Israel Conducts Rare Airstrike On Syria!

Israeli squadrons of four jets struck a convoy of trucks that had left Lebanon entering Syrian borders. 

Middle East news outlets reports that Israeli jets have struck a target near the Syria-Lebanon border in an effort to stop the transport of missiles into Hezbollah hands.

Regional security officials said the jets targeted a site near the Lebanese border, and a Syrian army statement said it destroyed a military research center northwest of the capital Damascus. They appeared to be discussing the same incident.

The strike, which occurred Tuesday night, appeared to be the latest salvo in Israel’s long-running effort to disrupt the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s quest to build an arsenal capable of defending against Israel’s air force and spreading destruction inside the Jewish state from just over its northern border.

The regional security officials said Israel had been planning in recent days to hit a Syrian shipment of weapons bound for Hezbollah, which is neighboring Lebanon’s most powerful military force and committed to Israel’s destruction. They said the shipment included sophisticated Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles whose acquisition by Hezbollah would be “game-changing” by allowing it to blunt Israel’s air power.

Hezbollah Group

The strike may have halted that transfer. Israeli military and a Hezbollah spokesman both declined to comment, and Syria denied the existence of any such shipment.

U.S. officials confirmed the strike, saying it hit a convoy of trucks, but gave no further information.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The strike follows decades of enmity between Israel and allies Syria and Hezbollah, which consider the Jewish state their mortal enemy. The situation has been further complicated by the civil war raging in Syria between the forces of President Bashar Assad and hundreds of rebel brigades seeking his ouster.

The war has sapped Assad’s power and threatens to deprive Hezbollah of a key supporter, in addition to its land corridor to Iran. The two countries provide Hezbollah with the bulk of its funding and arms.

Many in Israel worry that has Assad’s regime loses power, it could strike back by transferring chemical or advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

Israel and Hezbollah fought an inconclusive 34-day war in 2006 that left 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead.

While the border has been largely quiet since, the struggle has taken other forms. Hezbollah has accused Israel of assassinating a top commander, and Israel has blamed Hezbollah for attacks on Jewish sites abroad. In October, Hezbollah launched an Iranian-made reconnaissance drone over Israel, using the incident to brag about its expanding capabilities.

Israeli officials believe that despite their best efforts, Hezbollah’s arsenal has markedly improved since 2006, now boasting tens of thousands of rockets and missiles and the ability to strike almost anywhere inside Israel.

The Soviet- and Russian-made Buk-M1-2 air defense system, also known as the SA-17

Israel suspects that Damascus obtained a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli airstrike in 2007 that destroyed an unfinished Syrian nuclear reactor.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of the dangers of Syria’s “deadly weapons” and warned that the country is “increasingly coming apart.”

The same day, Israel moved a battery of its new “Iron Dome” rocket defense system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in the 2006 war. The Israeli army called that move “routine.”

Syria, however, cast the strike in a different light, portraying as linked to the country’s civil war, which it blames on terrorists carrying out an international conspiracy to destroy the country.

A military statement read aloud on state TV Wednesday said low-flying Israeli jets crossed into Syria over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and bombed a military research center in the area of Jamraya, northwest of the capital, Damascus.

The strike destroyed the center and damaged a nearby building, killing two workers and wounding five others, it said.

The military denied the existence of any convoy bound for Lebanon, saying the center was responsible for “raising the level of resistance and self-defense” of Syria’s military.

“This proves that Israel is the instigator, beneficiary and sometimes executor of the terrorist acts targeting Syria and its people,” the statement said.

Despite its icy relations with Assad, Israel has remained on the sidelines of efforts to topple him, while keeping up defenses against possible attacks from the regime.

Israeli defense officials have carefully monitored Syria’s chemical weapons, fearing Assad could deploy them or lose control of them to extremist fighters among the rebels.

President Barack Obama has called the use of chemical weapons a “red line” whose crossing could prompt direct U.S. intervention, though U.S. officials have said Syria’s stockpiles still appear to be under government control.

The strike was Israel’s first inside Syria since September 2007, when its warplanes destroyed a site in Syria that the U.N. nuclear watchdog deemed likely to be a nuclear reactor. Syria denied the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site.

