BEIRUT, June 29 (Reuters) – Eight rebel fighters have been crucified in Syria by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) because they were considered too moderate, a monitoring group said on Sunday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on contacts on the ground in Syria, said the men were crucified on Saturday in Aleppo province. It added that their corpses were still on view.
The Observatory said clashes between rival Islamist groups in Syria had killed around 7,000 people since January, as militants from ISIL try to strengthen their grip on territory.
The infighting has complicated the insurgency and drawn in foreign fighters.
ISIL, a radical al Qaeda offshoot group, has captured areas on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border after seizing the Iraqi city of Mosul on June 10 and sweeping towards Baghdad.
In Syria, ISIL has battled with groups such as the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s official Syrian wing, in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad which started with pro-democracy protests but has descended into civil war.
The Observatory, an anti-Assad group which tracks the violence, said the vast majority were killed in explosions, including car bombings and suicide attacks. It monitored the infighting in seven provinces.
It said ISIL had executed the eight men in Aleppo province for belonging to more moderate groups. The men were crucified in the town square of Deir Hafer in eastern Aleppo and would be left there for three days, it said.
The men were accused of being “Sahwa” fighters, the Observatory said, a term ISIL uses to refer to rival combatants whom it accuses of being controlled by Western powers.
ISIL also crucified another man in the province in al-Bab town near the Turkish border, it said. He was pinned up for eight hours as a punishment for giving false testimony but survived the ordeal, the Observatory said.
ISIL, a rebranding of al Qaeda in Iraq which fought American forces during the U.S. occupation, has been disowned by the al Qaeda leadership, partly because of its brutality and indiscriminate attacks.
The group has alienated many civilians and opposition activists by imposing harsh rulings against dissent, even beheading its opponents, in areas it controls.
ISIL follows al Qaeda’s hard-line ideology but draws its strength from foreign fighters, battle-hardened from Iraq.
The military gains by ISIL have highlighted how the conflict in Iraq is intertwined with the civil war in Syria, where more than 160,000 people have been killed.
On Saturday, Islamist rebels fought back in Syria’s border town of Albu Kamal, challenging the hold of ISIL.
ISIL fighters had appeared to be consolidating their hold over Albu Kamal during the week when the local leader of the rival Nusra Front pledged allegiance to them.
ISIL, which wants to create a severe Islamic state that straddles international borders, controls much of Syria’s eastern oil-producing Euphrates River region.
Its lightning gains in Iraq’s Sunni Muslim northern and western provinces over the last three weeks mean ISIL now commands a large cross-border expanse of land. (Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Stephen Powell)
A deadline is approaching in the parole bid of one of New Jersey’s most notorious inmates.
The Asbury Park Press (http://on.app.com/1lBtYX7) reports the public will have until this Wednesday to submit written comments to the state Parole Board on Robert O. Marshall’s attempt to win his freedom.
The former Toms River businessman is eligible for parole this December after spending nearly three decades in prison after being convicted of arranging the murder of his wife in 1984. The case was turned into the book “Blind Faith,” and a television movie.
Maria Marshall was found shot to death in a picnic area along the Garden State Parkway as the couple returned from a night in Atlantic City. Her husband described the incident as a robbery. Prosecutors contended Marshall had his wife murdered so he could collect a $1.5 million life insurance policy.
Robert Marshall was convicted in 1986 and was on death row until 2004 when his death sentence was overturned. The state abolished the death penalty three years later. Marshall’s attempt to have his sentence reduced due to health problems was denied by a judge in 2012.
Last month, prosecutors announced that a man found not guilty of pulling the trigger had confessed that he was indeed the hit man. Larry Thompson, who is incarcerated in Louisiana on other crimes, cannot be retried under double jeopardy rules. Two other men involved in the Marshall case also received jail terms and have since been released.
The Ocean County prosecutor’s office is opposing Marshall’s bid for parole.
Kelly Osbourne got a new tattoo on the side of her head. She debuted her new ink, which says “Stories…,” on Instagram and credited Dr. Woo of Los Angeles’ Shamrock Social Club for his work.
Osbourne’s got tons of tattoos and has spoken about them often. In 2010 she wrote in Closer she was going to remove many of them — 15 in total at that point — and last November she videotaped the removal of a keyboard on her arm.
But yolo took over this time and one side of Osbourne’s shaved head now has something to say.
NEW DELHI (AP) — Police in southern India detained five construction company officials Sunday as rescuers using gas cutters and shovels searched for dozens of workers believed buried in the rubble of a building that collapsed during monsoon rains. It was one of two weekend building collapses that killed at least 22 people.
Nearly 90 contract workers were believed to have been in the basement of the 11-story structure to collect their wages when it collapsed Saturday on the outskirts of Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state. Police said 31 had been pulled out so far, four died on the spot and another seven succumbed to injuries in a hospital.
The exact number of those trapped was unknown but rescuers could hear feeble voices in the debris, said T.S. Sridhar, the disaster management agency commissioner. Officials used gas cutters, iron rods and shovels after cranes lifted concrete blocks to get to the survivors.
