings to report back immediately if anything starts getting worse or stops improving.

 

The degree of sleepiness is apparently normal. It's far from continuous, it's just that I get tired much quicker than usual. And it's reducing fast. I'm much more alert than a week ago. I've actually done over a day's work this week, spread over a few days.

 

I have to go back to hospital again next Thursday, mostly to have another look at the broken cheekbone, but they'll also check my general progress.

Edited February 27, 2015 by swerve

[Mr King]

I am honestly glad to hear that.

[BansheeOne]

Inside the ISIS Naval Base on the Mediterranean

BY JACK MOORE / MARCH 11, 2015 11:35 AM EDT

On the sparkling blue waters of the Mediterranean lies a town with an idyllic coastline, at the foot of the Jebel Akhdar, or Green Mountain, just a half-day’s sail from the shores of Greece and the tip of Italy, with bustling souks and colonial piazzas in its old city, baked by the heat of the North African sun.

Derna, a port town nestled on the northeastern Libyan coast, hosts a synagogue, a mosque, and both Byzantine and Catholic churches, evidence of a diversity at odds with the town’s current predicament. This historic town – with only open sea between it and Europe – fell under the shadow of ISIS last year, when the radical Islamic Youth Shura Council declared Derna Wilyat Barqa (province of Barqa), an “Islamic emirate” and therefore an extension of the Iraqi-Syrian caliphate claimed by the terror group that calls itself Islamic State.

The pledge of allegiance refers to the historic name given to eastern Libya, Barqa, after Islamic armies conquered the ancient region of Cyrenaica in AD642. “It is incumbent on us to support this oppressed Islamic State that is taken as an enemy by those near and those far, among the infidels or the hypocrites, or those with dead souls alike,” a statement released by the ISIS affiliate in June read, before it officially pledged allegiance in October.

Derna’s cliff-side roads are lined with decaying residences, embodying the town’s neglect under Muammar Gaddafi’s rule and its decline in the years after his fall from grace, which has allowed ISIS’s brutal brand of radical Islamism to proliferate. Its militants now patrol the town in Islamic police force cars and the group’s black flag has been raised over key buildings.

To announce their opportunistic seizure of Derna, enabled by the security vacuum opened by Gaddafi’s removal, the group’s members paraded vehicles laden with ISIS flags through the town last October. Before this, ISIS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dispatched a key aide, Yemeni national Abu Nabil al-Anbari, to oversee the affiliate’s creation while, late last year, the eastern Libyan faction were buttressed by the arrival of at least 300 Libyan nationals, who had been fighting for the terror group in Iraq. It is believed that approximately 800 ISIS militants now operate in the town.

Despite the group occupying a number of government buildings in the contested central city of Sirte, Derna remains ISIS’s only territorial conquest in North Africa. There is an ideological rival to ISIS in the town in the form of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Slim Martyrs Brigade, but Derna, situated between the cities of Tobruk and Benghazi, has become the heartbeat of the ISIS's regional operation, with foreign fighters – predominantly Algerians, Egyptians, Sudanese, Saudis and Tunisians – pouring into some six training camps situated on the town’s outskirts.

Derna, which has a population of approximately 100,000, already held a reputation within Libya as a conservative bosom of Islamism. The town provided a large number of the al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters participating in the insurgency against US-led forces during the Iraq War. Out of 112 Libyan fighters named and 606 documented overall in 2007, 52 emanated from Derna. Yet life in the town has taken a radical turn for the worse, becoming a hub of Salafist activity since the Libyan revolution.

An anti-ISIS activist living in Derna, who declined to be named for fear of their safety, speaks of a brutal Islamic authority – defined by beheadings, executions and assassinations, but also a regime that is facing an undercurrent of opposition brewing within the town.

When the Egyptian air force launched airstrikes on Derna’s militants on 16 February following ISIS’s beheading of 21 Coptic Christians, civilians opposed to ISIS rushed to their rooftops to watch the bombs drop. “It was a very heavy day for us but the people were very happy,” says the activist. “We were like ‘Yes they are coming! It’s the day! It’s the zero hour!’”

