Uprooted Palestinian: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM – سلام القدس عليكم: 15/09/2019

Saturday, 21 September 2019

SYRIAN WAR REPORT – SEPTEMBER 20, 2019: RUSSIA GAVE SYRIA ‘GREEN LIGHT’ TO USE S-300

On September 19, the Syrian Air Defense Forces shot down an unidentified unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over the town of Aqraba, south of Damascus. Pro-government sources claim that the intercepted UAV was likely operated by Israel.

On August 25, two Hezbollah members were killed by Israeli strikes in the same area. These strikes and the incident with Israeli drones in Beirut led to a local escalation between Hezbollah and the Israeli military at the Lebanese-Israeli contact line on September 1. Since then and until September 19, the situation around Damascus and in southern Lebanon have remained relatively calm.

The al-Qaeda-affiliated militant coalition Wa Harid al-Muminin announced that its forces had shelled positions of the Syrian Army near the area of al-Mashari’a. In a separate development, Idlib militants shelled the Abu al-Duhur humanitarian corridor with mortars in an attempt to prevent civilians from leaving the militant-held area.

On September 18, the joint Russia-Syria Coordination Center on Refugee Repatriation announced that work to resettle refugees from the Rukban camp the US-controlled zone of al-Tanf will begin late on September 27. During the last two years, the camp was in a constant state of humanitarian crisis due to the lack of aid, clean water and food. Nonetheless, the US-led coalition and coalition-backed militants sabotaged previous attempts to evacuate civilians from it.

Russia has given Syria a green light to use the S-300 missile defense system against Israeli targets, according to reports in Russian media citing own sources. Reports claim that the Syrian military received permission to use its air defense systems in response to Israeli actions. However, in this case the Syrian side would bear full responsibility for such a move.

Since the start of the week, positions of Iranian-backed forces near al-Bukamal have come under at least two aerial attacks that are commonly attributed by Israel. Some mainstream media speculated that the September 18 strike may have been delivered by the Saudi Air Force. However, this version was immediately denounced by Saudi Arabia itself.

SYRIAN ARMY INTERCEPTS ARMED, BOOBY-TRAPPED DRONE NEAR ISRAELI-OCCUPIED GOLAN HEIGHTS (PHOTOS)

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) brought down on September 21 a large quad-copter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) near the separation line with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Click to see full-size image

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the army was able to take control of the hostile UAV and land it once it reached the town of Erneh, 8km north of the separation line. Electronic warfare means were apparently used to control the UAV.

“While inspecting and disassembling the UAV by specialized engineer teams, it became clear that it was armed with submunitions on top of being booby-trapped with a C4 explosive charge, in order to prevent its dismantling and protect its secrets,” a security source told the SANA.

The state-run agency said that the UAV came from the western direction. The SAA controls the entire region, while Hezbollah controls the nearby Lebanese villages. This suggest that the UAV came from the Israeli-occupied areas in northwestern Golan.

Photos of the UAV reveal that it was armed with two small-diameter submunitions, both equipped with a parachute.

Click to see full-size image

Last month, two quad-copters equipped with explosive devices attacked a center of Hezbollah in Beirut’s Southern Suburb. The incident was blamed on Israel, which appears to be using such drones in its covert operations.

SYRIAN ARMY SHOOTS DOWN ARMED DRONE NEAR HELICOPTER BASE IN NORTHWESTERN HAMA

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) shot down on September 21 an armed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that attempted to attack its positions in northwestern Hama.

Local sources said that the UAV was shot down near the town of Jubb Ramlah. The drone was reportedly armed with several munitions.

The UAV was likely heading to attack a large helicopter base of the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) to the west of Jubb Ramlah. The base has been supporting the SAA’s operations in Greater Idlib for months now.

Syrian Army Shoots Down Armed Drone Near Helicopter Base In Northwestern Hama

Click to see full-size image. Via Google Earth.

No side has claimed responsibility for the failed attack, so far. However, al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is known for manufacturing and operating this kind of armed UAVs.