“Removing debris is a major challenge. It may take two to three days to clear the rubble,” said S.P. Selvam, who is heading the rescue operation.
Police officer Fernandes said two directors, two engineers and one supervisor of the construction company, Prime Sristi, were detained for questioning as authorities began investigating the collapse.
Balaguru, one of the builders, said the structure collapsed possibly due to the impact of lightning.
“Usually, once the construction gets over we install the equipment to prevent the building from a thunder strike. It was nearing completion,” the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Balaguru, who uses one name, as saying.
Earlier Saturday, 11 people died and one survivor was being treated in a hospital after a four-story, 50-year-old structure toppled in an area of New Delhi inhabited by the poor, said fire service officer Praveer Haldiar.
Most homes in that part of the capital were built without permission and using substandard materials, police officer Madhur Verma said.
Building collapses are common in India, where high demand for housing and lax regulations have encouraged some builders to cut corners, use substandard materials or add unauthorized extra floors.
In April last year, 74 people were killed when an eight-story building being constructed illegally in the Mumbai suburb of Thane in western Maharashtra state caved in. It was the worst building collapse in the country in decades.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel carried out airstrikes on militant targets in the Gaza Strip early Sunday after a rocket attack, the military said, as the country’s foreign minister suggested it consider reoccupying the Hamas-ruled territory to stop the increasing rocket fire.
There has been an increase in rockets launched from the Hamas-ruled territory toward Israel this month, as the army has carried out a wide-ranging operation against Hamas in the West Bank while searching for three Israeli teens who Israel says were abducted by the Palestinian militant group. The military said it targeted 12 locations in Gaza on Sunday, including concealed rocket launchers, weapons manufacturing sites and what it called “terror activity” sites. The airstrikes were in retaliation for six rockets from Gaza that struck Israel the previous evening. Two of the rockets hit a factory in the town of Sderot, setting it ablaze.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said limited operations against militants in Gaza only strengthen Hamas.
“The alternative is clear,” Lieberman said on Army Radio. “Either with each round we attack terror infrastructure and they shoot, or we go to full occupation.”
Israel unilaterally pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, but continues to control access to the territory by air, land and sea. Israeli leaders have said the pullout cleared the way for Hamas to seize control of the territory two years later and turn it into a base for rocket attacks on Israel, but there has been little support for reoccupying the territory.
On Friday, an Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinian militants in Gaza who were members of the Tawhid Brigades, an ultraconservative Islamic militant group unaffiliated with Hamas, according to Palestinian security officials and militants from the group. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters and the militants because they operate underground.
The security officials had initially said the two fighters were members of a militant group allied with Hamas that often fires rockets at Israel.
Since the beginning of June, over 60 rockets have been launched from Gaza toward Israel — more than four times the amount in May — and 28 of the rockets hit Israeli territory, the military said. The crude, makeshift devices rarely wound anyone, but they have caused damage and sown panic in communities along the frontier.
Also on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has asked Israeli authorities to consider outlawing a Muslim group in Israel, following calls in support of abducting Israeli soldiers at a demonstration in an Arab-Israeli town.
“In many cases, those behind such calls and demonstrations are from the northern branch of the Islamic Movement,” Netanyahu said. “It constantly preaches against the state of Israel and its people publicly identify with terrorist organizations such as Hamas.”
Israel has arrested the movement’s leader, Raed Salah, on a number of occasions, banning him from Jerusalem and accusing him of incitement. Salah has called for a third intifada, or Palestinian uprising, against Israel.
In 2003, Israel jailed Salah, an Israeli citizen, for more than two years, saying his organization funneled money to Hamas, which at the time was frequently carrying out deadly suicide bombings in Israel.
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Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank contributed to this report.
Hobby Lobby Is Only The 2nd Most Important Decision SCOTUS Will Hand Down Monday
Posted in: Today's ChiliFrom the day the justices agreed to decide whether employers with religious objections to birth control can refuse to follow a federal rule requiring employer-provided health plans to cover contraception, a broad array of Court watchers have treated the Hobby Lobby litigation as the single most important issue facing the justices this term.
Don’t get caught in a web of bad decisions.
A woman in Hutchinson, Kansas, is charged with arson after police say she set her home on fire during an attempt to kill a spider, the Hutchinson News reports.
Ginny M. Griffith, 34, told officers she used a cigarette lighter to set some towels on fire around 1:30 a.m., Friday. She was hoping to catch the little arachnid with the flaming towels and burn it to death, according to WTSP.
It’s unclear if she ever caught the spider, but the fire that resulted did necessitate intervention from the fire department. Five units were summoned and managed to control the fire, which they said had multiple points of origin, within a matter of minutes.
Griffith’s aggravated arson charge stems from the fact that the other half of the duplex was occupied when the blaze began. No one, besides potentially the spider, was injured in the fire and the building only suffered light smoke damage.
In case anyone was still unaware, fire is not a great method of home pest control. In April, a Florida man burned down his apartment trying to kill bugs with fire.
In 2013, a woman in Texas burned her house down while trying to light a snake on fire with gasoline. And in 2012, a California woman set her house ablaze trying to clear spiderwebs with a blowtorch.
