Category: Terror War

Yesterday, in Gothenburg, Sweden, a number of people firebombed a Synagogue while folks were in the building. Luckily, no on was injured and three twenty-something men were arrested. Of course, according to the New York Times, it’s Trump’s fault;

A police spokeswoman, Ulla Brehm, said: “It might become a hate crime. The crime is attempted arson. But that may change during the investigation.”

The Police Authority’s commissioner, Dan Eliasson, told the Aftonbladet newspaper that the threat level against Jewish interests in Sweden had increased since President Trump’s announcement that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The attack in Gothenburg, a city on the country’s west coast, came a day after demonstrators took to the streets of Malmo, Sweden’s third-largest city, shouting slogans about killing or shooting Jews.

So, Trump’s announcement that he would move our embassy to Jerusalem is what caused some racists in Sweden to firebomb a Synagogue. Actually, the US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capitol in 1995, when Bill Clinton was president. From the Washington Post;

[In October, 1995] the House and Senate passed a bill called the “Jerusalem Embassy Act,” which formally recognized the city as the country’s capital and called for the U.S. Embassy in Israel to be moved there from Tel Aviv by 1999. Support for the bill was overwhelming. It passed the Senate by a 93 to 5 vote, with four Republicans and one Democrat voting no. It passed the House 374 to 37, with 153 Democrats joining most of the new Republican majority that had swept into power in 1994.

So, I have to think that the firebombing in Gothenburg was going to happen anyway, no matter what Trump does. I mean, Sweden is thousands of miles from Gaza. If those twenty-year-olds were so concerned about the trajectory of politics in the Middle East, why are they in Sweden?

Reuters reports that Afghan forces killed Mullah Shah Wali, the commander of the Taliban’s “Red Unit” special forces, along side of a suicide bomber and two other commanders in Helmand Province last week.

Wali became the commander of the Taliban’s “Red Unit” as well as deputy shadow governor of Helmand province three years ago and was directly involved in Taliban offensives, the statement said.

The “Red Unit” is thought to be equipped with advanced weapons, including night vision scopes, 82mm rockets, heavy machine guns and U.S.-made assault rifles, according to the Afghan military.

“Special forces” means different things in different countries and to the media which gets it’s military background information from Rambo and Chuck Norris movies.

Meanwhile in Africa, the US has entered into an agreement with the Niger government to fly armed drones in a defensive role over that country, according to the Associated Press;

The arrangement, which has not been publicly announced, reflects an expanding U.S. military campaign against extremists in Africa and is based on a recently signed U.S-Nigerien memorandum of understanding. It was first reported by the New York Times.

The U.S. official said armed drone flights could begin as early as next week or at least by the end of December. The memorandum of understanding limits the drones to defensive missions, the official said.

According to AFP, forty-one defense ministers from Muslim countries met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia yesterday in order to begin coordination in their own war against terror. They were led by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and defense minister and heir to the throne.

The alliance groups largely, although not exclusively, Sunni-majority or Sunni-ruled countries.

It excludes Saudi Arabia’s arch-rival, Shiite-dominated Iran, as well as Syria and Iraq, whose leaders have close ties to Tehran.

Sunday’s meeting coincides with an escalation in tensions between Riyadh and Tehran, particularly over wars in Syria and Yemen and the political structure of multi-confessional Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of supporting armed groups across the Middle East, including Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah and Yemen’s Huthi rebels.

“The pillar of this coalition is inclusion,” said Saudi General Abdulelah al-Saleh, the alliance’s acting secretary general, playing down the exclusion of the three countries.

“Our common enemy is terrorism, not any religion, sect or race.”

Well, they’re about sixteen years too late, but I guess late is better than never.

The alliance was announced in 2015, it took two years to have their first meeting, so I’m thinking that not too much will come of this alliance, I hope I’m wrong.

Since the alliance is mostly Sunni, they may have some short-term effect on Sunni al-Qaeda and Sunni ISIS, but the real threat in the region is Shi’ite Iran and their client Shi’ite Hezbollah. Freezing them out of the coalition doesn’t bode well for the whole process.

Fox News reports that Islamist extremists attacked an Egyptian mosque today resulting in at least 200 killed and 130 injured, according to Egyptian news agencies;

The extremists launched an attack on the al-Rawdah mosque in the town of Bir al-Abd, some 25 miles from the North Sinai provincial capital of el-Arish, Egypt’s state news agency MENA reported. The attack appeared to be the latest by the area’s local Islamic State affiliate.

The security officers said the men opened fire on worshipers during prayers while driving in off-road vehicles. A Ministry of Health spokesman said the terrorists set off a bomb during the attack.

“They (the extremists) were shooting at people as they left the mosque,” a resident told Reuters.

“They were shooting at the ambulances too,” the resident continued.

Unarmed churchgoers seem to be the best targets. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet.

From Newsweek;

The extremists reportedly approached and fired at the mosque from four “off-road” vehicles and blew up vehicles to block worshipers from exiting the mosque, the AP reported citing three police officers.

From The New York Times;

Islamist militants detonated explosives and sprayed gunfire at a crowded Sufi mosque near Egypt’s Sinai coast on Friday, killing at least 235 people and wounding 109 more, in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the country’s modern history.

[…]

The gunmen lingered at the scene even as emergency workers arrived to treat the injured, and opened fire on several ambulances, Ahmed el-Ansari, a senior government health official, said on state television.

For some reason, Huffington Post and NBC News find fault with an increase this year in the number of bombs that the United States has dropped on Afghanistan over last year;

On Monday, NBC News reported that the U.S. Air Force was on track to triple the number of bombs dropped in Afghanistan in 2017 compared with last year.

As of Oct. 31, the U.S. had dropped 3,554 bombs on the country, the report said. That stands in contrast to the 1,337 bombs from all of 2016 and the 947 bombs dropped on Afghanistan in the entirety of 2015.

Trump announced earlier this year that the U.S. would expand its military presence in Afghanistan in an effort to wipe out the Taliban ? despite his “original instinct … to pull out” of America’s longest war.

Yeah, well, last year we weren’t doing too well in regards to securing Afghanistan compared to this year, either. If those bombs were dropping on civilian-occupied built-up areas, HuffPo and NBC might have a point, but those bombs fell in support of US and allied forces in their war against the forces of evil.

Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said on Monday that Trump had emboldened him with “new authority” to launch a bombing campaign against opium labs that have been lining the Taliban’s pockets with cash.

“In striking northern Helmand and the drug enterprises there, we’re hitting the Taliban where it hurts, which is their finances,” Nicholson told reporters in a teleconference, speaking from Afghanistan. “These new authorities allow me to go after the enemy in ways I couldn’t before.”

I guess that’s the problem – the opium users at the Huffington Post and NBC are worried that their pockets will take a hit when the market prices of dope rise.