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A SENIOR LEADER of the al-Qaida- and Taliban-allied Haqqani network has been captured in Afghanistan, Nato officials said today.
Describing it as a “significant milestone” in disrupting the terror group’s operations, Nato said Haji Mali Khan was seized on Tuesday during an operation in eastern Paktia province’s Jani Khel district, which borders Pakistan. It was the most significant capture of a Haqqani leader in Afghanistan, and could dent the group’s ability to operate along the porous border with Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas.
Shortly after the announcement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid denied in a message to Afghan media that Khan had been arrested but provided no evidence that he was free.
Nato described Khan as an uncle of Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani, two of the son’s of the network’s aging leader Jalaludin Haqqani. However, in a recent report on the Haqqani’s by the Institute for the Study of War, Khan appears as a brother in-law to Jalaludin Haqqani.
The Pakistan-based Haqqani network is affiliated with both the Taliban and al-Qaida and has been described as the top security threat in Afghanistan. The group has been blamed for hundreds of attacks, including a 20-hour siege of the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters last month.
Last week, US officials accused Pakistan’s spy agency of assisting the Haqqanis in attacks on Western targets in Afghanistan – the most serious allegation yet of Pakistani duplicity in the 10-year war.
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‘Safe havens’
The United States and other members of the international community have in the past blamed Pakistan for allowing the Taliban, and the Haqqanis in particular, to retain safe havens in the country’s tribal areas along the Afghan border – particularly in North Waziristan.
“He was one of the highest ranking members of the Haqqani network and a revered elder of the Haqqani clan,” NATO said of Khan, adding that he “worked directly under Siraj Haqqani, and managed bases and had oversight of operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Khan also moved forces from Pakistan to Afghanistan to conduct terrorist activity, NATO said. “Jalaluddin Haqqani consistently placed Mali Khan in positions of high importance.”
NATO also said that Khan had in the past year established a militant camp in Paktia and “coordinated the transfer of money for insurgents operations, and facilitated the acquisition of supplies.”
During the operation Tuesday, Khan surrendered without resistance and NATO forces also arrested his deputy and bodyguard, along with a number of other insurgents, the alliance said.
“The Haqqani network and its safe havens remain a top priority for Afghan and coalition forces,” NATO concluded.
The NATO statement said security forces have conducted more than 500 operations so far in 2011 in an effort to disrupt the Haqqani network leadership, resulting in the deaths of 20 operatives and the capture of nearly 300 insurgent leaders and 1,300 suspected Haqqani insurgents.
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Reaction videos for me is one of the worst things the Internet has ever produced. Watching people and listening to their opinions to something they are watching on the Internet is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Terrible shite that needs to be exterminated in 2016.
@Valthebear Indeed.
Catherine Murphy will get my first preference at the next election, which will take place whenever Inda’s football tells him it’s time to call one.
For anyone who doesn’t get the reference, just Google “Enda Kenny Election Football”.
Valthebear and Fiona, I regret to inform both of you that (a) we are in a position to laugh at politics in the US which is much more extreme and awful than in Ireland and (b) that most conservative middle class voters in Ireland would almost certainly be appalled at Trump because he is a crass, over-privileged, spoilt, hypocritical misogynistic moron. I have yet to meet a single Irish person who supports Trump. He built his business on Daddy’s money. He is the antithesis of everything that made America great.
What about irelands very own fox news .. rte … pure right wing blueshirt propaganda at is finest .. lot more subtle than fox but still doing the exact same thing. Time to stop paying the t.v. tax as well
John. If you think Fine Gael are right wing then why on earth are so many people on middle incomes paying an effective tax rate of 52%? Give us a break will you. We haven’t got a right wing economic party in Ireland unfortunately.
They only pay that much on earnings over a certain amount, up to that amount they pay less.. No one is handing over 52% of what they earn after tax free allowances and other tax rebates are taken into consideration.
52% is the marginal rate shanti above a certain level of income so people do reach a point where any additional income they earn is taxed at this rate.
A single person earning €200k and contributing max pension of €34.5k per year comes out with €87,818 of their earnings after tax, prsi and usc. Their taxable earnings €165.5k. Thats not 52%. Bear in mind that pension is the only deduction calculated here, property tax is something else entirely. Source pwc http://download.pwc.com/ie/budget-2016/index.html
Sorry shanti but you’re confusing effective tax rates with marginal tax rates. If someone is already earning an income where they are paying 52% in tax, usc and prsi has the option to earn further income above that then they will receive only 48% of that additional income. Simple fact.
Ok, then I appear to have my definitions confused, they’re still bringing home more of their income than not. Are you saying it makes them not want to take on extra work? Because that could provide an opportunity to employ someone else who may be happy to take on the extra income, gotta be better than unemployment right?
Sorry shanti I actually said effective rate first in my first post when I meant to say marginal rate but the point I’m making is still valid. It may or may not be a disincentive to a higher earner to take on additional work but it isn’t always the case that the work they do can be transferred to someone else to do as you suggest. Either way, government policy should promote innovation and entrepreneurship and high marginal tax rates have a negative impact on these things. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a fair distribution of wealth mind but fairness has to be applied across the board and that includes to higher earners too.
