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Declassified files expose British role in NATO’s Gladio terror armies

By Kit KLARENBERG | THE GRAYZONE | JUNE 19, 2023

Newly declassified British Foreign Office files have added disturbing details to the history of Operation Gladio. The covert operation was uncovered in 1990, when the public learned that the CIA, MI6 and NATO trained and directed an underground army of fascist paramilitary units across Europe, deploying its assets to undermine political opponents, including through false flag terror attacks.

Among them was a young Silvio Berlusconi, the media oligarch who served as Italian Prime Minister in four separate governments between 1994 and 2011. Listed as a member of the P2, the secret Cold War-era cabal of political elites devoted to Gladio’s aims, Berlusconi undoubtedly took some weighty secrets to the grave when he died this June 12th.

It is almost impossible to believe that inconvenient truths were not weeded from Britain’s documentary record on Operation Gladio prior to declassification. Nonetheless, the recently released material is highly illuminating. Covering a fraught twelve month period after the first public disclosure of Gladio’s existence, the papers illustrate how London’s foreign intelligence apparatus kept a keen eye on the continent as events unfolded.

The papers not only shed fresh light on the conspiracy, they underline Gladio’s relevance as British intelligence joins its America counterparts in contemporary plots involving secret partisan forces from Syria to Ukraine.

Various passages dotted across the tranche strongly suggest the British knew much more than they publicly admitted about egregious criminal deeds, including the attempted overthrow of an allied Italian government and the kidnap and murder of its leader.

A ‘clandestine resistance network’ goes to work

Gladio consisted of a constellation of “stay behind” anti-communist partisan armies whose ostensible mission was to fend off the Red Army in the event of Soviet invasion. In reality, these forces committed countless violent and criminal acts as part of a “strategy of tension” designed to discredit the left and justify a security state clampdown.

As Vincenzo Vinciguerra, a Gladio operative jailed for life in 1984 for a car bombing in Italy that killed three police officers and injured two, explained:

“You were supposed to attack civilians, women, children, innocent people from outside the political arena. The reason was simple, force the public to turn to the state and ask for greater security… People would willingly trade their freedom for the security of being able to walk the streets, go on trains or enter a bank. This was the political logic behind the bombings. They remain unpunished because the state cannot condemn itself.”

The scandal triggered in Western capitals by the exposure of Gladio dominated mainstream headlines for months. The European parliament responded by passing a resolution condemning the existence of a “clandestine parallel intelligence and armed operations organization [which] escaped all democratic controls, may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of member states [and] have at their disposal independent arsenals and military resources… thereby jeopardizing the democratic structures of the countries in which they are operating.”

The resolution called for independent judicial and parliamentary investigations into Gladio in every European state. But aside from inquiries in Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, nothing of substance materialized. What’s more, investigators heavily redacted their findings while avoiding having them translated them into English. This may help explain why the historic scandal has been largely forgotten.

In this context, the newly declassified documents may be one of the most valuable primary sources to date offering new insights into the origins and internal workings of NATO’s secret terror militias in Italy.

Take for example an aide-mémoire (see it here) prepared by Francesco Fulci, Italy’s permanent representative to the UN, which was shared at a “super-restricted” November 6th 1990 meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s principal political decision-making body, then forwarded to senior British officials at home and abroad.

Based on a note provided by Rome’s then-premier Giulio Andreotti to “the Head of the Italian Parliamentary Commission investigating terrorist incidents,” the aide-mémoire begins by noting that following World War II, Western intelligence agencies devised “unconventional means of defence, by creating in their territories a hidden network of resistance aimed at operating, in case of enemy occupation, through information gathering, sabotage, propaganda and guerrilla warfare.”

According to the aide-mémoire, authorities in Rome began laying the foundations of such an organization in 1951. Four years later, Italian Military Intelligence (SIFAR) and “a corresponding allied service” – a reference to the CIA – then formally agreed on the organization and the activities of a “post-occupation clandestine network”:

“[Gladio] was; formed by agents active in the territory who, by virtue of their age, sex and activities, could reasonably avoid eventual deportation and-imprisonment by the foreign occupiers; easy to manage even from a command structure outside the occupied territory; at a top secret level and hence subdivided into ‘cells’ so as to minimize any possible damage caused by defections, accidents or network penetration.”

The “clandestine resistance network” was subdivided into separate branches, covering information operations, sabotage, propaganda, radio communications, cypher, reception and evacuation of people and equipment. Each of these structures was to operate autonomously, “with liaison and coordination ensured by an external base.”

SIFAR established a dedicated, secret section to recruit and train Gladio operatives. Meanwhile, it maintained five “ready deployment guerrilla units in areas of special interest” across Italy which awaited activation on a continuous basis.

“Operational materials”, including a wide variety of explosives, weapons – such as mortars, hand grenades, guns and knives – and ammunition were stashed in 139 secret underground caches across the country. In April 1972, “to improve security,” these arsenals were exhumed, and moved to offices of the Carabinieri, Rome’s military police, near the original sites.

Only 127 of the weapons storehouses were officially recovered. The aide-mémoir states that at least two “were very likely taken away by unknown persons” at the time they were buried, in October 1964. Who these operatives were and what they did with their stolen arms is left to the imagination.

British involvement in the coup effort

Fulci was eventually quizzed by attendees of the North Atlantic Council summit “as to whether Gladio had deviated from its proper objectives.” In other words, beyond operating strictly as a “stay behind” force, to be activated in the event of Soviet invasion. While “he could not add to what was in the aide-mémoire,” Fulci confirmed “weapons used in some terrorist incidents had come from stores established by Gladio.”

This may reflect the fact that political violence was one of Gladio’s “proper objectives.” A June 1959 SIFAR report unearthed by historian Daniele Ganser confirms guerrilla action against “domestic threats” was hardwired into the operation from its inception. In the Italian context, this entailed systematically terrorizing the left.

As the Italian Communist party surged in polls ahead of the country’s 1948 election, the CIA pumped money into the coffers of the Christian Democrats and an attendant anti-communist propaganda campaign. The cloak-and-dagger effort was so successful in preventing the outbreak of a left-wing government in Rome that Langley secretly intervened in every one of Rome’s elections for at least the next 24 years.

