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Iraqi forces have withdrawn from the militant-held northern Iraqi city of Tikrit after a new push to retake the city met heavy resistance, a soldier who fought in the battle said on Wednesday.
Government troops and allied Shi’ite volunteer fighters were forced to retreat just before sunset on Tuesday to a base four kilometres south after coming under heavy mortar shelling and sniper fire, the sources said.
The attempt to retake Tikrit, which fell on June 12 to Sunni insurgents led by the militant Islamic State group, began two-and-a-half weeks ago.
No fighting was reported in Tikrit on Wednesday morning, according to residents.
Tikrit lies 160 km north of Baghdad. It is a stronghold of loyalists of the late dictator Saddam Hussein and ex-army officers who joined forces with Islamic State to take over large parts of north and west Iraq last month.
The military had attacked from the village of Awja, some 8 km south of the city, and the initial fighting on Tuesday occurred in the southern part of the city. The army retook Awja, the birthplace of Saddam, on the night of July 3, and has been trying to push north since.
The Islamic State controls territory immediately to the north of the city. The group posted photos on an affiliated Twitter feed late Tuesday of what it called “the Tikrit battle” of dead fighters from the battle that it referred to as “martyrs” and of tanks and trucks with mounted machine guns flying the trademark black and white Islamist flag.
As we all predicted.
Transcript of Obama’s remarks from White House’s Iftar dinner:
Good evening everyone and welcome to the White House. Every year, our Iftar is a chance to join in fellowship with friends, old and new, and to celebrate the incredible diversity of our great nation. And I want to recognize members of our diplomatic corps who are here — and it’s wonderful to have you back — as well as members of Congress who are joining us here tonight. We have leaders from my administration. And most importantly, we welcome Muslim Americans from across the country. So I want to thank you all for being here — Ramadan Kareem. It’s late. You’re hungry. I will be brief. (Laughter.)
Tonight, we honor the traditions of one of the world’s great faiths. For Muslims, Ramadan is a time to reflect and to remember that discipline and devotion is the essence of a life of faith. And for all of us, whatever our faiths, Ramadan is a reminder of just how much we share. The values of peace and charity, the importance of family and community — these are universal values. The command to love one another, to uphold justice, and to care for the least among us — these are common threads in our faith traditions.
Keep reading…
Update: Looks like someone forgot to read the “Religion of Peace” memo.
At least 89 people have been killed and dozens injured in a suicide attack at a busy market in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province, local officials say.
They say the attacker drove a 4×4 vehicle into the market in Orgun district and detonated the explosives.
The market was full of people doing their shopping for the Muslim festival Ramadan at the time of the attack.
ISIS militants may be in a position to pummel other cities in Iraqi army control after capturing American-made weapons the group seized from the Iraqi military, Mitchell Prothero reports for McClatchy DC.
During ISIS's blitz across northern and central Iraq last month, the group captured upwards of 52 155mm M198 howitzers.
These U.S.-supplied artillery pieces have a range of up to 20 miles and can also be outfitted with GPS aiming systems. The howitzers' range could place Baghdad, as well as many other major Iraqi cities, squarely within bombardment range of ISIS.
Jeremy Binnie, an analyst for British military consultancy HIS Janes, told McClatchy DC that he doubted the Islamists would be able to learn how to use the GPS aiming systems quickly. However, the weapons can fire two rounds a minute and could still cause considerable damage to cities through imprecise fire.
“They shouldn’t have too much trouble shelling large area targets like a city if they have sufficient ammo," Binnie said.
ISIS currently maintains a stronghold in the city of Fallujah, only 40 miles to the west of Baghdad. The group has also made gains to the south of Baghdad in the area Jurf al Sakhar, which is only 13 miles from the Shiite holy city of Karbala.
Three rockets launched from Egypt at the southern Israeli resort of Eilat on Tuesday wounded four civilians, Israeli security officials said.
The said they believed the salvo was fired by Islamist militants in the Egyptian Sinai and meant to upstage Cairo’s efforts to mediate a truce ending a week-old shelling war between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has met Cuba’s ruling Castro brothers at the start of a Latin American tour courting stronger trade and diplomatic ties as Moscow’s relations with the West fester over Ukraine.
Mr Putin laid a wreath at Revolution Square in Havana with Raúl Castro, the communist island’s president, and later met for an hour behind closed doors with his older brother Fidel, the long-time former dictator.
The visit was far from ceremonial as Russia agreed to write off 90 per cent of the impoverished island’s $35 billion (£20 billion) debts to Moscow and announced a series of oil and trade initiatives with its ally, a staunch supporter of Mr Putin during the Ukraine crisis.
In a clear swipe at American dominance of its regional “backyard”, Mr Putin said that Russia was “interested in a strong, economically stable and politically independent, united Latin America that is becoming an important part of the emerging polycentric world order”.