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Meshach Taylor Dead At 67, 'Designing Women' Star Dies After Battle With Cancer
Posted in: Today's ChiliMeshach Taylor, the actor best known for playing Anthony Bouvier on “Designing Women,” died on Saturday, June 29 after a battle with cancer. His agent confirmed the news to the Hollywood Reporter. He was 67.
Taylor died in his family’s home in Altadena, Calif. and his family posted a note on his Facebook page, saying, “It is with love and gratitude that we sorrowfully announce that our darling, amazingly brilliant and dynamic Meshach, the incredible father, husband, son and friend, has begun his grand transition.”
Taylor’s Bouvier was one of the most lovable characters on “Designing Women,” the ’80s sitcom about Atlanta interior designers, and he was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy in 1989. He followed that role with a part on another CBS comedy, “Dave’s World,” about the life of a Miami Herald columnist, Dave Barry. Taylor played Barry’s high school best friend and a local plastic surgeon.
He is also well-known for playing Hollywood Montrose, a window dresser, in 1987’s “Mannequin” and its 1991 sequel. Taylor’s most recent role was in two episodes of CBS’ “Criminal Minds” this year. His small-screen credits include “Buffalo Bill,” “Barney Miller,” “Hill Street Blues,” “The Golden Girls,” “Cagney and Lacey” and “ALF,” and he appeared in films such as “Damien: Omen II,” “The Howling” and “Tranced.”
He is survived by his wife, actress Bianca Ferguson, and his four children.
The Republican House Judiciary Chairman defended a planned lawsuit against President Barack Obama Sunday, saying that Obama has overstepped his constitutional boundaries.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced last week that he plans to sue the Obama administration over its use of executive actions on issues like the federal minimum wage, federal pay discrimination and new EPA regulations.
Obama called the threat of a lawsuit a political “stunt,” and accused congressional Republicans of being aggressively uncooperative.
“They’ve decided to sue me for doing my job,” Obama said during a speech Friday.
Speaking to Fox News’ Chris Wallace on Sunday, House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) offered a flat rebuttal of the president’s remarks.
“Absolutely not. This is all about the United States Constitution,” said Goodlatte. “It’s not about our wanting to stop him from doing his job, it’s our wanting to do the job that the Constitution prescribes … This should be bipartisan, people standing up to protect the balance of power.”
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), who appeared opposite Goodlatte on Wallace’s show, didn’t seem to share the same view.
“The president is simply saying, ‘Congress, if you’re not going to do your job of actually passing laws … I’m going to do what I can within the confines of the law to make things work,'” Becerra told Wallace. “He’s not rewriting the law. He’s simply implementing it.”
Summertime, and the living’s easy … right? Sure, except that there’s almost nothing on TV. Although the “Scandal” and “Game Of Thrones”-free nights ahead may seem endless, we have the perfect solution to your summer TV blues: Catching up on those shows you missed, possibly because you weren’t born yet/were in diapers/didn’t realize what you were missing. Even better, we’ve calculated the approximate amount of time it will take you to watch each of these shows, so you can plan your summer accordingly. Excited yet?
Here are seven oldies but goodies to binge-watch on Netflix.
“Cheers” (1982-1992)
Why you should watch it: Because Ted Danson’s hair was still brown, Woody Harrelson was in his 20s and there’s nothing quite as comforting as hanging out in a Boston bar where everybody knows your name. Plus, once it’s over you can always watch “Frasier.”
Time it’ll take: About 4.5 days.
“Upstairs, Downstairs” (1971-1975)
Why you should watch it: You’re going to have to wait over six months for the return of “Downton Abbey,” so why not dive into some “Upstairs/Downstairs” drama from the ’70s?
Time it’ll take: About 2.5 days.
“The West Wing” (1999-2005)
Why you should watch it: Before there was “Scandal” and “The Newsroom,” there was “The West Wing.” Head back to the late ’90s and early 2000s and spend a few seasons with Martin Sheen and Rob Lowe as they navigate White House affairs. We promise you won’t regret it.
Time it’ll take: Almost 5 days.
“Freaks And Geeks” (1999)
Why you should watch it: It’s only one season long, but “Freaks And Geeks” never gets old. Not only did it launch the careers of Linda Cardellini, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segel and more, but this 1980-set comedy is one of the funniest (and most accurate) depictions of high school ever.
Time it’ll take: A little over 13 hours.
“That ‘70s Show” (1998-2005)
Why you should watch it: It’s hilarious. Plus, Mila Kunis is pregnant with Ashton Kutcher’s baby now, and you get to see a pre-Alex Vause Laura Prepon in action.
Time it’ll take: 3 days.
“Murder, She Wrote” (1984-1995)
Why you should watch it: Who doesn’t love a good mystery and some quality time with Angela Lansbury?
Time it’ll take: About 8.5 days.
“Twin Peaks” (1990)
Why you should watch it: “Twin Peaks” is a classic, and you know you’ve always felt a little embarrassed that you can’t chime in when everyone starts talking about Special Agent Dale Cooper. Hop on the bandwagon!
Time it’ll take: A little over one day.
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