Never Going on a Break: Syrian Air Force Intensively Pounds ISIS Positions in 3 Provinces
A Dispatch by SANA (Syrian News Agency)
SyAAF (Syrian Air Force) jets in action (click on images)
Su 24s, pride of the air force.
VIDEOS OF THE SYAAF AIRCRAFT IN ACTION AGAINST ISIS FANATICS POSITIONS. DISREGARD THE EDITORIAL COMMENTARY, as it may be misleading. Concentrate on the visuals.
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In the province of Hama, the Syrian Air Force carried out a series of intense strikes, targeting ISIS positions in the villages in the countryside of the town of Salamiyeh, located 30 km east of Hama, destroying many ISIS gatherings, communication centers, fortifications, and machinegun-equipped vehicles in Salba, Jorouh, Qulaib Al Thor, Jana Al Albawei, Al Azib Valley, Dekaileh Shamaliyeh, and Dekaileh Janoubiyeh in the eastern countryside of Hama.
Palestine: Apartheid, Stolen Lives and Land, History Erased, United Nations Deaf Mute
The Washington Post reports that: “All 100 U.S. Senators signed a letter Thursday asking U.N. Secretary General António Guterres to address what the lawmakers call entrenched bias against Israel at the world body.” The letter: “… uses strong language to insist that the United Nations rectify what the Senators said is unequal treatment of Israel on human rights and other grounds.
“Through words and actions, we urge you to ensure that Israel is treated neither better nor worse than any other U.N. member in good standing,” they stated.
The Senators appear to be on a parallel universe. Have they reflected, in context, on the UN’s fine founding words, avowing:
“to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person … to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom … to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours … to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples …”
Source Israelpalestinenews.org
Israel – ever presented as the eternal victim – has not just made a mockery of the words but also of the Balfour letter of 2nd November 1917 and trampled on both ever since. Balfour:
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine …” (Emphasis added.)
So much for the “rights” of the Palestinians. Between November 1947 and November 1948 five hundred and thirty one Palestinian towns and villages had been “ethnically cleansed.” (1) By 1952 it was six hundred and fifteen. (2)
This “Nakba” (“catastrophe”) seventy years after Israel’s final founding, is ongoing.
The land grabs are illegal and violate: U.N. Charter, Article 2(4) & 51 (1945); Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations…, Principle 1 (1970).
Settlements on occupied lands violate Geneva Conventions IV, Article 49(6) (1949). It is illegal to colonize or transfer non-indigenous people to occupied land.
Taking land by force and claiming sovereignty violates: U.N. Charter, Article 2(4) (1945); Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations…, Principle 1.
Forbidding civilian populations the right to return to their homes following the end of armed conflict is in direct violation of international law and UN resolutions. Geneva Convention IV, Articles 45, 46 & 49 (1949), UN resolutions 194 (III) (General Assembly; 1948) & 237 (Security Council; 1967).
Collective punishment violates Geneva Conventions IV, Article 33 (1949); Geneva Conventions (Protocol I), Article 75(2d) (1977). (3)
The list of breaches of international law is near endless as are the attacks on a people with no army, air force or navy, plus the decimations of 1967, 2008-9 and 2014.
Israel’s violations of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, legally binding on Member-nations, include Resolutions – 54, 111, 233, 234, 236, 248, 250, 252, 256, 262, 267, 270, 280, 285, 298, 313, 316, 468, 476, a small sample.
The Senators would seem to have as little knowledge of the iniquities inflicted on the Middle East by foreign powers and cuckoos in the nest as their rookie President. It is not Israel being meted out “unequal treatment” it is the Palestinians, thieved of their land, history, justice and all normality.