Well I had them confused so it doesn’t matter whether you said the wrong thing earlier anyway! And if you’re talking about entrepreneurs, they get all sorts of other tax rebates and they can pay themselves a wage from their company to reduce their tax liability.. Let’s not kid ourselves here, the more you earn as a self employed individual or even a company director the more loopholes you get to claim back. Unlike a PAYE worker (which is likely why they get a higher tax free allowance, although there’s still less deductions permitted, so the higher the income the more it may not be to your advantage to be PAYE..
John if you think RTE are Ireland’s Fox News then you clearly have never spent time watching that appalling channel where things are said that are utterly unthinkable in Ireland or most other civilised democracies. America is no longer a civilised democracy across whole swathes of its society.
It is a sad reflection on the intelligence of the average Fox viewer that they could listen to such non-factual ignorant bs which is also anti-science and not be repelled. I have met numerous highly informed educated Americans but I have also met numerous educated and Ill informed Americans who would put the most ignorant Irish idiot to shame. I suspect that some of this is down to hubris. Never having been invaded some Americans regard war as an overseas video game.
Please do not compare RTE to Fox. It makes a mockery of language. Thankfully we have no equivalent in either the media or in politics. One reason is that the Irish Government never gave up control of the airwaves and stations and media must abide by some rules. This is not so in the US where President Ronald Reagan sold off the airwaves to capital and there is no requirement whatever for any balance. Fox is pure propaganda. Facts are optional. Orwell would have been proud.
Pres. Reagan killed pluralism in the US and surrendered the State to the interests of corporate capitalism. Ireland is still a largely mainstream European social democracy. America is “exceptional” but increasingly not in a good way.
Fox News is without a doubt the best comedy channel around. I once watched Bill O’Reilly call for the imposition of a dictator in Iraq because the “democratic” government of the criminal puppet that the US had installed wasn’t doing what it was told by Washington. O’Reilly spent years ranting about getting that evil dictator Saddam out and installing democracy and then turns around and with a straight face says that they (the US) should install another dictator!!! Priceless stuff.He also went on to sat that if he was President of Iraq http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/06/19/220256/-O-Reilly-I-d-run-Iraq-the-way-Saddam-did-that-and-more
“President O’Reilly… Curfew in Ramadi, seven o’clock at night. You’re on the street? You’re dead. I shoot you right between the eyes. Ok? That’s how I run that country. Just like Saddam ran it. Saddam didn’t have explosions – he didn’t have bombers. Did he? because if you got out of line, your dead.”
The reporters are clones of each other. They all seem to be in agreement on everything all the time. What good is that to anyone? This publication can’t seem to find anything of any real substance or interest to readers when you take abortion, LGBT, and laughable feminist articles out of the equation. There’s nothing left but a shell.
For a young and upcoming publication with reasonable resources (staff) and an online platform in 2016 it seems to me to be clean out of ideas. All feeling a little like Bebo, and FB will come eventually.
It used to be, 2 or 3 years ago, a handy condensed news app. Now it just can’t help itself promoting agendas and I think it has cost the publication an awful lot.
How come there are now so few contributors of columns for example? There used to be one every 2 hours or so. Now it’a one or 2 a day and less again sometimes. Have people stopped submitting almost entirely? Most of the best comment contributors have long upped and left too.
For a publication that could and should be flourishing it seems to me to be floundering, and floundering badly.
Couldn’t agree more codology. You’ll be swamped with red thumbs in the next few hours though once the lefties zone in on you. Comments like yours cannot be let go unpunished. It’s no wonder that socialists produce as many dictators as right wingers.
Anybody who watches fox news knows its the most right wing republican station you could watch. “fair and balanced” is their motto but only if your right wing
Apologize doesn’t need (sic). It’s right.
I have NO idea why FOX ‘News’ has a licence to broadcast.
It’s there to stir hate and fear and provoke wars so arms dealers can get rich.
Don’t use ‘Freedom of Speech’ to excuse hate groups and war mongers.
America’s worst enemy is its media.
Nobody summarised Murdoch’s tantrum station better than Jim Carrey after he was attacked for criticising American gun culture:
“Since I released my “Cold Dead Hand” video on Funny or Die this week, I have watched Fux News rant, rave, bare its fangs and viciously slander me because of my stand against large magazines and assault rifles. I would take them to task legally if I felt they were worth my time or that anyone with a brain in their head could actually fall for such irresponsible buffoonery. That would gain them far too much attention which is all they really care about.
I’ll just say this: in my opinion Fux News is a last resort for kinda-sorta-almost-journalists whose options have been severely limited by their extreme and intolerant views; a media colostomy bag that has begun to burst at the seams and should be emptied before it becomes a public health issue.
I sincerely believe that in time, good people will lose patience with the petty and poisonous behavior of these bullies and Fux News will be remembered as nothing more than a giant culture fart that no amount of Garlique could cure.
I wish them all the luck that accompanies such malevolence.”
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