A combined team of military and police led by the the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Iddrisu Musah Superior on Monday stormed some forest reserves in the metropolis to smoke out suspected marijuana smokers.

The move forms part of the assembly’s agenda to ensure that social vices are reduced in the Tamale Metropolis which is one of the hotspots in the Northern Region.

Iddrisu Musah Superior at press briefing declared zero tolerance for marijuana smoking, commercial sex trade, and open defecation among other social vices.

“It is against the law to smoke marijuana, and as a responsible lead officer of the metropolis, I have a responsibility to mobilize the rest of the metropolis to defeat this especially when we have the younger children engaging in it. Children between the ages of 14 and 17 are engaging in the use of marijuana and they are basically housed in the forest reserves.”

“We are not arresting them, but to remove them from danger, rehabilitate and support some of them to go back to school.”

He said chiefs, opinion leaders and the clergy in the metropolis, are strongly behind the operation of the combined team of law enforcement agencies in collaboration with the Assembly’s Task-Force.

He served notice that the Assembly will no longer tolerate the smoking of marijuana in the open by October 31, 2017.

“So from the 31st of October, we are asking every ‘wee’ smoking gang within the metropolis to stop otherwise we will come heavily after you, you will be prosecuted or issued a heavy fine.”

Musah Superior also warned that, “Sex trade is illegal, and we don’t want it in Tamale. I will come heavily on people who are engaged in sex trade and people who are engaging people to do sex trade.”

He implored the clergy to condemn such social vices in the Mosques and Churches.

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By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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He added destroying the militant group will take time because of the power vacuum in Syria, the abundance of battle hardened fighters that grew out of al-Qaeda in the Iraqi war, and the need to build coalitions, including with local Sunni communities.

Islamic State released a video on Tuesday showing the beheading of the U.S. journalist, the second American hostage to be killed within weeks, in retaliation for U.S. air strikes in Iraq.

“The bottom line is this, our objective is clear and that is to degrade and destroy (Islamic State) so that it’s no longer a threat not just to Iraq but also the region and to the United States,” Obama told a news conference.

“Whatever these murderers think they will achieve with killing innocent Americans like Steven, they have already failed,” Obama said. “They failed because, like people around the world, Americans are repulsed by their barbarism. We will not be intimidated.”

U.S and British officials both examined the video, showing the same British-accented executioner who appeared in an Aug. 19 video of the killing of U.S. journalist James Foley, concluding it was authentic.

The United States resumed air strikes in Iraq in August for the first time since the pullout of U.S. troops in 2011 and Obama said the strikes are already proving effective.

“Those that make the mistake of harming Americans will learn that we will not forget and that our reach is long and that justice will be served,” he said.

“This is not going to be a one-week or one-month or six month proposition because of what’s happened in the vacuum of Syria, as well as the battle hardened elements of (Islamic State) that grew out of Al Qaeda in Iraq during the course of the Iraq war … it’s going to take time for us to be able to roll them back.”

The White House said late on Tuesday that Obama was sending three top officials — Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco — to the Middle East “in the near-term to build a stronger regional partnership” against Islamic State militants.

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Source: Reuters

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Obama, in his most significant response yet to the crisis, said he approved “targeted” use of air power to protect U.S. personnel if Islamic State militants advance further toward Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, or threaten Americans anywhere in the country.

He said air strikes, which would be the first carried out by the U.S. military in Iraq since its withdrawal in 2011, could also be used if necessary in support of Iraqi and Kurdish forces trying to break the Islamists’ siege of a mountaintop where tens of thousands of civilians are trapped.

“Earlier this week, one Iraqi in the area cried to the world, ‘There is no one coming to help’,” said Obama, who had been reluctant to deepen U.S. military re-engagement in Iraq.

“Well, today America is coming to help.”

In late-night remarks televised from the White House to a war-weary American public, Obama insisted he would not commit ground forces and had no intention of letting the United States “get dragged into fighting another war in Iraq.”

Obama took action amid international fears of a humanitarian catastrophe engulfing tens of thousands of members of Iraq’s minority Yazidi sect driven out of their homes and stranded on Sinjar mountain under threat from rampaging militants of Islamic State, an al Qaeda splinter group.

Many Iraqi Christians have also fled for their lives.