Notes
1. http://www.palestineremembered .com/Acre/Right-Of-Return/Stor y432.html
2. https://972mag.com/mapping-the -palestinian-villages-erased-a nd-replaced-with-jewish-towns/ 124847/
3. http://itisapartheid.org/Docum ents_pdf_etc/IsraelViolationsI nternationalLaw.pdf
FELICITY ARBUTHNOT, Senior Contributing Editor, Middle East Affairs, & London Correspondent • Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist specialising in social and environmental issues with special knowledge of Iraq, a country which she has visited thirty times since the 1991 Gulf war. Iraq, she describes as: ‘sliding from the impossible, to the apocalyptic.’ With former UN Assistant Secretary General and UN Co-ordinator in Iraq, Denis Halliday, she was senior Iraq researcher for John Pilger’s Award winning documentary: “Paying the Price – Killing the Children of Iraq” (Carlton/ITV March 2000), which has been aired worldwide and sent shockwaves through Washington and Whitehall. Read more about Felicity on our AUTHORS page.
This “Nakba” (“catastrophe”) seventy years after Israel’s final founding, is ongoing. The land grabs are illegal and violate: U.N. Charter, Article 2(4) & 51 (1945); Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations…, Principle 1 (1970). Settlements on occupied lands violate Geneva Conventions IV, Article 49(6) (1949). It is illegal to colonize or transfer non-indigenous people to occupied land.
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Trump Faces Down the CIA and Co-Opts the Pentagon on Syria (for the time being)
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Donald Trump has taken the strangest, messiest route imaginable towards fulfilling his campaign pledge to curtail Washington’s urge to regime change, and to ease tensions with Russia.”
It’s not like Donald Trump to “stifle” himself, as TV’s Archie Bunker used to say, but the president has been relatively subdued about his decision, reportedly made last month, to terminate the CIA program that has armed, trained, directed and protected jihadist fighters in Syria. Trump’s uncharacteristic reticence on the matter is understandable, given the agency’s homicidal culture and history.
It is also likely that Trump’s gaggle of White House generals, led by Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis and national security advisor H.R. McMaster, have kept the Pentagon in check, preventing a reprise of the mutiny that sabotaged President Obama’s cease-fire and intelligence-sharing agreement with Russian forces in Syria, on September 17 of last year. In a blatant rebellion against civilian authority, U.S. warplanes killed 100 Syrian soldiers at Deir Ez-Zor, allowing ISIS to overrun half the city. The next week, with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter at his side, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “The U.S. military role will not include intelligence sharing with the Russians.” The Pentagon had “punked” lame duck President Barack Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry.
“Trump this summer defied the War Party and its corporate media mouthpieces, negotiating a cease-fire with the Russians in several regions of Syria.”
Donald Trump took note, and surrounded himself with generals before setting foot in the White House, perhaps to shield his presidency from falling prey to its own “Seven Days In May”-type scenario. Or, maybe Trump the Bully just likes the company of other crude and stupid men. At any rate, Trump this summer defied the War Party and its corporate media mouthpieces, negotiating a cease-fire with the Russians in several regions of Syria, to be followed by additional truces, and ending the CIA’s not-so-covert role as Grandmaster of Islamic Jihad. It seemed…unreal.
Peace-loving people around the world held their breath, waiting for the War Party’s revenge. Trump seemed to hold his breath — and his tongue — too, playing down the cease-fire arrangement, even as French President Emanuel Macron stood at his side in Paris, July 13, telling the press: “No matter who they are, we want to build an inclusive and sustainable political solution. Against that background, I do not require Assad’s departure. This is no longer a prerequisite for France to work on that, because I can only tell you that, for seven years, we did not have an embassy in Damascus, and still we have no solution.”
Trump was remarkably low-key in Paris: “We are working on a second ceasefire in a very rough part of Syria,” he said. “If we get that and a few more, all of a sudden, you’re going to have no bullets firing in Syria, and that is a wonderful thing.”
“People around the world held their breath, waiting for the War Party’s revenge.”
