This is a pretty sobering statistic.   Last week in response to continued terrorist attacks in the Sinai region, Egypt began to widen the border between Gaza and Egypt.  A “buffer zone” is being built and homes on the border are being removed.  A “border wall” is currently being considered.
So far around 200 homes have been bulldozed or destroyed as Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi and his government begin the process.  Of the 200 homes removed, 78 have been found to house tunnels from Egypt into Gaza, that’s 39%.  These tunnels are used by Hamas to smuggle arms and rockets into the Gaza strip – the target of the rockets is Israel.

EGYPT – North Sinai Governor General Abdel-Fattah Harhour said owners of houses on the border line with the Gaza Strip will not receive any compensation for their demolished houses if smuggling tunnels were discovered inside their homes.
“The number of these homes whose owners will not receive compensation is 78, no compensation because these houses have smuggling tunnels,” he told local CBC television.
On Wednesday, the army began demolishing homes along the border line with the Gaza Strip to create a buffer zone which aims at preventing weapons smuggling. (more…)

LIBYA – Dozens of residents of a town in eastern Libya have pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of Islamic State militants fighting in Syria and Iraq, according to a video and a resident.
Around 50 young people could be seen in a video posted on social media gathering in Derna to support Baghdadi, who calls himself “caliph”, or Muslim leader, of Islamic State, an Al Qaeda offshoot.

A Derna resident confirmed the authenticity of the video, taken late on Friday. (more…)

Almost worse than my severe disdain for President Obama’s short-sighted political decisions, is my supernova level dislike for the U.S. media who refuse to call him to task.... almost.   To retain my own personal sense of center I have tried to remove the word “hate” from my psyche, but it’s hard, really, really hard, right now…. can you just imagine the Fallujah ROE with Obama coordinating from the White House! 

(h/t Weasel Zippers – Via Hot Air) Fallujah. Ramadi. Haditha. Americans know the names of the cities and assets in Iraq’s Anbar Province well. Their liberation was paid for in American blood. […]
“U.S. advisers currently operate in areas around Baghdad and Irbil in the north of the country,” CNN reported. “The new proposal would put U.S. troops in the middle of some of the most violent situations in Iraq.”

U.S. officials maintain that Iraqi support for Sunni tribes going on the offensive against ISIS will be a necessary part in the effort to defeat the militants, who are also called ISIL and refer to themselves as the Islamic State.
In a news conference with reporters Thursday, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs chairman, signaled the possibility of the new role when he said the Iraqi government had not yet requested U.S. military support in efforts to defend a Sunni tribe that has suffered mass executions at the hands of ISIS militants.

“That’s why we need to expand the train-advise-and-assist mission into the Al- Anbar Province,” Dempsey said. “But the precondition for that is that the government of Iraq is willing to arm the tribes. […] (more…)

WASHINGTON – Deputy National Security Adviser and MFA in creative writing Ben Rhodes likened an Iranian nuclear deal to Obamacare in a talk to progressive activists last January, according to audio obtained by the Washington Free Beacon (below).
The remarks, made at a since-discontinued regular meeting of White House personnel and representatives of liberal interest groups, reveal the importance of a rapprochement with Iran to President Obama, who is looking to establish his legacy as his presidency enters its lame-duck phase.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/174586449″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
(more…)

More angst for the White House as the Ennahda party was the recipient of Obama’s affection when their islamist ideology took power in 2011.

TUNISIA – Tunisia’s secularist party Nidaa Tounes has won 85 seats in the country’s parliament following Sunday’s elections, official results show.
The governing Islamist Ennahda party won 69 seats in the 217-seat chamber. The official results confirm earlier predictions and Ennahda officials have already urged Nidaa Tounes to form an inclusive government.
Tunisia’s transition to democratic rule after a 2011 revolt has been hailed as a regional success story.  The revolt was the first and least violent of the Arab Spring uprisings against autocratic governments across the region. (more…)

For all intents and purposes Libya is the forgotten mess created by President Obama’s team and their insufferable incompetence.   Perhaps a time will surface when someone in the Western media will actually call Obama or Hillary Clinton to account for the mess they have created, but it doesn’t seem likely.

Imagine if Islamists were raging a power struggle throughout Canada while a Russian armed civil war was taking place in Mexico ~ imagine the position of our country in the face of such a problem.  That’s the analogy to a situation faced by Egypt as a consequence of our 2011 action, ISIS in Syria (with their eyes on Jordan), and neighboring Libya simultaneously in a civil war.
It’s easy to cast aspersions to the heavy-handed decision making of Fatah el-Sisi as he deals with the Sinai highway between Hamas (East) and the Muslim Brotherhood factions, which include ISIS, (West) along his borders with Gaza and Libya respectively.

President Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Susan Rice and Samantha Power deconstructed the governing authority of Libya under the auspices of a “Responsibility to Protect“.   All of those “good intentions” went to a land of perpetual FUBAR once Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed and it all, well, needed to be brushed under the proverbial rug. (more…)

YOU BREAK IT – YOU OWN IT

ISIS is active in Libya under the new assembly of “Libyan Dawn”; a collective of groups formerly within the various islamist Libyan Fighting Groups.  ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood financed, supported and evolved the various militia factions into this central body, Libyan Dawn, to defeat the extremely weak Libyan National Government.

Libya – Factional warfare in Libya is pushing the oil producer “very close to the point of no return”, the UN special envoy to the country said on Tuesday with efforts to bring about a ceasefire and political dialogue showing no result.
The death toll from two weeks of street fighting between pro-government forces and Islamist armed groups in the eastern city of Benghazi has risen to 170, medics said. Seven people were killed alone on Tuesday, 15 on Monday.
The North African country has had two governments and parliaments since a militia group from the western city of Misrata seized the capital Tripoli in August, setting up its own cabinet and assembly. (more…)

You only need to read the following paragraph to spot the intents and motives of the third grade teacher for Harold McCormick Elementary School teacher in Elizabethton, Tennessee:

…”The teacher also told Sommer [parent] that her son was not supposed to take the Nation of Islam handout home. It was supposed to stay in the classroom. That bit of news caused her great alarm”….

What type of school handout could elicit the teacher’s aversion to sunlight?  This kind:

George Washington:  “enslaved 350 Africans.  His home state of Virginia was the prime breeder of black people for the domestic slave trade, and at one point the state exported at least 6,000 black people annually .. It’s biggest “cash crop”.

(more…)

Last week a U.S. journalist, Serena Shim, was murdered in Turkey for exposing the truth of Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan allowing and facilitating ISIS militants going to and from Turkey into strategic positions around Kobane (Kobani).
Now an independent journalist team have used video to show Turkish police and military meeting with ISIS militants on the Turkish border.

Obviously the brutal reality of this expose’ is dangerous to Erdogan’s deceptive claims to the contrary. (more…)

We were wondering why the White House put out last week’s meeting of the National Security Council so quickly – they never do that, ever.  Reading this lengthy Politico article the urgent optics now make sense…. there’s always a reason with this crew.

(Via Politico) When President Obama, after months of equivocation over how to respond to the takeover of parts of Iraq and Syria by radical militants, announced in September that the United States would “lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” the White House swung quickly into action, sending proposed legislation to train and equip Syrian rebels to Capitol Hill that same day.
Unfortunately, the White House failed to consult with the Pentagon—which would be doing most of the rolling back—on the timing or details of the announcement. (more…)