Syria allowed international inspectors to visit the bombed site in 2008 but it has refused to allow nuclear inspectors new access. This has heightened suspicions that Syria has something to hide, along with its decision to level the destroyed structure and build on its site.

In 2006, Israeli warplanes flew over Assad’s palace in a show of force after Syrian-backed militants captured an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip.

And in 2003, Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected militant training camp just north of the Syrian capital, in response to an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in the city of Haifa that killed 21 Israelis.

Syria vowed to retaliate for both attacks, but never did.

In Lebanon, which borders both Israel and Syria, the military and the U.N. agency tasked with monitoring the border with Israel said Israeli warplanes have sharply increased their activity over Lebanon in the past week.

Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace are not uncommon, and it was unclear if the recent activity was related to the strike in Syria.

Syria’s primary conflict with Israel is over the Golan Heights, which Israeli occupied in the 1967 war. Syria demands the area back as part of any peace deal. Despite the hostility, Syria has kept the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war and has never retaliated to Israeli attacks.

In May 2011, only two months after the uprising against Assad started, hundreds of Palestinians overran the tightly controlled Syria-Israeli frontier in a move widely thought to have been facilitated by the Assad regime to divert the world’s gaze from his growing troubles at home.

Culled from: Time World. Washington Times and National Post

Mali conflict: French 'enter last rebel town of Kidal'

French forces say they have entered Kidal in the north of Mali, the last major town they have yet to secure in their drive against Islamist militants.

This came after a number of aircraft, including helicopters, landed there overnight.

Islamist militants were reported to have already left the town and it was unclear who was in charge.

French and Malian forces have been sweeping north, earlier taking Gao and Timbuktu with almost no resistance.

France - the former colonial power in Mali - launched a military operation this month after Islamist militants appeared to be threatening the south.

French army spokesman Col Thierry Burkhard confirmed that "French elements were deployed overnight in Kidal".

One regional security source told Agence France-Presse that French aircraft had landed at Kidal and that "protection helicopters are in the sky".

Kidal, 1,500km (930 miles) north-east of the capital Bamako, was until recently under the control of the Ansar Dine Islamist group.

Continue reading the main story

However, the Islamic Movement of Azawad (IMA), which recently split from Ansar Dine, said it was now in charge in Kidal, although the Tuareg group - the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad - also claims control.

An MNLA spokesman told the Press its fighters had entered the city on Saturday and there were no Islamist militants there.

Some reports say Ansar Dine leader Iyad Ag Ghaly and Abou Zeid, of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, have moved to the mountainous region north of Kidal.

A spokesman for the IMA confirmed the French arrival in the town and said that its leader was now in talks with them.

The IMA recently said it rejected "extremism and terrorism" and wanted a peaceful solution.

The MNLA has also said it is prepared to work with the French "to eradicate terrorist groups" in the north but that it would not allow the return of the Malian army, which it accused of "crimes against the civilian population".

Reliable source, in Timbuktu, says that taking Kidal will mark the end of the first phase of the French military intervention, but that there will remain the difficult task of chasing the fighters down across the vast desert.

Islamist extremists took advantage of a military coup in March last year to control a number of cities in the north and impose sharia law.

The French arrival at Kidal came only 24 hours after securing Timbuktu with Malian forces.

The troops had to secure the streets after hundreds of people looted shops they said had belonged to militant sympathisers.

France has been pushing for the swift deployment of an African Union-backed force, the International Support Mission to Mali (Afisma), to take control of Malian towns.

On Tuesday, international donors meeting in Ethiopia pledged $455.53m (£289m) for Afisma and for other projects.

African leaders say the overall budget could be around $950m.

France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told the meeting impressive progress had been made but that this did not mean the danger was over.

Mr Fabius also said credible elections in Mali would be vital to achieving sustainable peace in the country.

Mali's interim President Dioncounda Traore said on Tuesday that he wanted to hold "transparent and credible" elections by 31 July.

culled from BBC news.

Australia hit by heavy flood

Flood-ravaged the east coast of Australia, after torrential rains and swollen rivers damaged thousands of homes and businesses and left some communities short of power, food and water.

The death toll from the crisis continues to rise when police discovered a man's body in a car submerged in a creek. Another man who vanished while travelling through the same area this week was still missing.