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ack in late March, the Trump administration had signaled its abandonment of regime change, with both UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicating that Syrian President Assad’s ouster was no longer a priority for the United States. But, within a week, Trump was hurling Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase, purportedly in retaliation for a chemical weapons incident that only a fool or a U.S. corporate media hack would blame on Syria.
Then, two months later, on June 26, in a bizarre episode even for Trump, the administration charged the Syria military with preparing to launch another chemical weapons attack, for which the Assad government would “pay a heavy price.” Strangely, the White House seemed to have failed to notify either the Pentagon or the State Department about the Syria threat, or the proposed retaliation.
Stranger still, Trump issued his weaponized rant during the same period when his administration must have been deeply engaged in negotiations on a cease-fire with the Russians. We at Black Agenda Report wondered whether Trump had gone “play-crazy” – “acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.”
“Neither paper is concerned that the CIA project violates international laws against unprovoked attacks on sovereign nations, or that half a million Syrians have died, as a result.”
Or, maybe the outburst was prompted by an aborted attempt to scuttle the talks with the Russians. Or, maybe Trump just had to shout the demons out of his system. Who knows?
The demons at the Washington Post and the New York Times have only one explanation for all earthly phenomena, including the termination of the CIA’s jihadist overseer duties in Syria: Trump is “colluding” with the Russians. The Times moaned that “the decision is bound to be welcomed by the Russians.” The WP whined that “the Russian government had long opposed the program, seeing it as an assault on its interests.” Neither paper is concerned that the CIA project violates international laws against unprovoked attacks on sovereign nations, as well as U.S. laws against giving material assistance to al Qaida, a prime beneficiary of CIA weapons, or that half a million Syrians have died, as a result.
Despite his apparent vow of semi-silence on the CIA front, Trump could not resist a Twitter retort. “The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad,” he wrote, effectively declassifying the now-defunct (are we sure?) CIA terror campaign.
Donald Trump has taken the strangest, messiest, “play-crazy” (or just plain crazy) route imaginable towards fulfilling his campaign pledge to curtail Washington’s urge to regime change, and to ease tensions with Russia. His presidency has been six months of pain and confusion.
But, if Hillary Clinton had been elected, we might all be dead.
Despite his apparent vow of semi-silence on the CIA front, Trump could not resist a Twitter retort. “The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad,” he wrote, effectively declassifying the now-defunct (are we sure?) CIA terror campaign.
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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
The Massacre of Mosul: More Than 40,000 Civilians Feared DeadAs
Photo by DVIDSHUB | CC BY 2.0
More than 40,000 civilians were killed in the devastating battle to retake Mosul from Isis, according to intelligence reports revealed exclusively to The Independent – a death toll far higher than previous estimates.
Residents of the besieged city were killed by Iraqi ground forces attempting to force out militants, as well as by air strikes and Isis fighters, according to Kurdish intelligence services.
Hoshyar Zebari, until recently a senior minister in Baghdad, told The Independent that many bodies “are still buried under the rubble”. “The level of human suffering is immense,” he said.
“Kurdish intelligence believes that over 40,000 civilians have been killed as a result of massive firepower used against them, especially by the Federal Police, air strikes and Isis itself,” Mr Zebari added.
Mr Zebari, a native of Mosul and top Kurdish official who has served as the Iraqi Finance Minister and prior to that Foreign Minister, emphasised in an exclusive interview that the unrelenting artillery bombardment by units of the Federal Police, in practice a heavily armed military unit, had caused immense destruction and loss of life in west Mosul.
The figure given by Mr Zebari for the number of civilians killed in the nine-month siege is far higher than those previously reported, but the intelligence service of the Kurdistan Regional Government has a reputation for being extremely accurate and well-informed. Isis prevented any monitoring of casualties while outside groups have largely focused on air strikes rather than artillery and rocket fire as a cause of civilian deaths. Airwars, one such monitoring group, estimated that attacks may have killed 5,805 non-military personnel in the city between 19 February and 19 June 2017.