But, dissent in Derna comes at a price in the absence of any state authority. Three activists, Siraj Ghatish, Mohamed Battu and Mohamed al-Mesmari, were kidnapped last October after they posted a video to Facebook calling on the town’s citizens to oppose ISIS. All three were found beheaded by a shopkeeper just a week later.

The activist details a friend’s execution after he challenged the militants’ pledge of allegiance to ISIS; recounts how another opponent’s head was dumped in the town’s historic al-Sahaba Mosque; and reveals that the town’s main football stadium has been used by radicals to conduct an execution.

The activist has personally witnessed two public executions – of two Libyans in the town’s main square and one Egyptian at the town’s western entrance – and claims that 275 assassinations have taken place in the town since 2011 with no investigation. Human Rights Watch has documented dozens of assassinations of public officials, judges and security forces in Derna by extremists in the last year, such as former Libyan politician and women’s rights campaigner Fariha Barkawi shot dead in the town last July.

The activist, who has lived in the town his entire life, says public floggings are given to those who are caught smoking, drinking or dealing drugs, and confirms that the town’s university has been closed by the militants. “The people try to do something inside [the city] but the killings that happen inside Derna, without anyone taking responsibility to stop it, prevent the people of Derna from coming out of their fears and asking for their freedom,” the activist says.

The extremists’ control of Derna does not just threaten their opponents inside the city, but also the borders of Europe. The activist reveals that ISIS now controls the town’s port and the seaport of Ras al-Helal, 47km (29 miles) west of Derna. At these ports, the group is in possession of a number of fishing boats large enough to make the treacherous Mediterranean crossing to southern Europe, a route traversed by thousands of desperate refugees every year. “It is a possibility,” says the activist, when asked if the boats have the capability of making the perilous crossing to Europe. “They are like those which take the refugees to the Italy coast, the same size. They can take, like, 40 people.”

Derna itself is situated just 306km (190 miles) from the shores of the Greek island of Crete, a journey only eight kilometres farther than the 298km (185-mile) crossing for refugees traveling from Libyan capital, Tripoli, to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

ISIS’s evolution in the civil-war-torn country, with a growing presence in coastal cities west of Derna, particularly Benghazi, Sirte and Tripoli, has stoked fears among Italy’s political and maritime circles about a “caliphate across the sea” that could see jihadis melt in with refugees attempting to grasp the golden ticket of European Union citizenship.

After Italy removed all of its diplomatic staff from Libya last month, because of the deteriorating security situation, Rome’s defence minister, Roberta Pinotti, warned that the possibility of jihadi infiltration of southern Europe “could not be ruled out”.

“We have been discussing this for months but now it has become urgent,” she said. “The risk is imminent, we cannot wait any longer. Italy has national defence needs and cannot have a caliphate ruling across the shores from us.”

Italian fishermen working in the waters off the country’s southernmost islands, Linosa and Lampedusa, have even expressed their fears of an ISIS nautical operation, writing a letter to the Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi following ISIS’s threat to “conquer Rome with Allah’s permission” in the Coptic Christian beheading video. Totò Martello, president of the fishermen’s consortium, wrote that the seamen are “frightened of being boarded” by terrorists at sea. “One can’t live with the nightmare of not going home,” the letter says, “we need to be protected and defended, but to work we need to be tranquil in a Mediterranean that every day becomes more the world’s powder keg.”

While Derna has been rendered a lawless outpost for almost four years since the Libyan civil war concluded, the security threat presented by ISIS’s Mediterranean “emirate” – to both those who live there and the southern Europeans across the sea – has never been more critical. Yet the activist there remains defiant. “We lived with the Italian nuns for more than 50 years in peace. The city of education, pluralism and tolerance cannot be the city of terrorism.”