The Russian president was kicking off a five-day Latin American trip that will culminate with a summit of the leaders of the emergent economic powers of the so-called BRICS states – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Mexico is Deliberately Aiding Illegal Aliens
(TPNN) – It no doubt strikes a lot of Americans as odd that a U.S. Marine reservist, Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, a 25 year old California native who had served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, was arrested in March for illegally entering Mexico when he made a wrong turn in Tijuana. Being in possession of registered firearms, about which he informed the customs officials, didn’t help. He is still in jail while awaiting a court judgment.
The fact is that Mexico’s illegal immigration laws are a lot tougher than those of the U.S. Under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to re-enter can be jailed for ten years. Visa violators can be sentenced for six-year terms and Mexicans who help illegal immigrants are considered to be criminals.
It doesn’t end there. Under Mexican law, foreigners can be deported if they are deemed detrimental to “economic or national interests”, violate Mexican law, are not “physically or mentally healthy”, or lack the “necessary funds for their sustenance.” This applies to their dependents as well.
- See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/mexico-deliberately-aiding-illegal-aliens-47905/#sthash.9njBSlqh.dpuf
(TPNN) – It no doubt strikes a lot of Americans as odd that a U.S. Marine reservist, Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, a 25 year old California native who had served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, was arrested in March for illegally entering Mexico when he made a wrong turn in Tijuana. Being in possession of registered firearms, about which he informed the customs officials, didn’t help. He is still in jail while awaiting a court judgment.
The fact is that Mexico’s illegal immigration laws are a lot tougher than those of the U.S. Under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to re-enter can be jailed for ten years. Visa violators can be sentenced for six-year terms and Mexicans who help illegal immigrants are considered to be criminals.
It doesn’t end there. Under Mexican law, foreigners can be deported if they are deemed detrimental to “economic or national interests”, violate Mexican law, are not “physically or mentally healthy”, or lack the “necessary funds for their sustenance.” This applies to their dependents as well.
Russia
launched its first new design of space rocket since the Soviet era
from the northern military site of Plesetsk on Wednesday, aiming to
break its reliance on foreign suppliers as well as the Baikonur
cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The
Angara rocket’s quiet debut was in marked contrast to a live broadcast
of an embarrassing aborted first launch attempt watched by President
Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin.
“Angara
is here!” tweeted Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin after
the successful flight of a rocket that was more than two decades in the
works.
The
new generation rockets – designed to carry a full range of civilian
and military payloads – are a key to Putin’s effort to reform a
once-pioneering space industry hobbled by years of budget cuts and a
brain drain in the 1990s.
The
Angara-1.2PP trial rocket blasted off at 4 p.m. Moscow time on a 21
minute suborbital flight 5,700 km across Russia’s Arctic coast line, the
Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement.
Images
of the pencil-thin Angara-1.2PP trial rocket powered by an orange jet
flame into the cloudy skies were later shown on Russian state
television.
“This
is an entirely new rocket,” Alexander Golovko, commander of Russia’s
Air and Space Defence Forces told the channel. “It has proved its
ability.”
Work
on the Angara began after the break-up of the Soviet Union when Moscow
lost the maker of its Zenit and Dnepr rockets as well as the Baikonur
launch site, based respectively in the newly independent republics of
Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
Moscow (AFP) - Russia has provisionally agreed to reopen a major Cold
War listening post on Cuba that was used to spy on the United States, a
Russian daily reported Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin visited
the island last week.
Kommersant reported that Russia
and Cuba had agreed "in principle" to reopen the Lourdes base,
mothballed since 2001, citing several sources within Russian
authorities.
"The agreements were finalised while President Vladimir Putin visited Havana last Friday," the respected daily wrote.
Russia
had closed the Lourdes spy base south of Havana on Putin's orders to
save money and due to a rapprochement with the United States after the
September 11 attacks.
But
Moscow has since shown a new interest in Latin America and its Cold War
ally Cuba and relations with the West have deteriorated amid the Ukraine
crisis.
The base was set up
in 1964 after the Cuban missile crisis to spy on the United States. Just
250 kilometres (155 miles) from the US coast, it was the Soviet Union's
largest covert military outpost abroad with up to 3,000 staff.
Doctors, teachers and care workers among the suspects, most of whom had not been on the police's radar and had never been arrested for sex offences
Doctors, teachers, care workers and former police officers are among more than 600 suspected pedophiles arrested following a massive nationwide police operation.
The unprecedented investigation, involving every police force in the UK and coordinated by the National Crime Agency (NCA), took six months to complete.
The operation initially targeted people suspected of accessing indecent images of children online, but some of those arrested have now been charged with a wide range of offenses, including serious sexual assault.
A total of 660 people were arrested as part of the operation and spokesman for the NCA said more than 400 children throughout Britain had been safeguarded.
Many of those arrested were people who had access to children in the course of their work.
Mexican police have rescued more than 450 children they believe were abused at a children's home in Zamora in the western state of Michoacan.
They were allegedly subject to sexual abuse and forced to beg on the streets.