Mr Zebari accuses the government in Baghdad, of which he was until recently a member, of not doing enough to relieve the suffering. “Sometimes you might think the government is indifferent to what has happened,” he said. He doubts if Christians, Yazidis, Kurds and other minorities, who have lived in and around Mosul for centuries, will be able to reconcile with the Sunni Arab majority whom they blame for killing and raping them. He says some form of federal solution for future governance would be best.
Reading from Kurdish intelligence reports, Mr Zebari says that a high level of corruption among the Iraqi military forces occupying Mosul is undermining security measures to suppress Isis in the aftermath of its defeat. He says that suspect individuals are able to pass through military checkpoints by paying $1,000 (£770) and can bring a vehicle by paying $1,500. He says corruption of this type is particularly rife in the 16th and 9th Iraqi Army Divisions and the Tribal Volunteers (Hashd al-Ashairi), drawn in part from the Shabak minority in the Nineveh Plain.
The ability of Isis militants to remain free or be released from detention by paying bribes has led to a change in attitude among people in Mosul whom Mr Zebari says “were previously willing to give information about Isis members to the Iraqi security forces.” They are now wary of doing so, because they see members of Isis, whom they had identified and who had been arrested, returning to the streets capable of exacting revenge on those who informed against them. Several anti-Isis people in Mosul have confirmed to The Independent that this is indeed the case and they are frightened of these returnees and Isis “sleeper cells” that continue to exist.
Civilians in Mosul say they do not fault the behaviour towards them of combat units that have borne the brunt of the fighting, such as the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), but they are concerned about what to expect from less well-disciplined troops. A belief that Isis fighters and officials detained in Mosul are later able to bribe their way free explains why soldiers, most of whom are not complicit in bribery networks, have summarily executed Isis prisoners, sometimes by throwing them off high buildings.
Corruption by the occupying military forces takes different forms, according to Kurdish intelligence information cited by Mr Zebari. Some people are “being charged $100 for removing a body from the rubble and others $500 to reoccupy their house”, where it is still standing. Iraqi army and militia units have always been notorious for exacting fees and protection money from civilians, with trucks moving goods on the roads being a particularly profitable target when they pass through military checkpoints.
Much of the blame for the calamitous level of destruction in west Mosul has been put on air strikes, but it is evident at ground level that a lot of the damage was caused by artillery shells and rockets. This is confirmed by an Amnesty International report issued last week titled At Any Cost: The Civilian Catastrophe in West Mosul, which points to a greater and more indiscriminate use of its firepower by pro-government forces in the final stages of the attack on east Mosul, starting in January 2017 and continuing over the following six months during the assault on west Mosul. It says that Iraqi government and US-led coalition forces “relied heavily upon explosive weapons with wide area effects such as IRAMs (Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions). With their crude targeting abilities, these weapons wreaked havoc in densely populated west Mosul, where large groups of civilians were trapped in homes or makeshift shelters.” The UN estimated that Mosul had 1.2 million inhabitants at the start of the siege.
In addition, Isis snipers killed great numbers of civilians trying to escape whose departure would have robbed Isis of its “human shields”, though in the event their presence shielded very little. Mr Zebari said that intelligence had even intercepted messages “from Isis fighters to their commanders saying they were tired of killing civilians”.
Mr Zebari says that he is disappointed by the lack of Iraqi government plans to reconstruct Mosul. As Finance Minister in Baghdad until late last year, he had made provision for $500 million in the budget for rebuilding Mosul. He says: “I wanted $500 million upfront to encourage other donors, but now the government has withdrawn from the fund and used the money elsewhere. This was not an encouraging sign.”
Even if there is reconstruction, Mr Zebari, who grew up in Mosul and still has a house in the east of the city (though long confiscated, first by Saddam Hussein and later by Isis), laments that “the soul of Mosul has gone and its iconic buildings are destroyed.” He says he cannot imagine Mosul without the Nabi Yunus mosque (the tomb of Jonah) that Isis blew up as a heretical shrine in 2014 and the al-Nuri mosque, with its 12th century leaning minaret, which Isis destroyed in the last stage of the battle to prevent its capture by government forces. In addition, there is “an unimaginable level of human suffering with more than one million people displaced.”