The failed attack is a violation of the current ceasefire. Such provocations could force the SAA to resume its ground offensive in Greater Idlib.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

IRGC displays British, American drones seized over Iran's territory

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps displays a number of intruding American and British drones captured for violating Iran’s airspace, in an exhibition in Tehran on September 21, 2019. (Photo by Tasnim news agency)

Press tv

Sat Sep 21, 2019 02:35PM [Updated: Sat Sep 21, 2019 02:49PM

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has displayed a number of American and British drones captured for violating Iran’s airspace.

In an exhibition in Tehran on Saturday, the IRGC showcased a British unmanned aerial vehicle, named Phoenix, seized by its Aerospace Division.

Phoenix is an all-weather, day or night, real-time combat surveillance drone. The twin-boom UAV provides surveillance through its surveillance pod, from which the imagery is data linked to a ground control station (GCS) that also controls the aircraft in flight. It has also a maximum flight time of around five hours.

The drone, powered by a 20 kW (26 hp) piston engine, had a maximum speed of 166 km/h and a wingspan of 5.6 meters.

The IRGC also displayed the Aerosonde HQ vertical take-off and landing drone belonging to the US Army used for multi-intelligence payloads such as electronic warfare and communications relay in a single flight.

Aerosonde has been designed for expeditionary land- and sea-based operations and equipped for simultaneous day/night full-motion video. It is field-proven with more than 300,000 flight hours, including desert heat and Arctic cold.

It is equipped with an easy-to-use launch and recovery trailer for constrained land and shipboard operations.

Desert Hawk was another American drone showcased in the exhibition. It has a length of 0.86 meters with a weight of 3.2 kg. It has an endurance of about an hour with an electric motor driving a quiet pusher propeller.

In June, Iran shot down an intruding American spy drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.

PressTV-Iran’s IRGC shoots down intruding US spy drone

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps shoots down an intruding American spy drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.

The IRGC said in a statement that the US-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its Air Force near the Kouh-e Mobarak region — which sits in the central district of Jask County — after the aircraft violated Iranian airspace.

PressTV-IRGC releases footage of US bombing of hacked drone

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has acquired a drone footage that shows the US military destroying one of its own UAVs in the region.

Back in 2015, Iran also downed a US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft with minimal damage. The drone was flying over the Iranian city of Kashmar, near the Afghan border, when it was brought down.

Known to be able to hack into enemy drones, Iran currently possesses the biggest collection of captured or downed American and Israeli drones, including the US’ MQ1, MQ9, Shadow, ScanEagle, and RQ-170 as well as the Israeli regime’s Hermes.

The Post 9/11 Era and The “Global War on Terrorism”: “You are Either with Us, or with the Terrorists”

Bonnie Faulkner Interviews Michel Chossudovsky

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Bonnie Faulkner

Global Research, September 20, 2019

Guns and Butter

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 constitute a fundamental landmark in American history. a decisive watershed, a breaking point. Millions of people have been misled regarding the causes and consequences of 9/11.

September 11 2001 opens up an era of crisis, upheaval and militarization of American society.

A far-reaching overhaul of US military doctrine was launched in the wake of 9/11.

Endless wars of aggression under the humanitarian cloak of “counter-terrorism” were set in motion.

September 11, 2001 marks the onslaught of the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT), used as a pretext and a justification by the US and its NATO allies to carry out a “war without borders”, a global war of conquest.

Guns and Butter, WBAI Radio, New York

click here (audio)

https://www.wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=5854

The transcript of this interview will be published shortly

***

At eleven o’clock, on the morning of September 11, the Bush administration had already announced that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon. This assertion was made prior to the conduct of an indepth police investigation.

CIA Director George Tenet stated that same morning that Osama bin Laden had the capacity to plan “multiple attacks with little or no warning.”

That same evening at 9:30 pm, a “War Cabinet” was formed integrated by a select number of top intelligence and military advisors. And at 11:00 pm, at the end of that historic meeting at the White House, the “War on Terrorism” was officially launched.

