Israel reportedly attacked a Syrian army unit in the northern Golan Heights on Sunday after errant fire from the Syrian side spilled over into Israeli territory, the second cross-border flare-up in two days.Yesterday
Israeli aircraft struck a Syrian army jeep in the Syrian Golan, a Syrian army official told the Lebanese news outlet al-Mayadeen. The Israel Defense Forces haven't confirmed the report.
Of course Israel claims it's a response. Whatever! Israel has a whole pile of muslim terrorists they've been cavorting with in the Syrian Golan for years and years and years now.The Israeli Air Force attacked the Syrian government forces' tanks and artillery positions after 10 projectiles fell on the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights, the IDF said.
Israel aiding the "rebels" aka Islamist mercs at Golan is nothing new.
Israel has been assisting these killers for years now. That FACT has been covered on numerous occasions here at this blog over the past couple of years....
Flashback!- Sept 23/2013: Israel Sides with Syrian Jihadists
Flashback! November 2012: Who loves Islamists? Israel loves Islamists! Israel & FSA work togetherLet's go back to 2011- Want to get an idea how long the Kurdish proxies have been involved in the betrayal of Syria?
Sherkoh Abbas, president of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria (KNAS).
Based in Washington, remember that!
Making him not the president of any National Assembly actually based in the country of Syria.
A Syrian Kurdish Opposition Leader based in Washington, not in Syria?
Speaking to an Israeli audience all about how a new government in Syria will be most beneficial and friendly to Israel.
"Many Syrian religious and tribal leaders who are now part of the Syrian Democracy Council have no problem recognizing Israel and making peace"Of course the Kurdish leadership based in Washington would have had no issue making peace with Israel as they partake of the spoils of war... Considering Kurdistan = Israel 2.0
“The U.S. and U.S.-backed forces are using tactics that are virtually guaranteed to raise enormous levels of casualties,” in the war in Syria, IPS Middle East expert Phyllis Bennis told The Real News Network.White phosphorus use, mentioned in previous post
In an effort to drive out ISIS from the heavily-populated—somewhere up to 200,000 civilians—city of Raqqa, the U.S. is resorting to tactics that will make what the UN already called a “staggering loss of life” worse"
Especially adding to the toll is the use of white phosphorus within the area
"There has been a lack of press coverage dedicated to U.S. use of chemical weapons, including white phosphorous—especially serious when considering the international outcry months ago when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was accused of using chemical weapons in Aleppo."
There is also a lack of press focus on the escalating civilian casualties caused by U.S. airstrikes in and around Raqqa."
“This is one of those classic examples that the deaths of innocents are far more important to cover in the mainstream U.S. press when those responsible for the deaths of innocents are our so-called enemies, rather than ourselves or our so-called friends,” Bennis said.I got to admit the lack of alleged authority challenging alt media coverage has me flummoxed!
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Amazing these people! Trying to have some semblence of normality in all this mayhem- Surely a necessity for their souls. For their mental health. My goodness...
Some 470 civilians, including 137 children, died in air strikes on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil)-held cities of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria between May 23 and June 23.
Observers claim the number is higher than those killed by Russian strikes, Isil and President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the same period.
Human rights and monitoring groups have warned for months of the rising human cost of the coalition’s air war, particularly as the battle for Isil’s so-called capital of Raqqa intensifies.
The US, UK and other coalition members have provided air support for allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the ground.
The coalition insists it takes every measure to avoid hitting civilians, but residents say they are increasingly becoming collateral damage.The coalition of the killing always denies their killing ways...
“We note in particular that the intensification of airstrikes, which have paved the ground for an SDF advance in Raqqa, has resulted not only in staggering loss of civilian life, but has also led to 160,000 civilians fleeing their homes and becoming internally displaced,” Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, chairman of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said earlier this month.
In March, more than 200 mostly women and children were reported to have been killed while they seeking refuge in a school building in the village of Mansoura.
Alarmingly high civilian tolls are also being reported in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where the battle to dislodge the jihadists is in the final throes.
In one, now notorious incident, more than 150 civilians were killed on Match 17 when a 500lb bomb was dropped on a house to kill two Isil snipers on its roof.
It's doubtful there were any restrictions on troop numbers and it's certain that there were ZERO restrictions on civilian casualties put in place by Obama- Zero. None. Zip. Zilch. Don't believe me? Let's recall this post from September 30 2014? White House- Kill Syrian/Iraqi Civilians- Exemption for airstrikes
Not that the US was ever very careful when it came to civilians deaths however they at least talked as if they cared. Even that pretense will not apply for Syria and Iraq
The White House has acknowledged for the first time that strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes (not just drones) will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq.A White House statement to Yahoo News confirming the looser policy came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria's Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23.