Yet the covert CIA operations were insufficient to prevent Italians from occasionally electing the wrong governments. The 1963 general election saw the Christian Democrats prevail again, this time under the leadership of left-leaning politician Aldo Moro, who sought to construct a coalition with the Socialists and Democratic Socialists. Over the next year, protracted disputes erupted between these parties over what form their administration would take.

In the meantime, SIFAR and CIA black ops specialists such as William Harvey, known as “America’s James Bond,” cooked up a plot to prevent that government from taking office. Known as “Piano Solo,” it dispatched Gladio operatives for a false flag assassination attempt on Moro that would deliberately fail.

According to the plan, the kidnapper was expected to claim they were ordered to kill Moro by communists, thereby justifying the violent seizure of multiple political party and newspaper headquarters, along with the imprisonment of troublesome leftists at the Gladio chapter’s secret headquarters in Sardinia. The plan was ultimately aborted, though it remained on the table throughout 1964.

Moro became Prime Minister without incident and governed until June 1968. Piano Solo fell under official investigation four years later, yet the results were not published until the public first learned of Gladio’s existence. Though the findings omitted any reference to Britain’s role in the planned coup, the newly released documents strongly suggest London’s involvement. (Read them here).

Italy’s then-President Francesco Cossiga requested the ministry hand over “details of UK stay behind measures in 1964,” according to a detailed February 1991 Foreign Office memo on recent developments in the scandal.

Cossiga apparently made this enquiry as a result of a judge “whose investigations into unsolved terrorist attacks first brought Operation Gladio to light,” and who took the “unprecedented step” of demanding the president testify about the conspiracy under oath. By this point, Cossiga had admitted learning of the “stay behind” force while serving as a junior Defense Minister in 1966.

His Foreign Office query strongly suggests British intelligence played a role in Piano Solo, and that the Italian President was well-aware of the plot.

Doomed Italian PM Aldo Moro’s photo while in captivity of the Red Brigades

“One or more of Moro’s kidnappers was secretly in touch with the security apparatus”

On March 16th 1978, a unit of the leftist militant Red Brigades kidnapped Moro. He was on his way to a high-level meeting where he planned to give his blessing there to a new coalition government that relied on communist support, when the kidnappers violently extracted him from his convoy. Five of Moro’s bodyguards were murdered in the process.

After almost two months in captivity, when it became clear the government would neither negotiate with the Red Brigades nor release any of its jailed members in return for Moro, the kidnappers executed the former Italian Prime Minister. His bullet-riddled corpse was left in a car trunk to rot, and for authorities to find.

Moro’s murder has inspired widespread and well-founded suspicions that Gladio operatives infiltrated the Red Brigades to push the group to commit excessively violent acts in order to foment popular demand for a right-wing law-and-order regime. More than perhaps any other incident, his killing fulfilled the objectives of the security state’s strategy of tension.

Whether or not Moro was a casualty of Gladio, a declassified November 5th 1990 Foreign Office memo authored by Britain’s then-ambassador to Rome, John Ashton, makes it clear that London knew much more about the case than has ever been disclosed publicly by any official source. (Read the full Ashton note here).

“There is circumstantial evidence one or more of Moro’s kidnappers was secretly in touch with the security apparatus at the time; and that the latter deliberately neglected to follow up leads which might have led to the kidnappers and saved Moro’s life,” Ashton declared.

What’s more, according to the British diplomat, the presidential crisis committee responsible for attempting to rescue Moro was part of the notorious P2 – the “subversive Masonic lodge” composed of political elites loyal to Gladio.

According to Ashton, P2 was just one of many “mysterious right wing forces” striving “by terrorism and street violence to provoke a repressive backlash against Italy’s democratic institutions” under the “strategy of tension.” And President Cossiga was completely unaware it had infiltrated his crisis committee.

In April 1981, magistrates in Milan raided the villa of Licio Gelli, an Italian financier and self-identified fascist who founded P2. There, they uncovered a list of 2,500 members which read like a “Who’s Who” of Italian politicians, bankers, spooks, financiers, industrialists, and senior law enforcement and military officials. Among the cabal’s most  prominent members was Silvio Berlusconi.

Future Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s P2 file

Moro’s “historic compromise,” under which the communists “made possible Andreotti’s government”, would be the party’s “final step before their own entry into government.” Ashton stated that this development “was anathema to P2,” which was “then in virtual control of [Italy’s] security apparatus,” and also to many non-P2 establishment politicians, and also to the US,” and sought to “eliminate once and for all any possibility that the Communist Party… might achieve national power.”

Ashton acknowledged “circumstantial evidence” of “US support for P2.” In reality, P2 founder Gelli was so well-connected to Washington’s national security and intelligence apparatus, the CIA’s Rome station had explicitly charged him with establishing an anti-communist parallel government in Rome.

Subsequent investigations showed how Henry Kissinger helped oversee the recruitment of 400 high-ranking Italian and NATO officers as P2 operatives in 1969. The US was so grateful for Gelli’s anti-communist purge that it made him a guest of honor at the inauguration ceremonies of US Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Ashton concluded his revealing note by noting the truth about Washington’s involvement in Rome’s bloodspattered “Years of Lead” would “probably never be known.” The full extent of Britain’s involvement in terrorist attacks, government overthrows, destabilization campaigns and other heinous skullduggery under the aegis of Operation Gladio, not merely in Italy but throughout Europe, will almost certainly remain a secret as well, and by design.

It was not until 1993 that the public learned how the US and British gifted munitions to Gladio operatives to foment bloody acts of terror across Italy. As Francesco Fulci told his NATO friends at the “super-restricted” meeting, Washington and London supplied the perpetrators of mass casualty attacks including the 1980 bombing of Bologna Centrale railway station, which killed 85 people and wounded over 200.

Those responsible for these hideous crimes have eluded justice in almost every case. Several of the Bologna massacre’s chief suspects, including committed fascist and confirmed MI6 asset Robert Fiore, escaped to London. Britain refused to extradite him and his co-conspirators despite their convictions in absentia for violent crimes.

The extensive experience British intelligence obtained in Operation Gladio raises questions about the lessons the MI6 has applied to current covert operations in theaters of conflict. As The Grayzone revealed in November 2022, British military and intelligence veterans have trained and sponsored a secret partisan terror army in eastern Ukraine to carry out acts of sabotage in Crimea and other majority-Russian areas. The plan called for the training of cells of ideologically dedicated Ukrainians to “shoot, move, communicate, survive.”