Amply documented but rarely mentioned by the mainstream media, Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA going back to the Soviet- Afghan war. This was a known fact, corroborated by numerous sources including official documents of the US Congress, which the mainstream media chose to either dismiss or ignore. The intelligence community had time and again acknowledged that they had indeed supported Osama bin Laden, but that in the wake of the Cold War: “he turned against us”.

Where was Osama bin Laden on September 11, 2001?

Is there any proof to the effect that Osama bin Laden, the bogeyman, coordinated the 9/11 attacks as claimed in the official 9/11 narrative?

According to CBS news (Dan Rather, January 28, 2002), “Enemy Number One” was admitted to the urology ward of a Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi on September 10, 2001, courtesy of America’s indefectible ally Pakistan. He could have been arrested at short notice which would have “saved us a lot of trouble”, but then we would not have had an Osama Legend, which has fed the news chain as well as presidential speeches in the course of the last 18 years.

1. Osama bin Laden could not reasonably have coordinated the 9/11 attacks from his hospital bed;

2. The hospital was under the jurisdiction of the Pakistani Armed Forces, which has close links to the Pentagon. Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts were known to both the Pakistani and US military.

U.S. military and intelligence advisers based in Rawalpindi. were working closely with their Pakistani counterparts. Again, no attempt was made to arrest America’s best known fugitive. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed, at the time, that the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden were unknown. According to Rumsfeld: “Its like looking for a needle in a stack of hay”.

October 7, 2001: Waging America’s 9/11 War of Retribution against Afghanistan

The immediate response of the US and its allies to the 9/11 attacks was to the declare a war of retribution against Afghanistan on the grounds that the Taliban government was protecting “terror mastermind” Osama bin Laden. By allegedly harboring bin Laden, the Taliban were complicit, according to both the US administration and NATO, for having waged an act of war against the United States.

Parroting official statements, the Western media mantra on September 12, 2001 had already approved the launching of “punitive actions” directed against civilian targets in Afghanistan. In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times: “When we reasonably determine our attackers’ bases and camps, we must pulverize them — minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage” — and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror’s national hosts”.

This decision was taken by the Bush-Cheney war cabinet in the evening of September 11, 2001. It was based on the presumption, “confirmed” by the head of the CIA that Al Qaeda was behind the attacks.

On the following morning, September 12, 2001, NATO’s Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels, endorsed the Bush administration’s declaration of war on Afghanistan, invoking Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.

An act of war by a foreign nation (Afghanistan) against a member of the Atlantic Alliance (the USA) is an act of war against all members under NATO’s doctrine of collective security. Under any stretch of the imagination, the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon cannot be categorized as an act of war by a foreign country. But nobody seemed to have raised this issue.

Meanwhile, on two occasions in the course of September 2001, the Afghan government –through diplomatic channels– offered to hand over Osama Bin laden to US Justice. These overtures were turned down by president Bush, on the grounds that America “does not negotiate with terrorists”.

The war on Afghanistan was launched 26 days later on the morning of October 7, 2001. The timing of this war begs the question: how long does it take to plan and implement a major theater war several thousand miles away. Military analysts will confirm that a major theater war takes months and months, up to a year or more of advanced preparations. The war on Afghanistan was already in the advanced planning stages prior to September 11, 2001, which begs the question of foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks.

The repeal of civil liberties in America was launched in parallel with the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan, almost immediately following 9/11 with the adoption of the PATRIOT legislation and the setting up of a Homeland Security apparatus, under the pretext of protecting Americans. This post-911 legal and institutional framework had been carefully crafted prior to the 9/11 attacks.

Al Qaeda is a US Intelligence Asset

Important to the understanding of 9/11, US intelligence is the unspoken architect of “Islamic terrorism” going back to the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war.

Bin Laden was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerrilla training camp. Education in Afghanistan in the years preceding the Soviet-Afghan war was largely secular. With religious textbooks produced in Nebraska, the number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrasahs) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000.

