Mexican Police Nab Drug Kingpin Hector Beltran Leyva

In a joint operation, police and soldiers nabbed Beltran Leyva on Wednesday at a seafood restaurant in the central town of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato state, Criminal Investigations Agency director Tomas Zeron said

MEXICO CITY – Mexican police and soldiers have arrested suspected drug kingpin Hector Beltran Leyva, who is accused of running a drug network that for years smuggled vast amounts of cocaine from South America to the United States and Europe, authorities said.

In a joint operation, police and soldiers nabbed Beltran Leyva on Wednesday at a seafood restaurant in the central town of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato state, Criminal Investigations Agency director Tomas Zeron said.

Not a single shot was fired.

Unlike other Mexican drug lords, Beltran adopted a low-key lifestyle and avoided ostentatious displays of wealth such as fancy cars, pretending to be a normal businessman involved in real estate and art dealing.

But Zeron said that in fact the suspect headed up the so-called Beltran Leyva cartel, which he ran along with his brothers after the group split off from the notorious Sinaloa cartel in 2009.

Hector took over the organization after his brother and the cartel’s then-chief, Arturo, died in a shootout with Mexican marines in late 2009.

Zeron said Beltran was one of Mexico’s most-wanted drug barons and that the Mexican and U.S. governments had been offering rewards of $2.3 million and $5 million, respectively, for information leading to his capture.

Along with the narcotics charges, Beltran Leyva’s gang is accused of numerous counts of murder, kidnapping and torture carried out in central Mexico, and he is also wanted in the United States on arms and ammunition-smuggling charges.

Georgian man stabs sister for not wearing hijab

TBILISI, DFWatch–A man from Pankisi Gorge stabbed his sister in the chest with a knife for refusing to wear a hijab.

The brother, 35, inflicted 7 wounds on his 33 year old sister, a former police officer.

Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge is located in the northeast of the country. The majority here are Kists, a subgroup of Chechens adhering to the Sunni branch of Islam.

The wounded woman underwent emergency surgery at the local hospital. His brother was arrested and is under investigation for attempted murder.

Seyphullah al-Shishani as he was hit by a shell. (Warning: disturbing images.)

The stabbed woman worked for several years as a police officer at Duisi police station, but left in February to start working at the local school administration. According to some locals, the woman left the police under pressure from her brother.

Neither family members nor relatives are eager to comment on the issue openly in this small but extremely closed community. According to some account the perepetrator has mental problems.

Pankisi Gorge, the home of approximately 7,000 Kists, in the last two decades witnessed the spread of radical Islam – Wahhabism, or Salafism especially among the youth, which is gradually replacing traditional Islam.

This leads to conflict between old and new generations, since the former follow adat; a traditional, moderate Islam and code of conduct widespread among many ethnic groups in Caucasus.

This conflict has come to the surface in Duisi, the administrative center of the Pankisi valley, where moderate and radical Muslims attend different mosques.

During a visit to the valley in December, 2013, DFWatch was told by elderly people that 80-90 percent of the youth are following Wahhabism, which was their biggest worry.

In Duisi, there was also a prevalence of bearded young men, dressed in specific orthodox style. Although many people there have a more moderate lifestyle, the rise of radicalism is quite visible and the prominence of Pankisi men among top ranks of Middle Eastern terrorists is proof of this.

Some of the most infamous Islamist leaders among groups active in the Middle East came from Pankisi Gorge. One of them, Tarkhan Batirashvili, aka Abu Umar al-Shishani, is head of the military wing of the Islamic State in Syria, though also actively participating in hostilities in Iraq; another one is Murad (Muslim) Margoshvili, aka Muslim al-Shishani, commander of the Junud al-Sham group, affiliated with the al-Nursa front, an official branch of al-Qaeda in Syria, and designated as terrorists by the United States.

There are no exact figures on how many Kists from Pankisi are fighting in the Middle East. Accounts range from as little as ‘several dozens’ to ‘hundreds’.

According to Kakheti Information Center (ick.ge), six men from Pankisi have died in the Syria war so far. One of them is another prominent field commander, Ruslan Machalikashvili, a.k.a. Seyphullah al-Shishani who was hit by a shell last February (see video).

Member delivering food to the quarantined Texas family

A photo posted to Twitter by New York Post web editorial assistant Connor Ryan shows an unprotected family member delivering food to the quarantined Texas family of the Liberian man hospitalized with Ebola.

NBC News cameraman has Ebola, network reports

ISIS Beheads 7 Men and 3 Women in Syria

Militant Islamist fighters parade on military vehicles along the streets of northern Raqqa province, Syria, June 30, 2014. Militant Islamist fighters held a parade in Syria's northern Raqqa province to celebrate their declaration of an Islamic "caliphate" after the group captured territory in neighbouring Iraq, a monitoring service said. The Islamic State, an al-Qaida offshoot previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

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Terror group ISIS has beheaded seven men and three women in Syria as part of a campaign to scare locals to drop their resistance against the Islamic militants' advances. U.S.-led airstrikes have meanwhile hit an ISIS stronghold near the Syria-Iraq border.

"I don't know why they were arrested or beheaded. Only the Islamic State knows why. They want to scare people," said Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Reuters reported.

Ebola outbreak: '80 monitored' in Dallas, Texas

Texas health officials are monitoring as many as 80 people for Ebola after a man was diagnosed with the disease in Dallas, officials have told US media.

About 12-18 people, including five children, had contact with Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, who is in a serious condition in hospital.

The larger number includes individuals who had contact with those people.

Four of Mr Duncan's relatives have been ordered to stay home and not receive visitors until 19 October.

In a statement, Texas health officials said a "strict public health control order is needed to ensure compliance".

"This order gives us the ability to monitor the situation in the most meticulous way," Dr David Lakey, Texas health commissioner, said.

Dallas County Health and Human Services spokeswoman Erikka Neroes told CNN that about 80 people in the area - the patient's contacts and people with whom they had contact - were being monitored for signs of the illness.

A private security guard patrols the Ivy Apartments, where Mr Duncan was staying before being brought to hospital

The disease, which is not contagious until symptoms appear, is spread via close contact with bodily fluids.

Mr Duncan is thought to have contracted the virus in Liberia.

The Liberian national came to the US nearly two weeks ago to visit relatives and he is the first man to be diagnosed with Ebola while in the US.

Five young children who were in contact with him have been told to stay home from school.

#Ebola? Two Liberian Muslims Went Missing in Virginia

OCTOBER 1, 2014 BY CHARLES C. JOHNSON 1 COMMENT

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Is Virginia Beach the scene of the next outbreak?

Two Muslim Arab men in their twenties went missing from a Liberian freighter that docked in Virginia earlier this week, Gotnews.com has learned.

Liberia is the epicenter of a Ebola stricken area. Local law enforcement as well as federal law enforcement are on the hunt for the Muslim men, according to Gotnews.com sources in local and Department of Homeland Security.

“When they checked the passenger manifest the two men were gone,” our former law enforcement source told us. “An alert has gone out to all law enforcement in the area.”

Two law enforcement sources in Virginia have confirmed that the status of the hunt is law enforcement personnel only.

Gotnews.com will report more as we learn it.