June 20, 2023 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden regime top aide in Saudi Arabia to further push for normalization with Israel after Blinken failure

Press TV – June 18, 2023

A top advisor to US President Joe Biden has reportedly traveled to Saudi Arabia as part of Washington’s relentless push to broker a normalization deal between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

The US-based news website Axios reported on Saturday that Brett McGurk, Biden’s senior Middle East adviser, had arrived in Saudi Arabia to hold “talks with Saudi officials that will focus on the administration’s efforts to reach a normalization agreement between the Israel and the kingdom as well as other issues.”

According to the report, McGurk was also expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman to discuss the kingdom’s normalization of relations with Israel.

McGurk’s visit is part of attempts by the White House to push for a Saudi-Israeli deal in the next six to seven months before Biden’s presidential election campaigns.

The top advisor’s trip to Saudi Arabia comes less than two weeks after US Secretary of State Tony Blinken visited the kingdom and met bin Salman, with Saudi officials having snubbed the US diplomat’s latest push for the normalization deal.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said at a joint press conference with Blinken that “without finding a pathway to peace for the Palestinian people… any normalization will have limited benefits.”

Saudi Arabia cautiously welcomed the US-brokered normalization deals between the Israeli regime and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in 2020.

The oil-rich kingdom itself, however, has been expected to jump on the bandwagon since then, as the two sides have seen growing contacts and de-facto rapprochement in recent years, despite claims that it is committed to the 2002 so-called Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions normalizing ties with Israel on the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

The Riyadh regime in November 2020 granted permission for Israeli airlines to use its airspace, hours before the first Israeli flight to the UAE was set to take off.

Palestinian leaders, activists and ordinary people have repeatedly rejected Arab-Israeli normalization deals as “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people.”

June 18, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

China’s Xi Puts Forth Proposal to Settle Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Sputnik – 14.06.2023

BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday put forward a three-point proposal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the meeting with his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas.

“First, the basis for settling the Palestinian issue is the establishment of an independent state of Palestine with full sovereignty within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Xi Jinping was quoted as saying by the Chinese national broadcaster.

Second, the Chinese president pointed out that the needs of the Palestinian economy should be met and the international community should increase humanitarian and development assistance to Palestine.

“Third, the right course of peace negotiations should be followed. Respect the historical status quo of Jerusalem’s religious shrines, refrain from radical and provocative statements and actions, promote a larger, more authoritative and more influential international peace conference, create conditions for the resumption of peaceful talks and make concrete efforts to help Palestine and Israel coexist peacefully,” Xi concluded.

Abbas is on a state visit to China from June 13-16.

June 14, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | 3 Comments

Permanent Apartheid in Palestine: This is why Israel wants to reactivate E1 Plan

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 12, 2023

The Israeli government is at it again, actively discussing the construction of thousands of illegal settlement units as part of a massive settlement expansion scheme known as E1.

Though Israeli construction in the East Jerusalem area has supposedly been halted under international pressure, the Israeli government has found ways to keep the plan alive.

It did so through constant expansion of the various settlements in the name of ‘natural expansion’, confiscation of Palestinian land and the ruthless yet routine demolition of Palestinian homes.

But why does Washington, Israel’s main defender and benefactor, oppose, at least verbally, the construction in E1, while turning a blind eye to illegal construction throughout the West Bank?

The answer lies in the fact that E1 will further expand the Jerusalem municipal boundaries, minimise any Palestinian demographic presence in the city (from the current 42 per cent to about 20 per cent), and prejudice any political solution that includes East Jerusalem.

East Jerusalem is a Palestinian city, occupied by Israel during the June 1967 war. It is recognized by the United Nations and international law as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel should have neither legal rights nor jurisdiction there.

Washington, which rarely cares about the rights of Palestinians, is concerned that, without East Jerusalem as part of the political equation, any discussion of a ‘two-state solution’ will become forever obsolete.

In other words, the US is more worried about the political, not territorial consequences of the Israeli decision. Indeed, the US’s entire political program in Palestine and Israel is situated within the two-state solution template. Without it, Washington’s role would cease to serve any purpose.

This is precisely why US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, criticized Israeli settlements during his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on 5 June.

Though he covered the habitual US commitment to Israel’s security, describing it as “non-negotiable” and “ironclad”, he also warned against “any move toward annexation of the West Bank … disruption of the historic status quo at holy sites (and) the continuing demolitions of homes.”

These steps, and more, will “damage prospects for two states”, the cornerstone of US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Israel, on the other hand, is neither interested in a two-state, one-state nor any ‘solution’ to its military occupation and apartheid in Palestine. Instead, Tel Aviv is working towards a specific end, a formula of permanent domination, one that would satisfy its quest for ‘security’, demographic superiority and ‘defensible’ borders.

It matters little that Israel’s vision for its own border lines is largely inconsistent with international law. All that matters to the current, in fact, all Israeli governments, are the ‘national interests’ of the country’s Jewish population, whose future has been linked to the crushing of political aspirations and civil rights of the country’s native Arab, Palestinian inhabitants.

Jerusalem’s particular significance stems from two factors: one, its historical, spiritual, economic and administrative centrality to all Palestinians and, two, the fact that it has been the Holy Grail of Israel’s settler colonialism in Palestine for the last 75 years.

A quick look at the map of Occupied East Jerusalem is enough to explain Israel’s ultimate motive in the Palestinian city: Maximum land with an absolute Jewish majority.

For this to take place, much work has to be done, namely ensuring the territorial continuity between the massive illegal Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem.

Israel’s motives are not a secret. A long report by the Zionist Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs champions and illustrates Tel Aviv’s objectives in detail. The report warns against allowing “security and urban discontinuity between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, or the reversion of Jerusalem to a border-town status … that would preclude the city’s eastward development.”

The reference to ‘eastward development’ is particularly dangerous, as many illegal Jewish settlements have purposely been planted in various parts of the West Bank, all the way to the Jordan Valley for the sole purpose of linking them all up, thus dividing the West Bank into two main regions, south and north.