The original source of this article is Guns and Butter

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

معادلة السيد أوقفوا حروبكم… أو «تخبزوا بالفراح»

سبتمبر 21, 2019

ناصر قنديل

– بعد توضيحات لا بد منها في ملفات شهدت بعض الاجتهادات والتساؤلات، انطلق السيد حسن نصرالله إلى رسم معادلاته الجديدة، كناطق بلسان محور المقاومة، الذي قال في وصفه أنه محور قوي وشجاع، منذ أن حسم معادلة انتهاء مرحلة التصرف كفرقاء مقاومين كل في ساحته إلى قرار التعامل كمحور موحّد في مواجهة كل حرب على أطراف المحور. والمحور الشجاع هو المحور الذي اتخذ قرار المواجهة متحسباً لمخاطر نشوب حرب، من إسقاط الطائرة الأميركية التجسسية العملاقة في الخليج، إلى عملية أفيفيم النوعية في فلسطين المحتلة، إلى عملية أرامكو التي هزت السعودية والاقتصاد العالمي. وهو المحور القوي لأنه نجح في تحقيق الأهداف وفي ردع العدو وإفهامه أن لا جدوى من مجرد التفكير بالردّ، فرسم معادلاته وقواعد اشتباكه ورسخ قانون حربه.

– في التوضيحات تناول السيد قضيتين راهنتين، الأولى مفردة المبعَدين بالتوازي مع قضية العملاء، ففكّكها مؤكداً أنها مفردة لا تعبر عن واقع، فما هو أمامنا الفارون أو الهاربون للاحتماء بكيان الاحتلال، هم عائلات العملاء، ولا خلط بين ملف العملاء وعائلاتهم، لكن كل شيء وفقاً للقانون، وكل مَن يعود يجب أن يخضع للتحقيق، ومن يثبت تورّطه بالعمالة على أي مستوى يجب أن يلقى عقاباً يتناسب مع أفعاله، ولا يجوز أن تكون الأحكام هزيلة ولا أن تسقط بمرور الزمن. وربّ ضارة نافعة أن حدث ما حدث حتى تنبّه الجميع لخطورة هذا الخلط والتهاون والتراخي. أما التوضيح الثاني فطال انتخابات كيان الاحتلال، حيث جرى تصوير كلام المقاومة عن صلة مساعي رئيس حكومة الاحتلال بنيامين نتنياهو للتصعيد بمطامعه السلطوية والانتخابية، كأنه انحياز من المقاومة لمنافسيه واعتبار إسقاطه أولوية، ودعوة غير مباشرة للناخبين العرب للمشاركة في الانتخابات تحقيقاً لهدف عنوانه، إسقاط نتنياهو. فقال السيد، الانتخابات لا تعنينا، فكلهم قتلة وكلهم صهاينة وكلهم عنصريون، وكلهم في معسكر العدو.

– انطلق السيد لرسم معادلاته، وهو يرسمها باسم قيادة محور المقاومة، من طهران إلى بغداد إلى دمشق وبيروت وغزة وصنعاء، والمعادلات الجديدة تطال كل منهج التهديد بالعقوبات والتلويح بالحرب، وعنوانها أن العقوبات لن تغيّر شيئاً في موازين القوى مهما اشتدت وزادت قسوة، وأن الرد عليها سيكون مزيداً من التصعيد في الميدان، أسوة بعمليات إسقاط الطائرة الأميركية، وعملية أفيفيم، وعملية أرامكو، لكن الواضح أن الأولوية في قراءة المحور، ليست باعتبار الساحة الأشد زجاجية التي تشكل الخاصرة الرخوة لمحور واشنطن هي ساحة الخليج، بل أكثر لأن محور المقاومة ليس معنياً بتسويات تحفظ ماء الوجه لكل من واشنطن وتل أبيب، بينما هو مستعدّ لمنح هذه الفرصة لحكومات الخليج التي تتلقى التحذير من العواقب الكارثية لاستخدامها أكياس رمل في الحرب الأميركية الصهيونية بوجه محور المقاومة وشعب اليمن، لكنها تتلقى سلّماً للنزول عن الشجرة عنوانه، وقف الحرب على اليمن، لتتفادى البقاء كيس ملاكمة يتلقى الضربات بالنيابة عن واشنطن وتل أبيب. لكن المعادلة شاملة كل الجبهات، ولكل المتورطين في الحروب الأميركية الصهيونية في واشنطن وتل أبيب كما في الخليج، أوقفوا حروبكم قبل أن تخبزوا بالفراح .

