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Middle East
ISIL Terrorists Seize Oil
Facility in Northern Iraq
BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – The
ISIL Takfiri terrorists have taken
control of a small crude oil separation unit in northern Iraq.
Two officials from Iraq’s staterun North Oil Co. confirmed that
the militants seized a crude oil
separation unit in Khabbaz complex, located about 20 kilometers
(12 miles) southwest of the city
of Kirkuk on Saturday.
The officials further noted that
15 oil workers are missing after
the facility came under attack and
lost contact with them.
We received a call from one
of the workers saying dozens of
ISIL terrorists were surrounding
the facility and asking workers to
leave the premises, said an engineer from the North Oil Co.
“We lost contact and now the
workers might be taken hostage,”
added the engineer, whose name
was not mentioned in the report.
The complex had been controlled by the Kurdish Peshmerga forces of Iraq’s autonomous region of Kurdistan since
June 2014. The facility, with a
maximum production capacity of
15,000 barrels per day (bpd), was
producing around 10,000 bpd be-
A view of Khabbaz oil facility near the city of Kirkuk, northern Iraq
fore the attack.
On Friday, ISIL attacked Peshmerga forces southwest of
Kirkuk, seizing some areas.
The Takfiri terrorists have captured several oil fields in Iraq
and neighboring Syria. They use
Chuck Hagel says the US may need to use non-combat troops in
Iraq to gather intelligence on ISIL.
“I think it may require a forward
deployment of some of our troops
...,” the outgoing military official
told CNN on Friday. “I would say
we’re not there yet. Whether we
get there or not, I don’t know.”
These non-combat troops might
be needed to play certain roles
including gathering intelligence
and spotting ISIL terrorists, said
Hagel who announced his resignation under pressure in November.
We need these troops not for
“fighting” or “combat” but “to
help airstrike precision... locate.
Those are things where we could
continue support.”
“It could be necessary,” Hagel
Army Find, Detonate Bomb
in North Lebanon
BEIRUT (FNA) – Lebanese
Armed Forces (LAF) found and detonated a bomb next to the Majdlaya-Qoubba highway on the outskirts
of the Northern town of Tripoli.
LAF in a statement said that
the four-kilogram bomb was discovered during a night patrol in
the Zgharta district, the Lebanese
National News Agency (NNA) reported.
“The patrol also found metal
pieces next to the bomb which
was set to explode by a timer,” the
LAF added.
CIA...
(Continued From Page One)
The newspaper said that during the Iraq war, the Bush administration
had approved a list of operations aimed at Hezbollah, and according to
one official, this included approval to target Mughniyeh.
“There was an open license to find, fix and finish Mughniyeh and anybody affiliated with him,” a former U.S. official who served in Baghdad
told the Post.
According to the newspaper, American intelligence officials had been
discussing possible ways to target the Hezbollah commander for years,
and senior U.S. Joint Special Operations Command agents held a secret
meeting with the head of the occupying regime of Israel’s military intelligence service in 2002.
“When we said we would be willing to explore opportunities to target
him, they practically fell out of their chairs,” a former U.S. official told
the Post.
Though it is not clear when the agencies realized Mughniyeh was living in Damascus, a former official told the newspaper that the Zionist
regime had approached the CIA about a joint operation to kill him in
Syria’s capital.
The agencies collected “pattern of life” information about him and used
facial recognition technology to establish his identity after he walked out
of a restaurant the night he was killed.
(Continued From Page One)
revenues from illegal oil sales to
fund their terrorist activities.
ISIL started its campaign of terror in Iraq in early June 2014.
The heavily-armed militants took
control of the city of Mosul before sweeping through parts of
the country’s Sunni Arab heartland.
Iraqi soldiers, police units,
Kurdish forces, Shia volunteers
and Sunni tribesmen have recently succeeded in driving the terrorists out of some areas in Iraq.
US May Need Ground Troops in Iraq
fense Secretary Chuck Hagel says
the Pentagon may have to use noncombat troops on ground in Iraq to
fight the ISIL Takfiri terrorists.
7
U.S....
Hagel:
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US De-
FEBRUARY 1, 2015
According to the army, a military
expert detonated the bomb on location on Friday night because it
was too risky to move it.
On January 14, a General Security unit found a 30-kilogram bomb
in the Northern city of Tripoli. Another 10-kilogram bomb was also
found in Tripoli that same day.
Tripoli was hit by a double suicide bombing on January 11,
which killed nine and wounded
more than 50 at a crowded café
in the neighborhood of Jabal
Mohsen.
said. “It could be, but I’m not
willing to say that it will be necessary.”
Hagel went on to say that President Barack Obama has told both
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander
of US Central Command, to approach him if they think it is
necessary to resort to military options in the fight against ISIS in
Iraq and Syria.