A US official told CNN that another Syrian Su-22 fighter made an approach in what the military assessed as a possible bombing run on US backed-Syrian Democratic Forces near Tabqa, Syria, on Tuesday. The official said that coalition aircraft made a show of force and conducted a warning maneuver, and the Syrian fighter jet then aborted its trajectory and left the area.
“The chief of staff of the Air Force, Gen. David Goldfein, told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that the de-confliction line "remains open."
Yes, the US established de-facto no-fly zones in Syria?“The U.S. Air Force is ready to create a no-fly zone in Syria, as stated by General David Goldfein, Rosbalt reported”Gen. David Goldfein, a battle-tested command pilot who flew combat missions in the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, and in NATO's 1999 air war to force the president of the former Yugoslavia to end his campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo"
The US has this month twice shot down aircraft over areas in Syria, north and south, where it has forces and allied militias fighting the Islamic State group. This may indicate that Washington is bidding to establish de-facto no-fly zones in these areas.The irony of the on line commenters cheering on Syria, yet cheering for PKK/YPG as they ethnically cleansed whole areas of territory, annexing it for their own. Cognitive dissonance, I guess?
On June 18, a US F/A-18 Super Hornet shot down a Syrian Air Force Su-22 bomber after it dropped bombs near the northern Syrian town of Tabqa, close to a US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces position.
Ten days earlier, June 8, a US Air Force F-15E shot down an Iranian-made Shahed 129 drone, which is roughly the same size as the iconic American Predator, after it dropped bombs near a position held by US-backed Jaysh Maghawir al-Thawra anti-IS fighters in Al-Tanf, on Syria's southern border with Jordan.
"We do not seek conflict with any party in Syria other than ISIS, but we will not hesitate to defend ourselves or our partners if threatened," Pentagon Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said after the June 18 incident.
Despite this, the mid-air conflicts indicate that the US is willing to confront Damascus and its allied militia forces if it perceives them to threaten its allies or their anti-IS campaign. In Al-Tanf, US aircraft bombed pro-regime forces approaching al-Thawra positions twice - on June 6 and May 18.
Similar "no-drive zones" against regime ground forces approaching SDF positions around Raqqa may be enforced if they threaten the SDF. The Syrian Army recently made advances into the western countryside of Raqqa.
The SDF issued a statement shortly after the June 18 incident charging Damascus with carrying out "large-scale attacks using aircraft, artillery and tanks" against their forces and warning if it "continues its attacks on our positions in the province of Raqqa, we will be forced to reciprocate and use our legitimate right to defend our forces".
How long the US will maintain these de-facto no-fly/no-drive zones in these two areas is unclear. It's also unclear if they will become like the formalised no-fly zones the US imposed over Iraqi Kurdistan and southern Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War, where no Iraqi military aircraft were allowed without being intercepted and shot down by US-led coalition jets.
"Maria W." told a German newspaper she was the lover of Andreas Lubitz, who copiloted the Germanwings flight that killed 150 people in 2015.
Days after the crash, the German newspaper Bild published an interview with a woman who claimed that she was Lubitz's lover. Her story lined up perfectly with the emerging narrative of an unstable and destructive pilot.
Liar! I recall this fabrication being everywhere at the time of the crash."Maria W." told Bild she was a flight attendant who traveled through Europe with Lubitz. She said he had told her that one day he planned to "do something that will change the whole system, and only then will everyone know and remember my name."
Die Zeit first reported doubts around her account in March. Prosecutor Christoph Kumpa described Maria's account as a "hoax," but Bild stood by its story. BuzzFeed News is the first news organization to confirm that it is false.
Maria claimed to have secretly spent nights with Lubitz in hotels all over Europe, but a logbook of his flights for the year preceding the crash, provided to authorities by the pilot's family, shows he spent the night outside Germany only once, in Budapest. That flight had no cabin crew, as it was to transport spare parts, not passengers.
"We can absolutely confirm that Maria W.'s story is purely fictional. During a fourth meeting in December 2015, she explicitly admitted to it," RTL spokesman Matthias Bolhöfer told BuzzFeed News.
"At first, she didn't want to tell us her real name and she exclusively wanted to meet up in a neutral environment, in a bar in Frankfurt, and only with a woman," RTL manager Thorsten Wimber said. "So we sent a female colleague. Her impression was: 'Maria W. is trustworthy.'"
