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Calls on Britain to stop arms exports to UAE

MEMO | June 1, 2017

The Arab Organisation for Human Rights in Britain (AOHR) has called on the UK government to stop exporting arms to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) because of its role in fuelling armed conflicts in the Middle East.

The organisation said the British government granted 509 arms licenses to the UAE worth £182 million ($233.3 million) in 2016 including defensive and offensive weapons with most of these weapons being transported to conflict zones in Yemen and Libya.

The organisation warned that the UAE government does not abide by the last user condition stipulated in the arms licenses which is documented in UN and international reports and therefore it is imperative that the UK government stop the export of arms to Abu Dhabi and investigate the fate of arms deals which were concluded previously.

The UAE not only provided the parties to the conflict with weapons, AOHR explained, but carried out military operations in the field like the continued bombing against the Darna region in Libya in cooperation with Egypt which resulted in civilian deaths and the destruction of many civilian facilities.

Using the pretext of fighting terrorism, the UAE and its allies are committing gross violations of the rules of international humanitarian law, AOHR added.

It went on to express deep concern that the UAE is expanding its military activity in Africa, where it has built military bases in Eritrea and Somalia.

June 1, 2017 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Islamic State in Asia: Saudi-Funding and Naive Policymakers Endanger Region

By Joseph Thomas – New Eastern Outlook – 31.05.2017

Recently, terrorist attacks have unfolded across Indonesia, a militant network disrupted along the Thai-Malaysian border and full-scale military operations including aerial bombing deployed as Philippine troops fought to take back Marawi City on the southern island of Mindanao, all linked or affiliated with the Islamic State.

A dangerously deceptive narrative is being crafted by US and European media organisations, the same sort of narrative that was used to conceal the true source of the Islamic State’s fighting capacity across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region beginning as early as 2011.

The New York Times, for example, in an article titled, “In Indonesia and Philippines, Militants Find a Common Bond: ISIS,” claims:

An eruption of violence in the southern Philippines and suicide bombings in Indonesia this week highlight the growing threat posed by militant backers of the Islamic State in Southeast Asia.

While the timing of the Jakarta bombings and the fighting on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao appears to be coincidental, experts on terrorism have been warning for months that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has provided a new basis for cooperation among extremists in the region.

However, back in reality, the Islamic State is no different than any other military force. Its members require food, water and shelter daily. They require weapons and ammunition. They require uniforms. They need transportation, which in turn requires fuel, maintenance personnel and spare parts. And most important of all, the Islamic State requires a steady stream of recruits made possible only through organised education and indoctrination.

For the scale the Islamic State is doing this on, stretching across MENA and now reaching into Southeast Asia, confounding the response of not just individual nation-states but entire blocs of nations attempting to confront this growing threat, it is abundantly clear the Islamic State is not fulfilling these prerequisites on its own.

Its doing this all through state sponsorship, a reality rarely mentioned by the New York Times,  Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, CNN, the BBC and others. Those acquiring their worldview through these media organisations are setting themselves up and those depending on their analysis for tragic failure.

Education and Indoctrination: Who is Feeding the Fire?  

The ranks of the Islamic State in Southeast Asia are being filled by a regional network of extremist indoctrination conducted in institutions posing as Islamic boarding schools known as madrasas. Those institutions indoctrinating local populations with notions of extremism and inspiring them to take up violence and terrorism share a common denominator; Saudi funding.

Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense University, Yousaf Butt, in a Huffington Post article titled, “How Saudi Wahhabism Is the Fountainhead of Islamist Terrorism,” would put Saudi funding of such extremist networks into perspective, stating:

It would be troublesome but perhaps acceptable for the House of Saud to promote the intolerant and extremist Wahhabi creed just domestically. But, unfortunately, for decades the Saudis have also lavishly financed its propagation abroad. Exact numbers are not known, but it is thought that more than $100 billion have been spent on exporting fanatical Wahhabism to various much poorer Muslim nations worldwide over the past three decades. It might well be twice that number. By comparison, the Soviets spent about $7 billion spreading communism worldwide in the 70 years from 1921 and 1991.

The article also lays out the cause and effect between Saudi funding and the predictable terrorism, violence and instability that follows. Yousaf Butt concludes by aptly stating:

The House of Saud works against the best interests of the West and the Muslim world. Muslim communities worldwide certainly need to eradicate fanatical Wahhabism from their midst, but this will be difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish if the West continues its support of the House of Saud. The monarchy must be modernized and modified — or simply uprooted and replaced. The House of Saud needs a thorough house cleaning.

The United States under the administration of President Donald Trump just sealed a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, following tens of billions of dollars of weapon deals under the previous administration of President Barack Obama, and in turn following a pattern of decades of military, political and economic support for the Persian Gulf state. Western support for the House of Saud appears to be fully intact and in no danger of changing any time soon.

The direct connection between terrorism ranging from Al Qaeda to the Islamic State and Saudi-funded indoctrination is clear. Yet US and European media organisations attempt to muddle the issue with unwarranted ambiguity.

New York Times articles like, “Saudis and Extremism: ‘Both the Arsonists and the Firefighters’,” go as far as stating:

Over the next four decades, in non-Muslim-majority countries alone, Saudi Arabia would build 1,359 mosques, 210 Islamic centers, 202 colleges and 2,000 schools. Saudi money helped finance 16 American mosques; four in Canada; and others in London, Madrid, Brussels and Geneva, according to a report in an official Saudi weekly, Ain al-Yaqeen. The total spending, including supplying or training imams and teachers, was “many billions” of Saudi riyals (at a rate of about four to a dollar), the report said.