“We can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide,” said Obama, who described the militants as “barbaric.”

Obama was responding to urgent appeals from Iraqi and Kurdish authorities to help halt Islamic State’s relentless advance across northern Iraq and to deal with the unfolding humanitarian crisis.

However, questions were quickly raised in Washington about whether selective U.S. attacks on militant positions and humanitarian airdrops would be enough to shift the balance on the battlefield against the Islamist forces.

“I completely support humanitarian aid as well as the use of air power,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted after Obama’s announcement. “However the actions announced tonight will not turn the tide of battle.”

Black Flag Over Checkpoint

The reason for U.S. alarm was clear.

Reuters photographs on Thursday showed what appeared to be Islamic State fighters controlling a checkpoint at the border area of the Kurdistan, little over 30 minutes’ drive from Arbil, a city of 1.5 million that is headquarters of the Kurdish regional government and many businesses.

The fighters had raised the movement’s black flag over the guard post. However, a Kurdish security official denied that the militants were in control of the Khazer checkpoint. The regional government said its forces were advancing and would “defeat the terrorists,” urging people to stay calm.

Obama, who has carefully avoided direct involvement in most other recent Middle Eastern crises, made clear that preventing a humanitarian catastrophe and averting the threat to American lives and interests in Kurdistan were ample justification for the use of U.S. military power.

However, seeking to keep some pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Obama insisted on the need for an Iraqi government that “represents the legitimate interests of all Iraqis” in order to reverse the militants’ momentum.

With the refugees on the mountaintop desperately short of food, water and medicine, U.S. aircraft began dropping emergency aid in the area shortly before Obama spoke on Thursday.

“When we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye,” Obama said.

The Defense Department said U.S. planes dropped 72 bundles of supplies, including 8,000 ready-to-eat meals and thousands of gallons of drinking water for threatened civilians near Sinjar.

It said the planes flew from several air bases in the region and included one C-17 and two C-130 transport planes escorted by two F/A-18 Hornet fighter planes. They were over the drop area for less than 15 minutes, flying at low altitude.

“We intend to stay vigilant and take action if these terrorist forces threaten our personnel or facilities anywhere in Iraq, including our consulate in Arbil and our embassy in Baghdad,” Obama said.

He sent in a small number of U.S. military advisers in June to help the Iraqi government’s efforts to fend off the Islamist militant offensive but he was reluctant to take direct military action. He had put the onus on Maliki, a Shi’ite Muslim, to form a more inclusive government to help defuse the crisis.

Washington’s calculus appeared to shift after Islamic State, which routed the Iraqi military in the north and seized a broad swath of territory in recent months, made recent gains against Kurdish forces and moved toward Arbil.

The decision on air strikes came after urgent deliberations by a president who won the White House in 2008 on a pledge to disentangle the United States from the long, unpopular Iraq war.

Until this week, most of Kurdistan had been protected by its own armed forces, called the peshmerga. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fleeing the Islamists, including Christians, Yazidis and others, have taken refuge in the Kurdish area.

The Islamic State’s Sunni Muslim militants have swept across northwestern Iraq in recent weeks. The Islamic State views as infidels Iraq’s majority Shi’ites and minorities such as Christians and Yazidis, a Kurdish ethno-religious community.

Sunni militants captured Iraq’s biggest Christian town, Qaraqosh, prompting many residents to flee in fear that they would be subjected to the same demands they made in other captured areas: leave, convert to Islam or face death.

International Condemnation

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply appalled” by the attacks by Islamic State militants. The U.N. Security Council condemned the group and called on the international community to support the Iraqi government.

French President Francois Hollande’s office said after he spoke by telephone with Kurdistan president Masoud Barzani that Paris was prepared to support forces engaged in the defense of Iraqi Kurdistan. It did not say how.

A senior U.S. official said Washington was expediting military assistance to Kurdish peshmerga troops.

Shares in energy companies operating in Iraqi Kurdistan plummeted on news of the sweeping Islamist advance toward oilfields in the region.

The militants inflicted a humiliating defeat on Kurdish forces in the weekend sweep, prompting tens of thousands of Yazidis to flee. A Kurdish government security adviser said its forces had staged a tactical withdrawal.