Israelis Have Shown Netanyahu the Door. Can He Inflict More Damage before He Exits?

By Jonathan Cook

Global Research, September 20, 2019

For most Israelis, the general election on Tuesday was about one thing and one thing only. Not the economy, nor the occupation, nor even corruption scandals. It was about Benjamin Netanyahu. Should he head yet another far-right government, or should his 10-year divisive rule come to an end?

Barring a last-minute upset as the final ballot papers are counted, Israelis have made their verdict clear: Netanyahu’s time is up.

In April’s inconclusive election, which led to this re-run, Netanyahu’s Likud party tied with its main opponent in the Blue and White party, led by retired general Benny Gantz. This time Gantz appears to have nudged ahead, with 33 seats to Netanyahu’s 31 in the 120-member parliament. Both parties fared worse than they did in April, when they each secured 35 seats.

But much more significantly, Netanyahu appears to have fallen short of the 61-seat majority he needs to form yet another far-right government comprising settler and religious parties.

His failure is all the more glaring, given that he conducted by far the ugliest – and most reckless – campaign in Israeli history. That was because the stakes were sky-high.

Only a government of the far-right – one entirely beholden to Netanyahu – could be relied on to pass legislation guaranteeing him immunity from a legal process due to begin next month. Without it, he is likely to be indicted on multiple charges of fraud and breach of trust.

So desperate was Netanyahu to avoid that fate, according to reports published in the Israeli media on election day, that he was only a hair’s breadth away from launching a war on Gaza last week as a way to postpone the election.

Israel’s chief law officer, attorney general Avichai Mendelblit, stepped in to halt the attack when he discovered the security cabinet had approved it only after Netanyahu concealed the army command’s major reservations.

Netanyahu also tried to bribe right-wing voters by promising last week that he would annex much of the West Bank immediately after the election – a stunt that blatantly violated campaigning laws, according to Mendelblit.

Facebook was forced to shut down Netanyahu’s page on two occasions for hate speech – in one case after it sent out a message that “Arabs want to annihilate us all – women, children and men”. That sentiment appeared to include the 20 per cent of the Israeli population who are Palestinian citizens.

Netanyahu incited against the country’s Palestinian minority in other ways, not least by constantly suggesting that their votes constituted fraud and that they were trying to “steal the election”.

He even tried to force through a law allowing his Likud party activists to film in Arab polling stations – as they covertly did in April’s election – in an unconcealed attempt at voter intimidation.

A Second Israeli Election Proves Netanyahu’s Grip on Power Is Slipping

The move appeared to have backfired, with Palestinian citizens turning out in larger numbers than they did in April.

US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, intervened on Netanyahu’s behalf by announcing the possibility of a defence pact requiring the US to come to Israel’s aid in the event of a regional confrontation.

None of it helped.

Netanayhu’s only hope of political survival – and possible avoidance of jail time – depends on his working the political magic he is famed for.

That may prove a tall order. To pass the 61-seat threshold, he must persuade Avigdor Lieberman and his ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party to support him.

Netanyahu and Lieberman, who is a settler, are normally ideological allies. But these are not normal times. Netanyahu had to restage the election this week after Lieberman, sensing the prime minister’s weakness, refused in April to sit alongside religious parties in a Netanyahu-led government.

Netanyahu might try to lure the fickle Lieberman back with an irresistible offer, such as the two of them rotating the prime ministership.

But Lieberman risks huge public opprobrium if, after putting the country through a deeply unpopular re-run election, he now does what he refused on principle to do five months ago.

Lieberman increased his party’s number of seats to eight by insisting that he is the champion of the secular Israeli public.

Most importantly for Lieberman, he finds himself once again in the role of kingmaker. It is almost certain he will shape the character of the next government. And whoever he anoints as prime minister will be indebted to him.