Floodwaters were receding in most places, bringing relief to a region that was battered by worse floods just two years ago. But there were concerns about food and water shortages in some communities and thousands were without power.

An aerial view shows rising floodwaters in Bundaberg on January 29.

Water engulfs houses

A man comforts his daughter on the roof of their flooded house in Bundaberg

Flooding in the east coast of Australia

About 120 soldiers were deployed to the hardest hit city, Bundaberg in Queensland, 240 miles north of Brisbane. The flooding, caused by the remnants of a tropical cyclone, forced some 7,500 residents from their homes, inundated 2,000 houses and 200 businesses with murky water and prompted helicopter evacuations of 1,000 people.

Clean-up begins 

As the clean-up began on Wednesday, some residents complained about dwindling food supplies. "People were almost coming to blows this morning at the local shop fighting over bread rolls," said Chris Pasky of Moore Park, just outside Bundaberg. "We've got a baby in the house we can't feed. We've just been forgotten."

Tourists and local residents take shelter at an evacuation center in Bundaberg, Queensland

In Brisbane residents were warned to conserve water after muddy floodwaters put pressure on the city's water treatment plants. The Queensland premier, Campbell Newman, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation stocks of bottled water were ready to be distributed to residents if reservoirs ran dry.

In other areas officials scrambled to deliver supplies to residents still cut off by the slowly receding waters.

"We're discovering people who are isolated, without power, without water, and we're going to be getting some longlife milk and bread supplies in through four-wheel drive later today," said Pam Parker, mayor of Logan City, south of Brisbane.

In a waterlogged area of Queensland police have spent days searching for two men, aged 25 and 34, who disappeared as they travelled separately to work on Sunday near Gatton, about 55 miles west of Brisbane. Officers said they believed the body found on Wednesday was that of the 34-year-old, though formal identification was pending.

The hunt was continuing for the younger man, whose car was found on Tuesday in the same creek where the body was recovered.

Queensland residents suffered the worst flooding Australia had seen in decades in late 2010 and early 2011, when floodwaters killed 35 people, damaged or destroyed 30,000 homes and businesses and left Brisbane under water for days.

Australia has endured a summer of weather extremes, with blistering temperatures and dry conditions igniting hundreds of wildfires across the southern half of the country.

A man checks out flood damage to houses in Bundaberg, Australia, on Tuesday, January 29, in the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Oswald. Torrential rains have sparked severe floods in southern Queensland along Australia's eastern coast.

Hillary Clinton ‘not inclined’ to run for president in 2016

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Tuesday that she’s “not inclined” to run for president in 2016 but left the door open for what is widely considered her likely return to politics after she steps down as secretary of state.

“I’m not thinking about anything like that right now,” Clinton smilingly told a questioner. “I am looking forward to finishing up my tenure as secretary of state and then catching up on about 20 years of sleep deprivation.

Clinton, who steps down Friday as one of the best-known secretaries of state, is also among the world’s most admired women and the object of intense speculation about her future.

In a wide-ranging online question-and-answer session with students from around the world at the Newseum in Washington, Clinton said she will write a memoir and work on causes dear to her.

That includes the cause of women in politics, she said, even as she sidestepped a question posed by a young woman in London about whether she will reprise her 2008 run for the Democratic nomination for president.

“I do want to see more women compete for the highest positions in their countries,” Clinton said.

“I will do what I can, whether or not it is up to me to make a decision on my own future — I right now am not inclined to do that — but I will do everything I can to make sure that women compete at the highest levels not only in the United States, but around the world.”

Plenty of people are eager to see her run. A super PAC supporting Clinton for president in 2016, Ready for Hillary, was registered with the Federal Election Commission on Friday.

Clinton has no connection to the PAC, which is chaired by Allida Black, founder of the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project at George Washington University and a member of the board of directors of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. Black was also behind a pro-Clinton PAC in the 2008 presidential primary, WomenCount, and she pushed for Clinton’s name to be put into nomination at the Democratic convention that year.

According to the group’s Facebook page, a former aide and a former adviser to Clinton are involved. A Twitter account has more than 50,000 followers.

A Clinton ally, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is urging her on. “I would love it if she would run,” Feinstein told CNN on Sunday.