The Kurdish Regional Government’s Ministry of Interior said in a statement that “our victory is close.”

Some of the many thousands trapped on Sinjar mountain have been rescued in the past 24 hours, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, adding that 200,000 had fled the fighting.

Many of the displaced urgently need water, food, shelter and medicine, he said before the U.S. airdrops began. A spokesman for the U.N. agency for children said many on the mountain were suffering from dehydration and at least 40 children had died.

Yazidis are regarded by the Islamic State as “devil worshippers” and risk being executed by militants seeking to establish an Islamic empire and redraw the Middle East map.

The plight of fleeing Christians prompted Pope Francis to appeal to world leaders to help end what the Vatican called “the humanitarian tragedy now under way” in northern Iraq.

The Islamic State poses the biggest threat to Iraq’s integrity since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Its fighters and their Sunni allies also control a big chunk of western Iraq.

The group has deepened sectarian tensions, pushing Iraq back to the dark days of the civil war that peaked in 2006-2007 under U.S.-led occupation.

The Islamic State’s gains have prompted Maliki to order his air force to help the Kurds, whose reputation as fearsome warriors was called into question by their defeat.

Critics blame Maliki for Iraq’s crisis, accusing him of promoting the interests of fellow Shi’ites at the expense of Sunnis. Heavily armed Sunni tribes support the Islamic State, although they do not share its ideology.

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Source: Reuters

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“We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values,” Obama told a White House news conference.

Obama’s comment was a reaffirmation of his decision to ban the use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding shortly after he took office in January 2009.

The administration of President George W. Bush, Obama’s predecessor, authorized the use of harsh questioning techniques of militant detainees in the wake of the 9/11 attacks after deciding they did not amount to torture. Obama told reporters the techniques were used because the United States was afraid more attacks were imminent.

“It’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had,” he said. “A lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.”

Obama also said he had full confidence in CIA Director John Brennan despite a revelation the agency spied on a U.S. Senate committee investigating its interrogation techniques.

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Source: Reuters

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Mr Obama told those gathered it was a “sacred place of healing and of hope”.

The National September 11 Memorial Museum includes thousands of personal items and parts of the World Trade Center towers themselves.

Almost 3,000 people died on 11 September 2001 after al-Qaeda hijackers flew aeroplanes into the towers.

Another hijacked plane hit the Pentagon. A fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought with the hijacker.

In his opening remarks at the ceremony, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the museum was “a reminder to us and all future generations that freedom carries heavy responsibilities”.

President Obama said the museum means we can all “look into the faces of nearly 3,000 innocent souls”.

“We can touch their names and hear their voices, glimpse the small items that speak to the beauty of their lives – a wedding ring, a dusty helmet, a shining badge,” he told those gathered.

As well as rescuers, survivors and relatives of people who lost their lives, there was in attendance the New York mayor at the time of the attacks, Rudy Giuliani, the present mayor, Bill de Blasio, and actor Robert De Niro.

Many more watched a broadcast of the ceremony from the plaza outside the museum.

In his short speech, the president recalled the story of Welles Crowther, a 24-year-old World Trade Center worker and former volunteer firefighter who became known as “the man in the red bandana” after leading workers to safety before dying in the south tower’s collapse.

His bandana is in the museum and his mother, Alison, told the audience she hoped it would remind visitors “how people helped each other that day, and that they will be inspired to do the same in ways both big and small”.

The museum features dramatic and horrific moments of the day in videos, including the two skyscrapers collapsing, but also symbols of heroism, such as damaged fire trucks and the wristwatch of one of the passengers who confronted the hijackers.

Before the ceremony, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama toured the museum, viewing a memorial wall with photos of victims and a mangled fire truck.

Along with the nearby memorial plaza, the New York city museum cost $700m (£418m) in donations and public money.

The museum, not far from the original site of the World Trade Center, is largely underground. It will be fully open to the public on 21 May.

The museum is not without controversy. Some relatives of victims are upset that unidentified humans remains found in the rubble will be located near the museum at Ground Zero.

Some Muslim groups have also said a video describing al-Qaeda and the run-up to the attacks does not differentiate enough between the violent hijackers motivated by a radical vision of Islam and regular Muslims.

Source: BBC

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