The deadlock that blocked the formation of a government in April still stands. Israel faces the likelihood of weeks of frantic horse-trading and even the possibility of a third election.

Nonetheless, from the perspective of Palestinians – whether those under occupation or those living in Israel as third-class citizens – the next Israeli government is going to be a hardline right one.

On paper, Gantz is best placed to form a government of what is preposterously labelled the “centre-left”. But given that its backbone will comprise Blue and White, led by a bevy of hawkish generals, and Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu, it would, in practice, be nearly as right wing as Netanyahu’s.

Gantz even accused Netanyahu of stealing his idea in announcing last week that he would annex large parts of the West Bank.

The difficulty is that such a coalition would depend on the support of the 13 Joint List legislators representing Israel’s large Palestinian minority. That is something Lieberman has rejected out of hand, calling the idea “absurd” early on Wednesday as results were filtering in. Gantz appears only a little more accommodating.

The solution could be a national unity government comprising much of the right: Gantz’s Blue and White teamed up with Likud and Lieberman. Both Gantz and Lieberman indicated that was their preferred choice on Wednesday.

The question then would be whether Netanyahu can worm his way into such a government, or whether Gantz demands his ousting as a price for Likud’s inclusion.

Netanyahu’s hand in such circumstances would not be strong, especially if he is immersed in a protracted legal battle on corruption charges. There are already rumblings of an uprising in Likud to depose him.

One interesting outcome of a unity government is that it could provoke a constitutional crisis by making the Joint List, the third-largest party, the official opposition. That is the same Joint List described by Netanyahu as a “dangerous anti-Zionist” party.

Ayman Odeh would become the first leader of the Palestinian minority to attend regular briefings by the prime minister and security chiefs.

Netanyahu will continue as caretaker prime minister for several more weeks – until a new government is formed. If he stays true to form, there is plenty of mischief he can instigate in the meantime.

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Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The original source of this article is Global Research

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

MILEIKOWSKI (“NETANYAHU”) DESPERATE FOR ANY DIVERSION; TERRORISTS REDEPLOY AROUND TOWNS IN IDLIB, OSTRACIZE ONE ANOTHER

Ziad Fadel / 7 days ago

Benjamin Mileikowski adopted his father’s alias, Netanyahu, and tried to dispel any suggestion that he was an illegitimate Jew by having a DNA test performed which, according to him, showed that he had a trace of Sephardic Jewish genes, which, of course, means nothing other than he has a miniscule amount of Spanish blood. Yawn. Desperate for any connection to Jewish tradition, he regularly appears in front of the star of David, which is nothing more than a 12th Century phenom used by Muslims and Christians as an ornament. (Photo: USA Today)

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Star-of-David

Mileikowski just announced that he is going to annex the entire Jordan Valley if elected PM of the Zionist Settler State. He has declared that the Iranians had a secret nuclear facility at Abaadeh which he said the Iranians destroyed after learning of its disclosure. He has sent drones into Lebanon to attack HZB, who retaliated so effectively that his vaunted Zionist trash soldiers were found by Turkish journalist to have abandoned their positions for safer grounds. Even though HZB filmed the direct hit on a Zionist military unit and subsequent medvac exfiltration, Mileikowski tried to cover up the disaster by suggesting his troops staged the medvac in order to convince HZB not to fire any more missiles. Oh, really?

And, then, we had the announcement by a Zionist military reporter that the Russian Air Force intercepted a wing of Zionist bombers preparing to strafe an “Iranian base” which Mileikowski suspected had fired rockets at Zionist occupation forces in Palestine. What drama!

And, then, Mileikowski met up with Putin after Trump unceremoniously fired John Bolton, the Washington chicken hawk, who loves to send other people’s children off to war. Bolton is married with one daughter who is unlikely to join any impending war. He, himself, openly supported the Vietnam War but, conveniently, managed to join the Maryland National Guard to avoid going there and fighting for his country. George W. Bush did the same thing.