But when RTL requested evidence to confirm her identity, Maria failed to provide it. When RTL confronted her with doubts about her story, Maria presented email and chat records between her and Lubitz, but wasn't able to provide a witness who could confirm their relationship.Email and chat records- LOL
The broadcaster eventually got in touch with the Düsseldorf public prosecutor's office, which discouraged them from running an interview with Maria W.
Wimber says Maria also apologized at her final meeting with RTL, when she admitted she'd made up the story. "She told us she was surprised how much effort we put into our research," he told BuzzFeed News. The editor also told Maria that if she shopped her story to another media outlet, he would go public "because this was clearly fraud."Since the prosecutor has not or will not accept that Bild LIED they aren't changing a dam thing!
Bild's press office told BuzzFeed News "that we generally don't make statements with regard to sources and editorial procedures," but the editorial staff is concerned about the attempt "to challenge the coverage of Mr. Lubitz's mass murder of 149 human beings with the aid of alleged speculations of third parties."
The paper said that since the Düsseldorf prosecutor hasn't accused Bild of fabricating the story, "we don't feel a correction is necessary. Instead, we will hold on to the reporting on the gruesome killing spree of Mr. Lubitz."
But nobody is claiming that Bild made up the story — it simply appears to have been duped by Maria. Prosecutor Kumpa said that he "has substantial doubts and must conjecture that the woman has fabricated the story."
The revelation that Maria's story is false comes as Lubitz's family is aiming to clear his name. They've threatened to sue German authorities over what they say are wrongful claims.
Documents and investigation files seen by BuzzFeed News also show that Andreas Lubitz apparently wasn't diagnosed with depression before the deadly plane flight and didn't have a history of inpatient treatment. The Lubitz family also alleges that the official investigation didn't meet international standards. The responsible authority in Germany, the Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung (BFU), rejected all accusations and told BuzzFeed News that the new Lubitz report will not change its official conclusions.
Maria now understands Lubitz's eerie prediction that "one day everyone will know my name."
“I never knew what he meant, but now it makes sense.”
Saudi crown prince Bin Salman agrees with U.S. on Russia, Assad, Iran and ISIS and according to some reports, he's also met with top Israeli officialsThis consolidation of power in Saudi Arabia bodes badly for the region
The series of decrees also amended Article V of the kingdom's statute of ruling, stipulating that, from now on, only the sons and grandsons of the founding King Faisal Al Saud can be kings and crown princes.
The decision by King Salman to promote his son and consolidate his power was endorsed by 31 out of 34 members of the Allegiance Council, the decree said.
The council is made up of senior members of the ruling Al Saud family.
The Saudi king called for a public pledging of allegiance to the new crown prince early on Wednesday, the channel said.
Mohammed bin Nayef promptly vowed loyalty to his successor after the decree.
Prince Mohammed bin Naif pledges allegiance to Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the Crown Prince at Al-Safa Palace in Makkah.#SPAGOV pic.twitter.com/cmzGxjwKRh— SPAENG (@Spa_Eng) June 21, 2017Restructuring power
Mohammed bin Salman has risen to power under his father's reign. He had previously been in charge of his father's royal court when Salman was the crown prince.
Over the weekend, the king had issued a decree restructuring Saudi Arabia's system for prosecutions that stripped Mohammed bin Nayef of long-standing powers overseeing criminal investigations.
Prince Bandar bin Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdul Aziz was appointed Assistant Head of General Intelligence. King Salman also ordered the appointment of the Prince as an advisor to the Royal Court.
Prince Abdullah bin Khalid bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz was appointed Advisor to the Royal Court, Prince Turki bin Mohammed bin Fahd bin Abdul Aziz as Advisor to the Royal Court with the rank of Minister and Abdul Rahman Al Rabian as Advisor to the Royal Court.
The royal order included the following, Chapter 2 of Article 5 of the Basic Law of Government shall be amended to read as follows: “Rule passes to the sons of the founding King, Abd al-Aziz Bin Abd al-Rahman al-Faysal Al Saud, and to their children's children. The most upright among them is to receive allegiance in accordance with the principles of the Holy Quran and the Tradition of the Venerable Prophet.”
The USS Fitzgerald’s captain, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, who was injured in the ship’s deadly collision with a commercial vessel, took command of the guided-missile destroyer last month.
#FITZ Update: Cmdr. Bryce Benson, the CO of #USSFitzgerald, was one of the Sailors released from @usnhyokosuka.— 7th Fleet (@US7thFleet) June 19, 2017
The 10,000-ton destroyer and the ACX Crystal, a 29,000-ton container ship flagged in the Philippines, collided early Saturday local time off Japan’s Izu Peninsula,