 

http://www.newsweek.com/2015/03/20/inside-isis-naval-base-mediterranean-312956.html

[JasonJ]

Not Libya but Tunisia. Didn't think this was posted any where yet and not sure if it warrants its own thread, so being next to Libya and close to Tripoli, here it is.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-31982956

 

25 killed in attack at Bardo Museum in the capital. 22 of whom were foreigners. 2 unconfirmed. The confirmed foreigner deaths go as:

 

Officials say the victims include four Italians, four French and three Japanese nationals, three Poles, two Spaniards, two Colombians and one each from Britain and Belgium

 

 

 

Tunisia's president has urged Tunisians to unite to fight terrorism, two days after an attack on the Bardo museum in the capital Tunis killed 25 people, mostly foreign tourists.

 

"We won't win if we don't stand together," Beji Caid Essebsi said in a national address marking 59 years of Tunisia's independence from France.

 

Islamic State has said it was behind the attack on the museum, which is next to the country's parliament.

Nine people have since been arrested.

 

Edited March 21, 2015 by JasonJ

[BansheeOne]

We actually had a dedicated Tunisia thread somewhere.

 

Ah, here it is.

[JasonJ]

We actually had a dedicated Tunisia thread somewhere.

 

Ah, here it is.

 

Oh nice little thread. Gets one up to speed in that country. I went ahead and bumped it with the same post.

[BansheeOne]

EU to launch military operations against migrant-smugglers in Libya

 

Emergency meeting in Luxembourg also results in decision to boost maritime patrols in Mediterranean and broaden search-and-rescue mandate

Ian Traynor in Brussels

Monday 20 April 2015 19.38 BST

The European Union is to launch military operations against the networks of smugglers in Libya deemed culpable of sending thousands of people to their deaths in the Mediterranean.

An emergency meeting of EU interior and foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday, held in response to the reported deaths of several hundred migrants in a packed fishing trawler off the Libyan coast at the weekend, also decided to bolster maritime patrols in the Mediterranean and give their modest naval mission a broader search-and-rescue mandate for saving lives.

A summit of EU leaders is to take place in Brussels on Thursday to hammer out the details of the measures hurriedly agreed on Monday. The 28 EU governments called for much closer cooperation with Libya’s neighbours, such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Niger, in an attempt to close down the migratory routes. But senior political figures and EU officials conceded this would be difficult and also voiced scepticism about the emphasis on targeting the traffickers.

Following the reported deaths of around 1,300 migrants in three incidents in less than a fortnight in the waters south of Sicily, the pressure was on the EU and its member states to come up with new policies addressing headlines branding the incidents “Europe’s shame”.

“I hope today is the turning point in the European conscience, not to go back to promises without actions,” said Federica Mogherini, the former Italian foreign minister who is the EU’s chief foreign and security policy coordinator and who chaired Monday’s meeting.

The meeting “identified some actions” aimed at combatting the trafficking gangs mainly in Libya, such as “destroying ships”, Mogherini said.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner for migration issues, said the operation would be “civil-military” modelled on previous military action in the Horn of Africa to combat Somali piracy. The military action would require a UN mandate.

No detail was supplied on the scale and range of the proposed operation, nor of who would take part in it. But European leaders from David Cameron to Angela Merkel and Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, were emphatic on Monday in singling out the fight against the migrant traffickers as the top priority in the attempt to rein in a crisis that is spiralling out of control.

“[This is] a systematic effort to capture and destroy vessels used by the smugglers. The positive results obtained with the [somali] operation should inspire us to similar operations against smugglers in the Mediterranean,” said the European commission.

But Rihards Kozlovskis, the Latvian interior minister, said the scheme could run into problems. “How can it be done?” he asked. “It’s not so easy this civil-military operation. We’re talking of the territorial waters of third countries.”

A senior EU official doubted whether the focus on targeting the traffickers would work. “The idea of surgical strikes on traffickers is not very serious. Do they know enough about the traffickers to mount a military operation?”

A main focus of complaints about the EU’s lacklustre response to the situation in the Mediterranean has been the limited scope of the Triton naval patrols run by the union’s Frontex borders agency. Triton replaced a much bigger, more ambitious, and more effective Italian navy mission last year.