Image result for Hezbollah fight with Israel after downing drone

Mileikowski is going all out to present himself as the Savior of the Zionist Apartheid State. By staying in office, he can delay going to prison. In the meantime, he uses anti-Palestinian rhetoric to fire up his base, deploying language that would be considered unacceptable here in the United States. Heck, Facebook just took down his site just for that reason. That’s gotta count for something, don’t you think?

__________________________________________________

IDLIB:

Trust me, he’s not smiling anymore. According to my sources and all other sources close to the situation, Abu Muhammad Al-Jawlaani is livid. Because of his castigating all other groups except his own, the ranks of the terrorist criminals are riddled with invective and disdain. He has accused Al-Jabha Al-Wataniyya Li-Al-Tahreer (CIA controlled) and Al-Jaysh Al-Watani (Ankara’s boys) of failing to send in sufficient reinforcements to blunt the SAA’s assault on Khaan Shaykhoon. He has railed against them while his mentor, sponsor and all-around pimp, Recep Tayyip Erdoghan, is fighting for his political life, just like Mileikowski.

He has ordered all terrorists to leave their positions inside towns and villages in order to redeploy in surrounding areas. This military genius thinks that by “heading for the hills”, of which Idlib has many, he can attack Russian, Syrian and Iranian forces more effectively. He couldn’t be more misguided. Now, with those criminals outside towns and villages, the Russian Air Force will have a field day bombing them into the 3rd Century where they belong.

Russia has also sent whole units of Speznaz commandos to assist the Syrian Army underlining Moscow’s determination to rid Syria of all these miscreants. Gee, I sure hope they can make it to Germany before Mrs. Merkel gives up the ghost.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Spy vs Spy vs Spy: The Mysterious Mr. Smolenkov

By Philip Giraldi

Global Research, September 19, 2019

Strategic Culture Foundation

A new spy story has been making the rounds in Washington, but this time it involved a brave Russian official who allegedly was allegedly recruited while in the Russian Embassy in Washington in 2007 and then worked secretly for the CIA until he was exfiltrated safely in 2017 lest he be discovered and caught. The tale was clearly leaked by the Agency itself to CNN by way of “multiple Trump administration officials.”

The CNN headline Exclusive: US extracted top spy from inside Russia in 2017 landed like a bombshell but then pretty much disappeared as journalists noted a number of inconsistencies in the government-produced account of what had taken place. Matt Taibbi observed succinctly that “Seldom has a news story been more transparently fraudulent…the tale of Oleg Smolenkov is just the latest load of high-level BS dumped on us by intelligence agencies.”

The account that appeared in the mainstream media went something like this: A midlevel Russian official named Oleg Smolenkov was recruited decades ago by the CIA. He eventually wound up in an important office in the Kremlin that gave him access to President Vladimir Putin. Smolenkov was the principal source of information confirming that Russia, acting on Putin’s instructions, was trying to interfere in the 2016 presidential election to defeat Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump.

It was claimed that Smolenkov was actually able to photograph documents in Putin’s desk. CIA concerns that a mole hunt in the Kremlin resulting from the media revelations concerning Russian interference in the election might lead to Smolenkov resulted in a 2016 offer to extract him and his family from Russia. This was successfully executed during a Smolenkov family vacation trip to Montenegro in 2017. The family now resides in Virginia.

The CNN story and other mainstream media that picked up on the tale embroidered it somewhat, suggesting that although Smolenkov was the CIA’s crown jewel, the US has a number of “high level” spies in Moscow. It was also claimed that the timetable for the exfiltration was pushed forward by CIA in 2017 after it was noted that Donald Trump was particularly careless with classified information and might inadvertently reveal the existence of the source. The allegation about Trump carelessness came, according to CNN, after a May 2017 meeting between Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in which the president reportedly shared sensitive information on Syria and ISIS that had been provided by Israel.

Variants of the CNN story appeared subsequently in the New York Times headlined C.I.A. Informant Extracted From Russia Had Sent Secrets to US for Decades, which confirmed that the extraction took place in 2017 though it also asserts that the decision to make the move came in 2016 when Barack Obama was still president.