Considering the current administration and ‘security’ divisions of the Occupied West Bank, a major territorial division will deny Palestinians any sense of physical continuity, let alone statehood. In other words, apartheid will become permanent and, from Israel’s perspective, also sustainable.

As for the westward expansion, connecting Ma’ale Adumim to the so-called “metropolitan Jerusalem” through construction in E1 will help Israel resolve a fundamental component of its expansionist strategy. According to the Zionist Jerusalem Centre, such a merger will “incorporate both settlement and security as two vital, complementary components of Israel’s national interest.”

And, wherever there is Israeli construction in Occupied Palestine, there is always the destruction of Palestinian properties and confiscation of land.

According to the European Union Office in Palestine, in 2022, 28,208 illegal settlement units “were advanced” in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, compared to 22,030 in 2021. A higher number is expected in 2023.

As for Palestinian home demolition, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) paints a grim picture: in the first quarter of 2023 alone, 290 Palestinian structures in East Jerusalem and the West Bank were demolished or seized. This represents an increase of 46 per cent, compared to the same period of the previous year.

East Jerusalem has had a major share of this destruction, specifically 95 homes and other structures between 1 January and 28 March, according to the World Council of Churches. The outcome has been the displacement of 149 Palestinians. Among them, 88 children have been rendered homeless.

The price of Israel’s major plans in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank is not just humanitarian. It is essentially political, aimed at cutting off Palestinian communities from one another, isolating Jerusalem completely, and ensuring a Jewish demographic majority for generations to come.

Though Secretary Blinken tries to emphasise the danger of such actions to the two-state solution, the real danger lies in the fact that such measures threaten the very fabric of Palestinian society and the political future of the Palestinian people.

Israel’s quest to reactivate its E1 plan requires not just mere condemnation, but tangible and decisive action, especially as Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government is more unhinged than ever before.

June 12, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tel Aviv to Announce Plans For Thousands of New Settlement Units in West Bank

By Connor Freeman | Libertarian Institute | June 12, 2023

Israel has informed the White House that it intends to announce the planning and building of thousands of new settlement units in the occupied West Bank later this month, according to US and Israeli officials speaking to Axios. One of the sources told the outlet, at a minimum, the plan includes 4,000 new housing units being built in existing West Bank settlements.

The Joe Biden administration is ostensibly opposed to these moves as the settlements are seen as undermining prospects for a two-state solution in Palestine. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition includes extremist settlers dead set on substantial colonial expansion, eyeing annexation of the West Bank, and this has not diminished US support.

According to the report, the White House wants Tel Aviv to either cancel its plans or at least tone down the announcement to draw as little attention as possible. This seems unlikely even though the US provides almost $4 billion per year to Israel in military aid.

Jewish only colonies, or settlements, which continue to be built inside these territories – militarily occupied for almost sixty years – are illegal per international law. This is a view shared by most of the world community, including in Middle Eastern capital cities like Riyadh where Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently urged Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers to normalize with the Israeli apartheid state.

The Israeli government is also facing criticism from its supporters for temporarily shelving a meeting to discuss a plan for settlement expansion in the West Bank’s E1 area. Located between Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement, the area is highly sensitive. If a Jewish-only settlement is built there it would remove any remaining territorial contiguity between the northern and southern West Bank. Thus, these additional “facts on the ground” would make a future Palestinian state even more unviable.

On Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the extremist leader of the Religious Zionism party, vowed “we will have big news for the settlements in the West Bank imminently.” Smotrich holds sweeping powers over the West Bank including the approval of new settlements and the demolition of Palestinian homes.

2022 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, according to the UN. Since taking power last December, the current regime in Israel has waged a brutal bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip which murdered 33 people, while Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 119 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem so far this year.

Muhammad Tamimi, a two-year old Palestinian boy from the Nabi Saleh village in the West Bank, succumbed to his wounds last Monday after he was shot in the head by the Israeli army.

June 12, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | 2 Comments

Israeli forces shoot Palestinian toddler in the head

MEMO | June 2, 2023

A two-year-old Palestinian toddler has been severely wounded after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank yesterday.

According to the Wafa news agency, the toddler was shot in the head while sitting in a car with his 40-year-old father in front of their home.

The toddler was flown to Israel’s Sheba hospital by helicopter and is currently in a critical condition, while his father, who was shot in the arm, was driven to a hospital in Ramallah.

Local Palestinian activist, Bilal Tamimi, told Wafa that the toddler was shot in the head as a result of a raid imposed by Israeli occupation forces on the village.

The army said it was opening an investigation into the shooting, saying it “regrets harm to noncombatants” and that it does “everything in its power to prevent such incidents.”

Meanwhile, Naji Tamimi, the head of the Nabi Saleh Village Council, said Israeli soldiers locked the iron gate at the village entrance and proceeded to invade several neighbourhoods and fire live rounds at protesters.

Tension has been escalating across the occupied West Bank for months, amid Israeli raids on Palestinian towns.

More than 155 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces this year, including 26 children, according to Palestinian figures. Last year was deemed the deadliest for the occupied West Bank since 2015, but this year’s death toll has already exceeded the number of those killed in 2022.

June 3, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

US, UK disrupt peace efforts in Yemen

The Cradle | June 2, 2023

Washington and the UK have been continually disrupting peace negotiations in Yemen, informed sources in Sanaa were cited as saying in a report by Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar on 2 June.

“Washington and London are actively disrupting the Yemeni-Saudi political negotiations,” the newspaper wrote.

According to Al-Akhbar, the US and UK are trying to “obstruct all efforts that could lead to peace, and put among their first considerations the Israeli interest.”

This “Israeli interest” is the reason that Saudi Arabia has been “procrastinating” in the agreements it made with Sanaa, which include lifting all blockades and paying government employee salaries, Al-Akhbar said.

This, along with US and UK involvement, aim to keep Yemen in “a state of no war but no peace.”

Al-Akhbar’s sources were quoted as saying: “The political leadership in Yemen knows from the outset that … Riyadh is unable to abide by the terms of the agreement and … end the repercussions of the war due to the divergent regional interests.”

“The [coalition], as much as they agree on undermining Yemeni independence and sovereignty, they are in conflict with each other,” the sources added.