He agrees that the government has won a big victory by destroying the Islamic State as a state structure controlling extensive territory. But he warns that Isis has shown that it is capable of “adapting themselves to new realities.” He says that the arms and heavy equipment from three Iraqi army divisions that Isis captured when it seized Mosul in June 2014 has never been fully accounted for. He says that there have been reports that much of it was hidden by Isis in tunnels, gorges and valleys in the arid wastelands of western Iraq and eastern Syria. “This is where they came from when they started their attacks,” he says.
Asked if the self-declared Caliph Abu Baqr al-Baghdadi is alive or dead, Mr Zebari said he did not know. But he added that, if Baghdadi was dead, it was strange that no new Caliph or Isis leader had been declared since part of the ideology of such movements is that they do not rely on a single human being. Successors had been quickly announced when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in a US air strike in 2006 and Osama bin Laden was shot dead by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011. Moreover, he says that there “has been no sign of a change in the Isis command and control structure.”
Mr Zebari accuses the government in Baghdad, of which he was until recently a member, of not doing enough to relieve the suffering. “Sometimes you might think the government is indifferent to what has happened,” he said. He doubts if Christians, Yazidis, Kurds and other minorities, who have lived in and around Mosul for centuries, will be able to reconcile with the Sunni Arab majority whom they blame for killing and raping them. He says some form of federal solution for future governance would be best.
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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
Hezbollah Helped Save Syria From Complete Destruction — And We Should All Be Thankful
Those who defended Syria from the real terrorists are now being vilified by the west (surprise!)
One of the key participants in the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah, is also one of the most overlooked players in the region. Since the start of the civil war, Hezbollah has played a key role both militarily and politically, in order to protect Syria and its government from outside meddlers and illegal foreign interventions.
Hezbollah is a predominantly Shia Muslim political party in Lebanon, which boasts one of the strongest militaries in the Middle East. Hezbollah is not new to military success; in 2006 the Israeli army was swiftly defeated in under two months and was expelled from south Lebanon.
Since the start of the conflict, Hezbollah has been involved in military operations in Syria with great success. Around 2000-5000 Hezbollah fighters have participated or are currently active in the conflict since 2012-2013, however this number could be higher or lower due to variable sources. Hezbollah has played a crucial role in many operations with the Syrian Arab Army in areas such as Aleppo, Homs and Rif Demashq regions respectively.
Hezbollah has been criticized by the west for its involvement in the Syrian conflict, which doesn’t come as a surprise as the group has been wrongfully designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union, Canada, France, Israel, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. All the usual suspects.
Of course, the true terrorists are the countries listed above. Without them the Middle East would be stable and terrorism wouldn’t exist as it does today. Hezbollah is one of the few players in the world which is actually fighting terrorism alongside Russia, Iran and Syria as well as others, yet they are criticized for it.The west had a plan to destabilize Syria; they thought they could isolate Syria just as they did with Iraq—but they failed.
So naturally, those who defended Syria from the real terrorists are now being vilified.
Despite its critical role in helping to save Syria from destruction, Hezbollah has kept a relatively low profile. Contrast their efforts to the US-led coalition bragging about bombing empty desert, and you'll begin to understand why the western narrative about the war in Syria is completely inverted.
Of course, Syria's fate is far from decided. But like so many human triumphs over evil, the true heroes are once again being maligned and vilified by Washington.
So naturally, those who defended Syria from the real terrorists are now being vilified. Despite its critical role in helping to save Syria from destruction, Hezbollah has kept a relatively low profile. Contrast their efforts to the US-led coalition bragging about bombing empty desert, and you’ll begin to understand why the western narrative about the war in Syria is completely inverted.
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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report