Taibbi observes, correctly, that CNN and the other mainstream elements reporting the story elaborated on it through commentary coming from anonymous “former senior intelligence officials.” As the networks have all hired ex-spooks, it raises the interesting possibility that employees of the media are themselves providing comments on intelligence operations that they were personally involved in, meaning that they might deliberately promote a narrative that does not cast them in a bad light.

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Next morning’s Washington Post story US got key asset out of Russia following election hacking touched all bases and also tried hard to implicate Trump. It confirmed 2016 as the time frame for the decision to carry out the exfiltration and also mentioned the president’s talk with Lavrov in May 2017, though the meeting itself was not cited as the reason for the move. As Taibbi observes, “So why mention it?”

The Russians have denied that Smolenkov was an important official and have insisted that the whole story might be something of a fabrication. And the alleged CIA handling of the claimed top-level defector somewhat bears out that conclusion. Normally, a former top spy is resettled in the US or somewhere overseas in a fake name to protect him or her from any possible attempt at revenge by their former countrymen. In Smolenkov’s case, easily public accessible online county real estate records indicate that he bought a $1 million house in Stafford Virginia in 2018 using his own true name.

If the Russians were truly conducting a mole hunt that endangered Smolenkov it may have been because the US media and their anonymous intelligence sources have been bragging about how they have “penetrated the Kremlin.” A Washington Post June 2017 articled called “Obama’s Secret Struggle to Punish Russia for Putin’s Election Assault is typical. In that article, the author describes how CIA Director John Brennan secured a “feat of espionage” by running spies “deep within the Russian government” that revealed Russia’s electoral interference.

So, the Smolenkov story has inconsistencies and one has to question why it was deliberately leaked at this time. The only constant in the media coverage is the repeated but completely evidence-free suggestion that the mole was endangered and had to be removed because of Donald Trump’s inability to keep a secret. One has to consider the possibility that the story has been leaked at least in part due to the continuing effort by the national security state to “get Trump.”

Highly recommended is former weapons inspector Scott Ritter’s fascinating detailed dissection of Smolenkov’s career as well as a history of the evolution of CIA spying against Russia. Scott speculates on why the leak of the story took place at all, examining a number of scenarios along the way. Smolenkov, who, according to former CIA officer Larry Johnson, has oddly never been polygraphed to establish his bona fides, might have been a double agent from the start, possibly a low level functionary allowed to work for the Americans so the Russian FSB intelligence service could feed low level information and control the narrative. It is a “dirty secret” within the Agency that many agents are recruited by case officers for no other reason than to enhance one’s career. Such agents normally have no real access and provide little reporting.

Or alternatively, Smolenkov might have been someone who was turned after recruitment or a genuine agent who was trying to respond to urgent demands from his controller in Washington, who was de facto John Brennan, by producing a dramatic report that was basically fabricated. Or the story itself might be completely false, an attempt by some former and current officials at CIA to demonstrate a great success at a time when the intelligence community is under considerable pressure.

Scott also believes, as do I, that the story was leaked because John Brennan and his associates knew that they were deliberately marketing phony intelligence on Russia to undermine Trump and are trying to preempt any investigation by Attorney General William Barr on the provenance of the Russiagate story. If it can be demonstrated somehow that the claims of Kremlin interference came from a highly regarded credible Russian source then Brennan and company can claim that they acted in good faith. Of course, that tale might break down if anyone bothers to interview Smolenkov.

Another theory that I tend to like is that the CIA might be making public the Smolenkov case in an attempt to lower the heat on another actual high-level source still operating in Moscow. If Russia can be convinced that Smolenkov was the only significant spy working in the Kremlin it might ratchet down efforts to find another mole. It is an interesting theory worthy of spy vs. spy, but one can be pretty sure that Russian counterintelligence has already thought of that possibility and will not be fooled.

The reality is that spying is a highly creative profession, with operational twists and turns limited only by one’s imagination. In this case, unless someone actually succeeds in interviewing Oleg Smolenkov and he decides to tell the complete truth as he sees it, the American public might never know the reality behind the latest spy story.

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The original source of this article is Strategic Culture Foundation

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