Clinton has repeatedly denied that she is interested in a 2016 campaign. In an interview broadcast Sunday, she joked that as a sitting Cabinet member, she is “forbidden” from entertaining political questions.

Clinton was interviewed via satellite by young people and journalists in Lebanon, Japan, India, Nigeria, Colombia and the United Kingdom. The one-hour event also included questions submitted via social media.

When asked what she considers her “lasting regret” from her time as President Obama’s top diplomat, Clinton pointed immediately to last year’s militant attacks on U.S. installations in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans.

“Certainly the loss of American lives in Benghazi was something I deeply regret,” Clinton said. Clinton has accepted responsibility for the deaths, which represent the largest blot on her record, but she has rejected Republican criticism that she is personally to blame.

“When you do these jobs, you have to understand at the very beginning” that there are limits to what diplomats or nations can do, Clinton said.

“There are terrible situations right now being played out in the Congo, in Syria, where we all wish that there were clear paths that we could follow together in the international community to try to resolve.”

In his harshest comments to date, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday on Fox News that he thinks Clinton “got away with murder” for failing to protect diplomats in danger.

“I haven’t forgotten about Benghazi,” Graham said.

culled from "The Washington Post"

Boko Haram declares ceasefire!

After about three years of  attacks on security formations, public and worship  places,   the Jamaatul Ahjlil Sunna lidawati wal Jihad otherwise known as  Boko Haram, in Maiduguri, Borno announced a ceasefire after weeks of meetings with the state government. Commander of the Islamist sect in charge of Borno North and South, Muhammed Abdulazeez Ibn Idris, who had previously been speaking for the group, had surprisingly appeared to some journalists,  two weeks ago, declaring the intention of the sect to halt the three-year-old insurgency.

Declaring the ceasefire Monday through a tele-conference at the Borno State Radio and Television (BRTV), spokesman of Boko Haram, and second-in-command of the group, Sheikh Abdul Aziz said: “This ceasefire being announced today, is a goodwill message from the Jamaatul Ahlus Sunnah Lid Dawatil wal Jihad (Boko Haram), following a series of meetings with government officials and leaders of thought in Borno State.

 second-in-command of the group, Sheikh Abdul Aziz 

For the benefit of seeking the blessing of the leader of the sect, Imam Abu Shekau, in declaring the ceasefire, Idris had promised to talk to the media soon on the issue and by monday afternoon, he kept his promise and announced a ceasefire, starting from monday. Excerpts of the translated briefing by Idris: “I, Sheikh Muhammed Abdulazeez Ibn Idris, the second Commander in charge of southern and northern Borno after Imam Abubakar Shekau of Jamaatul Ahjlil Sunna lidawati wal Jihad otherwise known as Boko Haram.

“For some time now, we the members of Jamaatul ahlil Boko Haram sunna lidawati wal jihad, otherwise known as Boko Haram, have recently had a meeting and dialogue with the government of Borno State where we resolved that giving the prevailing situation, there is the need for us to ceasefire.

We, on our own, in the top hierarchy of our movement under the leadership of Imam Abubakar Shekau, as well as some of our notable followers, agreed that our brethren in Islam, both women and children are suffering unnecessarily; hence, we resolved that we should bring this crisis to an end.

We therefore, called on all those that identify themselves with us and our course, to from today, lay down their arms. Let every member who hears this announcement relay it to the next member who hasn’t heard.

“We have met with the Borno State Government on two occasions and the fallout of the meeting is to ceasefire. Presently, we are going to comply with the cease-fire order and by the time we are done with that, then government security agencies can go ahead to arrest whoever they find carrying arms or killing under our names. We are very much aware of the fact that some criminals have infiltrated our movement and continued attacking and killing people using our names.

“We have also told the government to try to live up to our demands that our members in detention should be released. We hope the government will not betray us this time around, because we all know that it was because of the continued detentions of our members that this crisis continued for this long.

And if government fails to do as it now promised, then this conflict will never have an end. “Of course, there is a faction within us, but the larger faction of our movement is the one in support of this ceasefire move. Moreover, once top members of our group including Imam Abubakar Shekau are in support of the need for ceasefire, other smaller factions can be dealt with easily.