Monday’s meeting agreed to expand the Frontex operation, increase its funding and assets, extend its zone of patrolling beyond Italian territorial waters, and ordered it to do more to save stranded migrants rather than simply secure the EU’s external frontier.

[...]

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/20/eu-launch-military-operations-libya-migrant-smugglers-mediterranean

 

Libya group says it will 'confront' any EU strikes against people smugglers

Group controlling Libya’s coastal capital Tripoli urges European Union to engage in talks over plans to deal with the migration crisis

Reuters in Valletta

Thursday 23 April 2015 10.15 BST

The group controlling Libya’s coastal capital Tripoli says it will “confront” any unilateral European Union moves to attack sites used by people smugglers, urging the bloc to consult it over plans to deal with the migration crisis.

Two governments, each backed by loose coalitions of ex-rebels who once fought together to oust Muammar Gaddafi, are battling for control of the country.

Muhammed el-Ghirani, foreign minister of the rival to Libya’s internationally recognised government, said the Tripoli based group had repeatedly offered to help deal with migrants leaving its shores, but its proposals had been rebuffed.

His comments, made in an interview with the Times of Malta published on Thursday, underlined the challenges facing EU ministers meeting in Brussels to find ways to stem the numbers risking their lives travelling from Libya, a country mired in political chaos.

At a summit hastily convened after nearly 2,000 migrants died at sea, EU ministers are expected to discuss one proposal to launch military and civilian missions to capture and destroy the traffickers’ boats, diplomats said.

“You cannot just decide to hit. Let’s say you strike a particular site. How will you know that you did not hit an innocent person, a fisherman? Does Europe have pinpoint accuracy? So we are saying, ‘Let’s do this together,’” Ghirani told the Maltese newspaper.

“We have been doing our best to get Europe to cooperate with us to deal with illegal immigration but they keep telling us we’re not the internationally recognised government. Now they cannot just decide to take this action. They have to speak to us,” he added.

He said any unilateral attacks would be confronted, the newspaper reported, without going into further details.

World powers only recognise Abdullah al-Thinni, who has been based with his cabinet in the east of the country since losing control of the capital last summer, as head of Libya’s legitimate government.

Public outrage peaked this week after up to 900 migrants, many fleeing poverty and political turmoil, died last Sunday when their boat sank on its way to Europe from Libya.

Security forces loyal to the Tripoli administration detained 45 Bangladeshis waiting for smugglers to pick them up, a security official told Reuters.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/23/libya-group-says-it-will-confront-any-eu-strikes-against-people-traffickers

[Gregory]

What is the EU policy on returning illegal immigrants to their country of origin? Do significant numbers get deported back, or do large majorities of them get to stay once they cross EU borders?

[EchoFiveMike]

Make the southern Med a live fire 24/7/365 training zone conducting SINKEX's. Once the savages figure out you're not tolerating their invasion, they'll stop coming. You silly Euros give them hope and then wonder why you're being flooded.

 

I seen to read that the refugees were going to Malta and Sicily, they'll be provided with all manner of free shit, paid for by the Euro chump taxpayers, and they'll doubtlessly be on their way towards the chocolate rivers and gumdrop forests of Germany and the Nordic states post haste. S/F....Ken M

[DB]

What is the EU policy on returning illegal immigrants to their country of origin? Do significant numbers get deported back, or do large majorities of them get to stay once they cross EU borders?

 

It's generally tied up so tight in legal appeals that effectively none get removed.

[Colin]

Just redirect the money from liberal pet projects to pay for the care of the saved migrants and the desire to fight the return will melt away. I don't blame the migrants for coming and I don't blame the Italians for wanting to return them. Another is put them on a fast train to Geneva and Brussels.

[Mr King]

Wow and Americans get lambasted just for wanting to build a fence.

[Gregory]

Make the southern Med a live fire 24/7/365 training zone conducting SINKEX's. Once the savages figure out you're not tolerating their invasion, they'll stop coming. You silly Euros give them hope and then wonder why you're being flooded.