They went on to say that the Ansarallah resistance movement and the Sanaa government do not regret the political flexibility they showed during recent Omani-mediated talks with the kingdom. They warned, however, that time is not on the coalition’s side and that their military power has grown significantly.

The report goes on to explain how Saudi interests diverge from those of the UAE, the west, and Israel.

According to the Al-Akhbar report, Saudi Arabia has realized – despite its procrastination as a result of external pressure – that its interest lies in ending the war and withdrawing from “the Yemeni quagmire.”

However, the UAE wishes to maintain its occupation of Yemen’s ports and oilfields, as well as its occupation of the country’s waterways and particularly its islands, including the Socotra archipelago, which Abu Dhabi has been working in collaboration with Israel to transform into joint military and intelligence hubs. There have also been recent concerns over UAE-backed separatist ambitions in the south.

This also falls in line with the US and Israeli interest to maintain and bolster influence in the Red Sea.

The report adds that Israel is also particularly interested in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which it considers a “vital artery” for trade with the east, and a key factor in strengthening influence in the Horn of Africa.

It concludes that the Israeli security establishment has significant concerns over Ansarallah’s capability to strike Israel with missiles.

June 3, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington’s obsession with crushing Russia has dismantled its Middle East agenda

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | May 29, 2023

Once the undisputed hegemonic power in the Middle East, thought to be indispensable for the security and success of a range of regional leaderships, the US has been fading into the background to the benefit of its adversaries.

As armed conflict erupted between NATO-backed Ukraine and Russia in February of 2022, the Joe Biden administration in Washington decided to throw its weight behind Kiev and focus on a project to bog down Moscow, while unleashing wave after wave of sanctions. Despite spending at least $75 billion dollars on assistance to Ukraine and making Russia the most sanctioned nation on earth, the US has failed to bring Moscow to its knees. In fact, one could say that it is the US that has been cut down to size in the global arena, especially in the Middle East, an area it once considered its own backyard.

As the months pass, blow after blow has been inflicted on US power in the Middle East. In direct opposition to Washington’s agenda, the Syrian Arab Republic was readmitted to the Arab League following a 12-year hiatus, paving the way to end the crisis in Syria, which the US seeks to prolong. China has also entered Middle East politics in a dramatic way, brokering an Iranian-Saudi rapprochement back in March, and this then spurred a wider normalization wave. Although the US attempted to play off the Saudi Arabia-Iran agreement as an acceptable and welcomed move, this has now clearly worked to collapse Washington’s long-term effort towards regional supremacy, which was based on feeding a proxy conflict between the two powers.

The failure of US sanctions

Western leaders publicly predicted that Russia’s economy would collapse under sanctions, a result which clearly has not materialized, with the IMF predicting the Russian economy will grow. Similarly, the US “maximum pressure” sanctions that were first introduced against Iran under the Trump administration, were expected to severely hinder the Islamic Republic’s ability to continue its developments in the defense field, but have failed to achieve those goals.

Russia is now exporting more oil than it did in 2021, as its relations with China, the primary global competitor to the US, have advanced. Gulf States have also repeatedly let the US down and refrained from yielding to pressure to cut oil production. There is also the example of Algeria, which has become Italy’s largest gas supplier and raked in over $50 billion dollars in oil and gas revenues during 2022 alone, even as it retains close relations with Moscow. And when it comes to the West’s ban on Russian gold bullion, the UAE, Türkiye and China have reportedly stepped in to fill the gap.

However, perhaps the worst blowback against Russia sanctions has been the nullification of previous limits to Moscow-Tehran economic relations. The two nations are already the most sanctioned on earth, so they need not worry about the potential consequences from their trade, which has encouraged further cooperation between them. Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi signed a deal to finance an Iranian railway line as part of a North-South Transport Corridor.

Failed propaganda

The Biden administration has employed hardline propaganda tactics in order to demonize Russia and lionize Ukraine. Although for some Western audiences the arguments set forth may have proven effective, in the global community and especially the Middle East, such rhetoric is tiresome and clearly hypocritical.

After having illegally invaded Iraq, inflicting around a million deaths, over a concoction of factually-challenged conspiracy theories about weapons of mass destruction, it comes off as laughable that the US is now claiming to oppose illegal invasions. Former Bush administration officials, such as Condolezza Rice, have even appeared on national television shows in the US to condemn illegal invasions of foreign countries. Even former US President George W. Bush seemingly condemned the “holy unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq… I mean of Ukraine” in a Freudian slip.

The US has positioned itself now as being opposed to the illegal occupation of foreign territory, in addition to claiming it stands in principle against annexation. When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked by a CNN correspondent whether his government supported the annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights by Israel, he answered: “Look, leaving aside the legalities of that question, as a practical matter, the Golan is very important to Israel’s security,” again demonstrating Washington’s double standards. Washington continues to maintain its recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, which not only defies international law, but also the majority opinion at the United Nations.

The faltering image of the US

From the perspective of Middle Eastern nations, the US is overcommitted to the conflict in Ukraine, even as they have refrained from taking a clear side and instead remained neutral for the most part. Neither the people nor the governments of these countries buy the platitudes espoused by US officials when it comes to Ukraine. The stark difference between the way Palestinians and Ukrainians are portrayed for the exact same actions are enough to make eyes roll.

Now that China is presenting opportunities for countless Middle East nations, especially in the economic sphere, the US has a real competitor. However, the US continues to operate as if the world has not undergone a dramatic shift and refuses to rein in its allies. Ukraine in some respects is getting the special treatment that Israel has enjoyed for years: unlimited aid with few or no questions asked. In the case of Israel, as its government proceeds with introducing controversial legal reforms, takes steps to change the status quo at the al-Aqsa Mosque and pursues hardline far-right policies against the Palestinian people, all coming at a cost to Washington itself, the Biden administration refuses to put it in its place. What Israel is currently doing is embarrassing its own Arab allies that recently normalized ties, even threatening to put a wedge in relations with the likes of neighboring Jordan.