The owner, Rosa del Carmen Verduzco, and eight employees at the House of the Big Family have been arrested.
Correspondents say it is one of Mexico's worst incidents of alleged child abuse at a children's institution in many years.
'Utter dismay' The government said the building was home to 278 boys, 174 girls and six infants under the age of three.
ABOARD
THE U.S.S. GEORGE WASHINGTON — Fighter jets roared off an American
aircraft carrier into a gray sky on Wednesday as the United States
kicked off a joint naval exercise off the west coast of the Korean
Peninsula, with the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, calling for
strong punishment if North Korea initiated a military provocation.
The
North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has raised tensions on the divided
peninsula in recent weeks by launching a string of rockets and missiles,
including its Scud-type ballistic missiles, even as his government took
steps toward a possible thaw in relations, like a recent agreement to
send a delegation and cheering squad to the Asian Games in South Korea
this fall.
Mr.
Kim has personally supervised some of these missile tests, which took
place close to the border with the South, according to South Korean
officials and the North Korean news media. While some leaders were
guessing at his intentions, some South Korean analysts feared that the
North might attempt military provocations to raise tensions unless the
South relaxed its hard-line policy and engaged the North with dialogue
and possible economic concessions.
Speaking
to a group of South Korean military leaders, Ms. Park called the North
Korean government so unpredictable that it was impossible to foresee its
behavior “even an inch ahead.” “If they launch a provocation, I ask
you, commanding officers of the military, to retaliate with a strong
initial countermeasure,” Ms. Park said Wednesday.
She also cited international concern that North Korea might attempt another nuclear test.
About
200 nautical miles off the west coast of South Korea, the United States
aircraft carrier George Washington cruised through drizzle as F/A-18
Super Hornet fighter jets screamed off the deck.
Officers
on board said that the jets conducted 108 sorties from the U.S.S.
George Washington on Wednesday alone in an exercise that Rear Adm. Mark
C. Montgomery said was designed to bolster the American and South Korean
forces’ combined “ability to counter maritime special operations force
insertions.”
In
recent years, Mr. Kim has overseen the landing drills of North Korea’s
armed forces, involving hovercraft, as well as test-firings of its
multiple-rocket launchers and artillery amassed near the border with the
South.
WESLACO - A center for unaccompanied minors set to open in Weslaco
later this year will be the first of its kind in the nation, officials
with a network of non-profits said.
BCFS Health and Human Services secured a multi-million federal
contract to house young illegal immigrants at the site of the current
Palm Aire Hotel and Suites on FM 1015.
Representatives with BCFS said the Palm Aire will undergo a multi-million dollar transformation.
BCFS runs a temporary detention center for young illegal immigrants at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
BCFS began as an orphanage for Hispanic children in San Antonio in 1944
"Children ... who weren't able to go into other orphanages. They
weren't allowed at the white orphanages, they weren't allowed at the
African-American orphanages," said Krista Piferrer, with BCFS external
affairs.
The agency has grown into a multi-national network of health and human service non-profit organizations.
"We lead efforts that range from emergency management and disaster
response to serving teens and youths who are aging out of the foster
care system to serving impoverished communities and expectant mothers in
the colonias," Piferrer said.
BCFS said the Weslaco facility will be completely self-contained.
"Our central intake facility at Weslaco will be licensed by the Texas
Department of Family and Protective Services as a child residential
center," Piferrer said.
Piferrer said medical staff will be on hand so children with diseases or injuries will not be transferred to local hospitals.
BCFS has a facility in Harlingen where they employ about 340 people.
The agency applied for a conditional-use permit with the city of
Weslaco. City Manager Leo Olivares said the request has to go through
the regular planning and zoning process. If approved, it will go to the
city commission for a final vote.
The Clinton Foundation and the terror group Hamas share a key donor:
The government of Qatar, a leading backer of terror groups that has
emerged in recent years as Hamas’ chief financial lifeline.
Qatar, which has been designated by the State Department as a
“significant terrorist financing risk,” has pledged more than $400
million to Hamas since 2012 and has long harbored one of the terror
group’s senior leaders, Khaled Mashaal.
At the same time, Qatar has sought to curry favor with elite
Westerners, donating between $1 million and $5 million through 2013 to
the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
The foundation has been dogged by ethical questions over its
willingness to accept money from questionable sources, including
authoritarian regimes such as Kuwait and Oman.
A Clinton Foundation spokesperson did not respond to a Washington
Free Beacon request seeking comment and greater details about Qatar’s
donations to the charity.
The Qatari government’s support for Hamas has greatly buoyed the
financially troubled group, enabling it to build its terror
infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and wage war against Israel, which has
been struck by more than 400 Hamas rockets in the past week.
In the midst of Hamas’ latest rocket attacks on Israel, questions are
being raised again about the political and ethical implications of the
Clinton Foundation’s willingness—and by dint that of likely presidential
hopeful Hillary Clinton—to partner with a government that directly
funds Hamas.