The ISIL terrorists, who were
initially trained by the CIA in
Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the
Syrian government, are engaged
in crimes against humanity in the
areas under their control.
They have been carrying out
horrific acts of violence such as
public decapitations and crucifixions against all communities,
including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds,
and Christians.
ISIL started its campaign of terror in Iraq in early June 2014.
The heavily-armed militants took
control of Mosul before sweeping
through parts of the country.
Afghan Protest Against
Charlie Hebdo Goes
Violent, 2 Killed
KABUL (Press TV) – At least two
people have reportedly been killed
and two dozen more injured during
violent demonstrations in Afghanistan over sacrilegious cartoons of
the Prophet Mohammad published
by the French magazine, Charlie
Hebdo.
Large crowds of protesters poured
onto the streets of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday to denounce
the weekly.
Several demonstrators carried
banners and placards reading,
“Death to France” and “Death to
the enemies of Islam.”
The participants denounced Western media for spreading Islamophobia and hostility against Muslims.
The protest turned violent when
the riot police tried to disperse angry demonstrators. Police reportedly fired shots in the air and at
stone-throwing protesters.
Local media quoted witnesses as
saying that at least two people were
killed and several others injured
during the violent clashes between
police and the protesters.
However, Kabul police chief, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, has denied reports of the deaths, saying 24 people, including several policemen
were injured during the clashes.
Kabul deputy police chief, Gul
Agha Rohani, rejected the accounts
that police used live ammunition to
break up the demonstration, saying, “The protesters were throwing
stones at the police, and the police
fired some shots in the air to stop
the protesters.”
Muslims across the Middle East,
Africa, South Asia and other regions have been outraged by the
most recent publication of sacrilegious sketches of the Prophet Mohammad by Charlie Hebdo.
The French weekly has repeatedly
provoked Muslim anger by publishing such offensive cartoons.
On January 14, the magazine,
whose Paris office was attacked
by two gunmen on January 7, once
again published a cartoon of the
Prophet on the cover of its new edition despite warnings that the move
is provocative.
the assistance of some CIA officers during his investigation.
There also is a wealth of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Diego
Garcia was used in the so-called rendition program.
There have been reports that an Al-Qaeda terrorist known as Hambali,
who was suspected of involvement in the 2002 Bali bombing in which
202 people died, was taken to Diego Garcia to be interrogated following his capture in August 2003. A report in Time magazine quoted a regional intelligence official as saying he was being interrogated there two
months after his detention.
An American detention facility of some sort is known to exist on Diego
Garcia. In 1984 a review by the U.S. government’s general accounting
office of construction work on the atoll reported that a detention facility
had been completed the previous December. According to answers given
to parliamentary questions, British military officials – who are nominally
in command of the atoll – re-designated another building as a prison
three months after the September 11 attacks.
In the past, Tony Blair, as prime minister, and Jack Straw, as foreign
secretary, both denied the use of the atoll during the rendition program,
but these denials were contradicted by David Miliband, one of Straw’s
successors, who told parliament in February 2008 that information had
“just come to light” to show that two rendition flights stopped there to
refuel.
That statement was made after human rights organizations obtained
flight data showing that two aircraft closely involved in the CIA’s rendition program had flown into and out of Diego Garcia.
A number of sources in the U.S. have said there were a number of references to the CIA’s use of Diego Garcia in the report on the agency’s use
of torture that was published last month by the US Senate intelligence
committee.
Since then the UK Foreign Office has evaded a series of media inquiries
about Diego Garcia and about the report, and has instead responded with
a stock response.
Asked about Wilkerson’s comments, a spokesperson issued the same
statement: “The U.S. government has assured us that apart from the two
cases in 2002 there have been no other instances in which U.S. intelligence flights landed in the UK, our overseas territories, or the crown
dependencies with a detainee on board since 11 September 2001.”
The Foreign Office has also performed a number of twists and turns
when asked questions about the fate of flight and immigration records
relating to Diego Garcia.
Last July the Foreign Office minister Mark Simmonds told Andrew Tyrie, the Tory MP who has been investigating the UK’s involvement in the
rendition program for almost a decade, that daily records were “incomplete” due to water damage.
The following day, however, a Foreign Office official was photographed
in Whitehall carrying a batch of emails that showed that Scotland Yard
detectives had taken possession of “monthly log showing flight details”
and “daily records (obscured) month of alleged rendition”.
A few days later, Simmonds told MPs that “previously wet paper records have been dried out”, and that “no flight records have been lost as
a result of the water damage”.
Two months after that, the Foreign Office told the Commons foreign
affairs committee that a number of immigration records relating to civilians landing on Diego Garcia “have been damaged to the point of no
longer being useful”.