It is this refusal to recalibrate that is not only costing the US its influence, but also evaporating the prize of bringing Israel and Saudi Arabia together, which has clearly been a foreign policy achievement goal dear to the Biden administration. Now that Riyadh and Tehran have restored relations, the excuse of combating Iran’s regional influence is gone for negotiating a Saudi-Israeli rapprochement. The refusal to punish Israel for its constant provocations also makes it more difficult for Saudi Arabia to normalize with an unrestrained Israeli government that continues to insult the Muslim world and invites popular Arab support for the Palestinian cause. If there is no change to the arrogant and out of touch approach of the US, which rules with an iron fist and a “my way or the highway” approach, it will be the US itself that is going to be taking a hike from the Middle East.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

May 29, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | 4 Comments

Why Are US Military Personnel Heading to Peru?

By Nick Corbishley – naked capitalism – May 26, 2023

The ostensible goal of the operation is to provide “support and assistance to the Special Operations of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and National Police of Peru,” including in regions recently engulfed in violence.

Unbeknown, it seems, to most people in Peru and the US (considering the paucity of media coverage in both countries), US military personnel will soon be landing in Peru. The plenary session of Peru’s Congress last Thursday (May 18) authorised the entry of US troops onto Peruvian soil with the ostensible purpose of carrying out “cooperation activities” with Peru’s armed forces and national police. Passed with 70 votes in favour, 33 against and four abstentions, resolution 4766 stipulates that the troops are welcome to stay any time between June 1 and December 31, 2023.

The number of US soldiers involved has not been officially disclosed, at least as far as I can tell, though a recent statement by Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador, who is currently person non grata in Peru, suggests it could be around 700. The cooperation and training activities will take place across a wide swathe of territory including Lima, Callao, Loreto, San Martín, Huánuco, Ucayali, Pasco, Junín, Huancavelica, Iquitos, Pucusana, Apurímac, Cusco and Ayacucho.

The last three regions, in the south of Peru, together with Arequipa and Puno, were the epicentre of huge political protests, strikes and road blocks from December to February after Peru’s elected President Pedro Castillo was toppled, imprisoned and replaced by his vice-president Dina Boluarte. The protesters’ demands included:

  • The release of Castillo
  • New elections
  • A national referendum on forming a Constitutional Assembly to replace Peru’s current constitution, which was imposed by former dictator Alberto Fujimori following his self-imposed coup of 1992

Brutal Crackdown on Protests

Needless to say, none of these demands have been met. Instead, Peru’s security forces, including 140,000 mobilised soldiers, unleashed a brutal crackdown that culminated in the deaths of approximately 70 people. A report released by international human rights organization Amnesty International in February drew the following assessment:

“Since the beginning of the massive protests in different areas of the country in December 2022, the Army and National Police of Peru (PNP) have unlawfully fired lethal weapons and used other less lethal weapons indiscriminately against the population, especially against Indigenous people and campesinos (rural farmworkers) during the repression of protests, constituting widespread attacks.”

As soon as possibly next week, an indeterminate number of US military personnel could be joining the fracas. According to the news website La Lupa, the purported goal of their visit is to provide “support and assistance to the Special Operations of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and National Police of Peru” during two periods spanning a total of seven months: from June 1 to September 30, and from October 1 to December 30, 2023.

The secretary of the Commission for National Defence, Internal Order, Alternative Development and the Fight Against Drugs, Alfredo Azurín, was at pains to stress that there are no plans for the US to set up a military base in Peru and that the entry of US forces “will not affect national sovereignty.” Some opposition congressmen and women begged to differ, arguing that the entry of foreign forces does indeed pose a threat to national sovereignty. They also lambasted the government for passing the resolution without prior debate or consultation with the indigenous communities.

The de facto Boluarte government and Congress are treating the arrival of US troops as a perfectly routine event. And it is true that the US military has long held a presence in Peru. For example, in 2017, U.S. personnel took part in military exercises held jointly with Colombia, Peru and Brazil in the “triple borderland” of the Amazon region. Also, the US Navy operates a biosafety-level 3 biomedical research laboratory close to Lima as well as two other (biosafety-level 2) laboratories in Puerto Maldonado.

But the timing of the operation raising serious questions. After all, Peru is currently under the control of an unelected government that is heavily supported by Washington but overwhelmingly rejected by the Peruvian people. The crackdown on protests in the south of the Peru by the country’s security forces — the same security forces that US military personnel will soon be joining — has led to dozens of deaths. Peru’s Congress is refusing to call new elections in total defiance of public opinion. Just a few days ago, the country’s Supreme Court issued a ruling that some legal scholars have interpreted as essentially criminalising political protest.

As Peru’s civilian institutions fight among themselves, Peru’s armed forces — the last remaining “backbone” in the country, according to Mexican geopolitical analyst Alfredo Jalife — has taken firm control. And lest we forget, Peru is home to some of the very same minerals that the US military has identified as strategically important to US national security interests, including lithium. Also, as I noted in my June 22, 2021 piece, Is Another Military Coup Brewing in Peru, After Historic Electoral Victory for Leftist Candidate?, while Peru’s largest trading partner is China, its political institutions — like those of Colombia and Chile — remain tethered to US policy interests:

Together with Chile, it’s the only country in South America that was invited to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was later renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership after Donald Trump withdrew US participation.

Given as much, the rumours of another coup in Peru should hardly come as a surprise. Nor should the Biden administration’s recent appointment of a CIA veteran as US ambassador to Peru, as recently reported by Vijay Prashad and José Carlos Llerena Robles:

Her name is Lisa Kenna, a former adviser to former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a nine-year veteran at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and a US secretary of state official in Iraq. Just before the election, Ambassador Kenna released a video, in which she spoke of the close ties between the United States and Peru and of the need for a peaceful transition from one president to another.

It seems more than likely that Kenna played a direct role in the not-so-peaceful transition from President Castillo to de facto President Boluarte, having met with Peru’s then-Defence Minister Gustavo Bobbio Rosas on December 6, the day before Pedro Castillo was ousted, to tackle “issues of bilateral interest”.

On a Knife’s Edge

After decades of stumbling from crisis to crisis and government to government, Peru rests on a knife’s edge. When Castillo, a virtual nobody from an Andean backwater who had played an important role in the teachers’ strikes of 2017, rode to power on a crest of popular anger at Peru’s hyper-corrupt establishment parties in June 2021, Peru’s legions of poor and marginalised hoped that positive changes would follow. But it was not to be.