“This message by the Grace of Allah, comes directly from the office of Imam Abubakar Shekau, the Supreme Leader of Jamaatul ahlil Sunna lidawati wal Jihad.” Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Communications, Alhaji Isa Gusau, said he could not comment on the involvement of the state government in the ceasefire effort, adding that Governor Kashim Shettima had always believed in dialogue as the better solution to end the lingering crisis. “I am not competent to speak on national security issues. We have a Security Council in Borno State, I am not a member of that council and of course, you know as much you will also agree with me that no governor will speak on such critical security issues.

But I know since Alahaji Kashim Shettima became a governor-elect, he was the first to speak on the need for dialogue as the best way out”, he said.

President Goodluck Jonathan

Reacting to the offer yesterday, the Federal Government said it would only make a pronouncement after it must have critically studied the conditions given by Boko Haram while announcing its unilateral ceasefire. A top government source who doesn’t want to be named, said that government was not in a hurry to jump at the offer being made by the sect.

At the moment, nobody knows how many factions there are of Boko Haram and which ones may take orders from Abdulazeez.

Fake Currency Syndicate Busted in Lagos!

These men were apprehended and paraded at the police head quarters Lagos, on Monday; for printing and seeling fake currency of different denominations to their clients from within and outside Nigeria.

Photos below:

Some of the fake money on display

Fake currency and some of the machines used in printing them

fake currency notes includes: Euro, Pounds, Dollars, etc....,

 Printers used in printing fake currency notes

Brazil fire blamed on 'Out-Door Flares', as mourners call for Justice!!

A fire ignited by a flare from a band’s pyrotechnics spectacle swept through a night club filled with hundreds of university students early on Sunday morning in Santa Maria, a city in southern brazil, killing at least 233 people.  The "fast-moving fire" roared through a crowded, windowless nightclub in southern Brazil, filling the air in seconds with flames and a thick, toxic smoke that killed the 'party goers', many of whom were caught in a stampede to escape.



Health workers hauled bodies from the club, called Kiss, to hospitals in Santa Maria all through Sunday morning. Some of the survivors were taken to the nearby city of Porto Alegre to be treated for burns. 



Inspectors believe the blaze began when a band’s small pyrotechnics show ignited foam sound insulating material on the ceiling, releasing a putrid haze that caused scores of university students to choke to death. Most victims died from smoke inhalation rather than burns in what appeared to be the world’s deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.






Survivors and the police inspector Marcelo Arigony said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club. 



According to eye witness account, security guards had blocked the club door and initially prevented people from escaping because they thought a fight had broken out inside, and that customers would use the opportunity to leave without paying their bar tabs. Only after they realized that a fire was raging inside did the security guards let the crowd go. Brazilian bars routinely make patrons pay their entire tab at the end of the night before they are allowed to leave.

But a reliable source, said the guards didn’t appear to block fleeing patrons for long. ‘‘It was chaotic and it doesn’t seem to have been done in bad faith because several security guards also died,".

fire-fighters responding to the blaze initially had trouble getting inside the Kiss nightclub because ‘‘there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance.

Authorities said band members who were on the stage when the fire broke out later talked with police and confirmed they used pyrotechnics during their show.

Police inspector Sandro Meinerz, who coordinated the investigation at the nightclub, said one band member died after escaping because he returned inside the burning building to save his accordion. The other band members escaped alive because they were the first to notice the fire.

‘‘It was terrible inside — it was like one of those films of the Holocaust, bodies piled atop one another,’’ said Meinerz. ‘‘We had to use trucks to remove them. It took about six hours to take the bodies away.’’

Bodies of the dead and injured were strewn in the street and panicked screams filled the air as medics tried to help. There was little to be done; officials said most of those who died were suffocated by smoke within minutes.

Within hours a community gym was a horror scene, with body after body lined up on the floor, partially covered with black plastic as family members identified kin.

Outside the gym police held up personal objects — a black purse, a blue high-heeled shoe — as people seeking information on loved ones crowded around, hoping not to recognize anything being shown them.

Teenagers sprinted from the scene after the fire began, desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms. Many of the victims were under 20 years old, including some minors. About half of those killed were men, about half women.

The party was organized by students from several academic departments from the Federal University of Santa Maria. Such organized university parties are common throughout Brazil.

The fire has been blamed on 'out-door flares'.