 

I seen to read that the refugees were going to Malta and Sicily, they'll be provided with all manner of free shit, paid for by the Euro chump taxpayers, and they'll doubtlessly be on their way towards the chocolate rivers and gumdrop forests of Germany and the Nordic states post haste. S/F....Ken M

You know, E5M, sometimes reading your posts just makes me sick.

[JasonJ]

The immigrants are probably welcomed because many European countries want more workers and preferably at cheaper labor cost to help with aging population issues. Maybe if the citizens (the French, Germans, etc themselves) in the respected countries can accept lower wages for more work hours, then less foreign workers would be needed. Another plus is that at least some of the immigrants might be able to see the good stuff that makes up say France or Germany and can change their views somewhat, giving a boost to the culture of France, Germany, etc. One of the officers killed, as he lay wounded on the ground, in the Charlie Hebdo shooting has an immigrant sounding name no doubt, Ahmed Merabet.

[EchoFiveMike]

 

Make the southern Med a live fire 24/7/365 training zone conducting SINKEX's. Once the savages figure out you're not tolerating their invasion, they'll stop coming. You silly Euros give them hope and then wonder why you're being flooded.

 

I seen to read that the refugees were going to Malta and Sicily, they'll be provided with all manner of free shit, paid for by the Euro chump taxpayers, and they'll doubtlessly be on their way towards the chocolate rivers and gumdrop forests of Germany and the Nordic states post haste. S/F....Ken M

You know, E5M, sometimes reading your posts just makes me sick.

 

Where do you live and have you ever worked with 3rd world refugees? S/F....Ken M

[Cinaruco]

...or lived in the 3rd world?

[Mr King]

The immigrants are probably welcomed because many European countries want more workers and preferably at cheaper labor cost to help with aging population issues. Maybe if the citizens (the French, Germans, etc themselves) in the respected countries can accept lower wages for more work hours, then less foreign workers would be needed. Another plus is that at least some of the immigrants might be able to see the good stuff that makes up say France or Germany and can change their views somewhat, giving a boost to the culture of France, Germany, etc. One of the officers killed, as he lay wounded on the ground, in the Charlie Hebdo shooting has an immigrant sounding name no doubt, Ahmed Merabet.

 

Cheaper for who? How is it cheaper if your giving them government benefits to offset their lower wages? The money to pay them those benefits has to come from somewhere? If Europe is anything like the states, it comes from taxing the dwindling middle class, and burying the country in foreign debt at the same time.

[JasonJ]

 

The immigrants are probably welcomed because many European countries want more workers and preferably at cheaper labor cost to help with aging population issues. Maybe if the citizens (the French, Germans, etc themselves) in the respected countries can accept lower wages for more work hours, then less foreign workers would be needed. Another plus is that at least some of the immigrants might be able to see the good stuff that makes up say France or Germany and can change their views somewhat, giving a boost to the culture of France, Germany, etc. One of the officers killed, as he lay wounded on the ground, in the Charlie Hebdo shooting has an immigrant sounding name no doubt, Ahmed Merabet.

 

Cheaper for who? How is it cheaper if your giving them government benefits to offset their lower wages? The money to pay them those benefits has to come from somewhere? If Europe is anything like the states, it comes from taxing the dwindling middle class, and burying the country in foreign debt at the same time.

Maybe as undocumented workers in the case of illegal immigrants and cheaper for factory owners perhaps. Although in the case of regular legal immigrants, I'm assuming they can get jobs at lower rate then regular seasoned workers since their on a social condition of wanting to stay and thus on lower grounds to fight for higher pay. But it's a fair reply since I don't have specific information on my assumption.

Edited April 25, 2015 by JasonJ

[Yama]

The immigrants are probably welcomed because many European countries want more workers and preferably at cheaper labor cost to help with aging population issues.

Ummm....no.

[JasonJ]

 

The immigrants are probably welcomed because many European countries want more workers and preferably at cheaper labor cost to help with aging population issues.

Ummm....no.

Very well.. I'll lean towards E5M's comment on silly Euros then.

 

http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39584&p=1163332