Castillo was always an outsider in Lima and was out of his depth from day one. He had zero control over Congress and failed miserably to overcome rabid right-wing opposition to his government. Even in his first year in office he faced two impeachment attempts. As Manolo De Los Santos wrote in People’s Dispatch, Peru’s largely Lima-based political and business elite could never accept that a former schoolteacher and farmer from the high Andean plains could become president.

On December 7, they finally got what they wanted: Castillo’s impeachment. Just hours before a third impeachment hearing, he declared on national television that he was dissolving Congress and launching an “exceptional emergency government” and the convening of a Constituent Assembly. It was a preemptive act of total desperation from a man who held no sway with the military or judiciary, had zero control over Congress, and had even lost the support of his own party. Hours later, he was impeached, arrested by his own security detail and taken to jail, where he remains to this day.

Castillo may be out of the picture but political instability continues to reign in Peru. The de facto Boluarte government and Congress are broadly despised by the Peruvian people. According to the latest poll by the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP), 78% of Peruvians disapprove of Boluarte’s presidency while only 15% approve. Congress is even less popular, with a public disapproval rate of 91%. Forty-one percent believe that the protests will increase while 26% believe they will remain the same. In the meantime, Peru’s Congress continues to block general elections.

Peru’s “Strategic” Resources 

As regular readers know, EU and US interest in Latin America is rising rapidly as the race for lithium, copper, cobalt and other elements essential for the so-called “clean” energy transition heats up. It is a race that China has been winning pretty handily up until now.

Peru is not only one of China’s biggest trade partners in Latin America; it is home to the only port in Latin America that is managed entirely by Chinese capital. And while Peru may not form part of the Lithium Triangle (Bolivia, Argentina and Chile), it does boast significant deposits of the white metal. By one estimate, it is home to the sixth largest deposits of hard-rock lithium in the world. It is also the world’s second largest producer of copper, zinc and silver, three metals that are also expected to play a major role in supporting renewable energy technologies.

In other words, there is a huge amount at stake in how Peru evolves politically as well as the economic and geopolitical alliances it forms. Also, its direct neighbour to the north, Ecuador, is undergoing a major political crisis that is likely to spell the end of the US-aligned Guillermo Lasso government and a handover of power to Rafael Correa’s party and its allies.

And the US government and military have made no secret of their interest in the mineral deposits that countries like Peru hold in their subsoil. In an address to the Washington-based Atlantic Council on Jan 19, Gen. Laura Richardson, head of the U.S. Southern Command, spoke gushingly of Latin America’s rich deposits of “rare earth elements,” “the lithium triangle — Argentina, Bolivia, Chile,” the “largest oil reserves [and] light, sweet crude discovered off Guyana,” Venezuela’s “oil, copper, gold” and the fact that Latin America is home to “31% of the world’s fresh water in this region.”

She also detailed how Washington, together with US Southern Command, is actively negotiating the sale of lithium in the lithium triangle to US companies through its web of embassies, with the goal of “box[ing] out” US adversaries (i.e. China and Russia), concluding with the ominous words: “This region matters. It has a lot to do with national security. And we need to step up our game.”

Which begs the question: is this the first step of the US government and military’s stepping-up-the-game process?

The former president of Bolivia Evo Morales, who knows a thing or two about US interventions in the region, having been on the sharp end of a US-backed right-wing coup in 2019, certainly seems to think so. A few days ago, he tweeted the following message:

The Peruvian Congress’ authorisation for the entry and stationing of US troops for 7 months confirms that Peru is governed from Washington, under the tutelage of the Southern Command.

The Peruvian people are subject to powerful foreign interests mediated by illegitimate powers lacking popular representation.

The greatest challenge for working people and indigenous peoples is to recover their self-determination, their sovereignty and their natural resources.

With this authorization from the Peruvian right, we warn that the criminalization of protest and the occupation of US military forces will consolidate a repressive state that will affect sovereignty and regional peace in Latin America.

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador, who refuses to acknowledge Boluarte (whom he calls the “great usurper”) as Peru’s president and has recently faced threats of direct US military intervention in Mexico’s drug wars from US Republican lawmakers, had a message for the US government this week: “[Sending soldiers to Peru] merely maintains an interventionist policy that does not help at all in building fraternal bonds among the peoples of the American continent.”

Unfortunately, the US government does not seem interested, if indeed it ever has been, in building fraternal bonds with the peoples of the American continent. Instead, it is set on upgrading the Monroe Doctrine for the 21st century. Its strategic rivals this time around are not Western European nations, which are now little more than US vassals (as a recent paper by the European Council of Foreign Relations, titled “The Art of Vassalisation”, all but admitted), but rather China and Russia.

May 27, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

China calls on Israel to ‘stop encroaching’ on Palestinian land

Israeli forces secure demolition of a building belonging to Palestinians claiming that it was unlicensed at Jabel Mukaber Neighborhood in East Jerusalem on May 24, 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | May 26, 2023

China has called on Israel to “stop encroaching” upon Palestinian territory and resources, as Tel Aviv continues to allow and approve the construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Speaking to the United Nations Security Council yesterday, Geng Shuang, China’s deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, stated that “since the beginning of this year, Israel has continued to advance unilateral actions on approving returns, building new settlements and legalising settlements”.

Emphasising that such settlement building and activities violate international law and UN Security Council Resolution 2334, he expressed Beijing’s stance to “urge Israel to immediately halt these actions and stop encroaching upon the land and resources of the Palestinian people”.

Shuang also stressed that “the historical status quo of religious holy sites in Jerusalem must be respected and upheld”, saying that Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir “caused renewed tensions” by storming the Al Aqsa Mosque compound for the second time this year and proclaiming Israel’s alleged ownership of the Islamic holy site.

“On the issue of religious holy sites, Israel must stop its provocations, guarantee the right to worship of Muslim worshipers, uphold the peace and tranquillity of religious holy sites, and respect the custodianship of Jordan”, he asserted.

Shuang also drew attention to the fact that tensions and clashes between the Israeli occupation and Palestinian Resistance groups “have been repeating themselves over the past few years, fully demonstrating that a long-stalled peace process is not sustainable, that piece-meal crisis management will not last, and that a comprehensive and just solution is irreplaceable”.

He indicated China’s increasing role in the issue, as with others in the region, and the possibility of surpassing the United States as a mediatory force and hegemon. Supposedly referring to the US, he stated that “the country with major influence on the parties concerned should make concrete efforts to advance the Middle East peace process and should not unjustifiably prevent the Security Council from arriving at the minimum consensus on the Palestine-Israeli issue”.

The Chinese diplomat’s remarks came as the Israeli government yesterday approved the proposed state budget for 2023-2024, which allocates around 3.5 billion Israeli shekels ($941 million) for the illegal settlement projects and the upgrading of their infrastructure.

Current estimates report that there are around 700,000 illegal settlers living in 164 settlements and 116 outposts in the Occupied West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem, with that set to expand as Tel Aviv frequently approves thousands of more settlement units.

May 26, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , | 1 Comment

New legislation aims to block New York charities from funding Israeli settlements

Press TV – May 19, 2023

A New York State assembly member has introduced a legislation to stop charities from sending millions of dollars to Israel to stop its settlement expansion activities across the occupied Palestinian territories which are being advanced in flagrant violation of the international law.

The legislation, dubbed “Not on our dime!: Ending New York Funding of Israeli Settler Violence Act,” was introduced by state assembly member Zohran Mamdani, the third Muslim in the New York State assembly, earlier this week.

It would give the state attorney general authority to sue and dissolve not-for-profit organizations that are found to be using their tax-deductible donations to support organizations funding illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The legislation would also give Palestinians harmed by settler organizations funded by New York-based charities the right to seek damages in American courts.

“Charities registered in New York State currently send more than $60 million dollars a year in tax-deductible donations to aid and abet Israeli settlements. This is done on our dime as New Yorkers,” Mamdani said, the Middle East Eye reported on Thursday.

He added, “This legislation puts an end to that and makes explicit that subsidizing violence and activities outlawed by the Geneva Convention is not, and should not be considered, charitable giving. It’s past time for New York to catch up to international law.”

Mamdani noted that while this issue is important to him as a Muslim, as his faith informs his fight to ensure justice for all people, this is not a bill motivated by religion.

“It is a bill motivated by a desire that New York State stop subsidizing human rights violations through the conferring of charitable status to organizations such as these,” he said.

“Too often, we see an exception drawn when it comes to Palestine – whether it be in our policies or the application of them. This makes it clear that our belief in human rights is universal, without exception,” he added.

The legislation has already received some backlash. Mamdani highlighted that his office has received a call saying all Muslims should die and all Muslim lovers should be killed as well.

“This is the reality when you dare speak up about Palestine and Palestinians,” he said.

Additionally, 66 lawmakers signed an open letter condemning the legislation, saying it “attacks” Jewish organizations.

Emboldened by former US president Donald Trump’s all-out support, Israel has stepped up its illegal settlement construction activities in defiance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which pronounced settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds “a flagrant violation under international law.”

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent state with East al-Quds as its capital.

The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was Israel’s continued illegal settlement expansion.

Many Palestinians believe the Israeli plans to annex one-third of the already occupied West Bank, including parts of the strategic Jordan Valley, is only a formality and that a de facto Israeli occupation of their land has been underway for many years.

May 19, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

US kills Syrian shepherd claiming he was Al-Qaeda leader

Lotfi Hassan Misto, who was killed on 3 May 2023 by a US drone strike in Syria. (Photo courtesy of the Misto family)
The Cradle | May 19, 2023

After US military officials claimed to kill an important Al-Qaeda figure in Syria in an airstrike earlier this month, evidence from the dead man’s family indicates he was instead an impoverished shepherd and father of 10 children, The Washington Post reported on 19 May.

According to interviews with his brother, son, and six others who knew him, the slain man was Lotfi Hassan Misto, 56, a former bricklayer who they described as a kind, hard-working man whose “whole life was spent poor.”

Misto was killed by a Predator Drone strike using a Hellfire missile on 3 May. Hours later, without evidence or providing a name of the person targeted, US Central Command claimed that they had killed a “senior Al Qaeda leader.”

The interviews with Misto’s family members have caused US officials to backtrack from their original claims.

“We are no longer confident we killed a senior AQ official,” one US official told The Washington Post. Another said that “though we believe the strike did not kill the original target, we believe the person to be al-Qaeda.” Both spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Post notes further that, “In the weeks since the attack, US military officials have refused to identify publicly who their target was, how the apparent error occurred, whether a legitimate terrorist leader escaped and why some in the Pentagon maintain Misto was a member of al-Qaeda despite his family’s denials.”

In a statement, Michael Lawhorn, a spokesman for Central Command, said that “Centcom takes all such allegations seriously and is investigating to determine whether or not the action may have unintentionally resulted in harm to civilians.”

The US military has faced accusations it has covered up past instances of airstrikes that killed innocent people as a result of what The Post described as “flawed intelligence” and “confirmation bias,” including in the case of a 2021 strike in Afghanistan that officials claimed targeted a suicide bomber but instead killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children.

In perhaps the most famous case, the US military carried out an airstrike in Mosul in 2017 during the battle against ISIS that killed 240 civilians sheltering in a large home.

The US military has carried out airstrikes in Syria intermittently in recent years in areas controlled by Al-Qaeda affiliated groups, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, previously known as the Nusra Front.

This is despite the fact that US planners played a key role in helping the Nusra Front capture Syria’s northwest Idlib governate in 2015 by supplying TOW anti-tank missiles to Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups fighting as Nusra proxies.

Supplying the weapons was part of the CIA’s Timber Sycamore Program, which sought to arm and fund extremist Salafist armed groups fighting the Syrian government under the FSA banner.

US, British, Turkish, and Gulf efforts to effect regime change in Syria failed, however, and President Donald Trump ended the CIA program, which enjoyed a budget of over $1 billion per year, in 2017.

The extremist groups occupying Idlib have enjoyed continued Turkish support since that time, while Turkish troops have also occupied areas in northern Syria directly.

But the status of Turkish-backed and Al-Qaeda-linked extremist groups in Syria is now in doubt as Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan has in recent months participated in Russian-backed talks to normalize relations with Damascus.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has demanded that Turkiye end its occupation of northern Syria and cease support for extremist groups as a condition of any normalization of ties with Ankara.

May 19, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

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