And continues by stating:

That is the disputed question, of course: how the world would be different without decades of Saudi-funded shaping of Islam. Though there is a widespread belief that Saudi influence has contributed to the growth of terrorism, it is rare to find a direct case of cause and effect. For example, in Brussels, the Grand Mosque was built with Saudi money and staffed with Saudi imams. In 2012, according to Saudi diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, one Saudi preacher was removed after Belgian complaints that he was a “true Salafi” who did not accept other schools of Islam. And Brussels’ immigrant neighborhoods, notably Molenbeek, have long been the home of storefront mosques teaching hard-line Salafi views.

After the terrorist attacks in Paris in November and in Brussels in March were tied to an Islamic State cell in Belgium, the Saudi history was the subject of several news media reports. Yet it was difficult to find any direct link between the bombers and the Saudi legacy in the Belgian capital.

Yet commonsense, when applied, takes into consideration the substantial intelligence networks and police states that exist across the European Union’s various members and the fact that in the aftermath of most recent terrorist attacks it is revealed that security services across Europe often had foreknowledge of suspects, their criminal backgrounds and activities as well as their ties to extremism both within their own communities in Europe and abroad upon battlefields in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya.

It is well within the means of US and European intelligence and security agencies to establish a direct link between terrorism and Saudi funding. What is lacking is the political will to do so.

A Global Expeditionary Force That Goes Where Western Troops Cannot

It is clear that despite the New York Times attempting to make a connection between Saudi-funded indoctrination at mosques and madrasas and terrorism as ambiguous as possible, Saudi funding is the primary factor driving extremism and filling the ranks of terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Coupled with covert, indirect and direct military support when these extremists reach various battlefields around the world, Saudi-funded extremism represents what is essentially a mercenary expeditionary force, auxiliaries used in pursuit of modern day empire.

As witnessed in Libya and Syria, the purpose behind the United States and Europe supporting Saudi Arabia and turning an intentional blind-eye to its global network of extremist indoctrination and the terrorist organisations these networks feed into, is targeting and overthrowing governments the United States and Europe are incapable of overthrowing directly with military force.

Saudi-funded indoctrination filling the ranks of this virtual global mercenary force, can be used as a tool for regime change. Saudi-funded extremists were instrumental in overthrowing the Libyan government in 2011, and have led the fight to oust the Syrian government.

Saudi-funded indoctrination can also be a useful tool of geopolitical coercion, opening up opportunities for the US to sell a greater military presence in any given country targeted by Saudi-funded extremism.

In fact, the New York Times’ recent article, “In Indonesia and Philippines, Militants Find a Common Bond: ISIS,” hints as just such a motive in the Philippines, claiming:

Since the early 2000s, the United States has stationed military advisers in the southern Philippines to aid in the fight against Abu Sayyaf and other Islamic extremists.

Richard Javad Heydarian, a political science professor at De La Salle University in Manila, said that Mr. Duterte was under mounting pressure to address the crisis in his home island, Mindanao, and that he may need further assistance from Washington.

During a period when the Philippines finds itself pivoting away from the United States and toward Beijing and other regional allies, needing “further assistance from Washington” is a circumstance too convenient to be coincidental.

Considering how the US has used Saudi-funded extremism it has enabled elsewhere, there is need for concern not only in the Philippines, but across all of Asia regarding the Islamic State’s “sudden interest” in the region.

Asian Policymakers Only As Good As Their Sources 

As obvious as the truth behind the Islamic State’s presence and perpetuation in Asia seems to be, many policymakers, politicians and people in the media across Asia appear to be mesmerised by US and European headlines and intentionally misleading analysis.

Eagerly republishing and repeating these headlines and analysis, policy and media circles find themselves mired in a deepening swamp of delusion. Within this swamp of delusion they are exposing Asia to the same threat the MENA region is now facing.

For a variety of reasons, extremism was allowed to take root and spread in nations like Libya and Syria, where political deals and cooperation with the US and Europe led toward greater violence and destabilisation, not toward resolving the issue of extremism, terrorism and national or regional security.

Likewise in Asia, should the root of extremism and terrorism not be addressed, namely Saudi-funding and America’s and Europe’s aiding and abetting of the House of Saud, this threat will continue to be cultivated and leveraged by its creators at the cost of its Asian hosts.

While it may not be politically popular to openly expose, condemn and otherwise confront US-Saudi sponsored terrorism in fear of being ostracised from US-European media and policy circles, Asian policymakers, politicians and media should consider the fate of their MENA counterparts and the state of Libya and Syria now versus pre-2011 when there was still a chance to head off a regional humanitarian catastrophe.

The inability of Asian policymakers to clearly single out and deal with Saudi-funded, US-backed terrorism in the region allows political demagogues to play entire ethnic and religious groups off against one another, further compounding factors that fuel instability and even war. Coupled with socioeconomic factors, foreign interests seeking vectors into Asia to coerce, control or even overthrow regional governments have a wide variety of options to pick from.

Eliminating these options and closing the door to outside interference means that the Asian public must be fully and properly informed, and all forms of foreign funding and support, whether it be “schools” or nongovernmental organisations, should be called into question. It is clear that part of this process should include national and regional calls and mechanisms to end Saudi funding to organisations posing as charities, educational institutions and other fronts propagating divisive extremism.

Considering the fate of the MENA region, Asia may have only one chance to get this right. Those policymakers who prove themselves incapable of objective, truthful analysis and who find themselves simply helping along foreign interference should no longer be deferred to as policymakers, and perhaps take up a more appropriate title; lobbyists.

May 31, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Who’s funding Britain’s terrorists? ‘Sensitive’ Home Office report may never be published

RT | May 31, 2017

An investigation commissioned by former Prime Minister David Cameron into the revenue streams behind jihadist groups operating in Britain may never be published, the Home Office has admitted.

The inquiry is thought to focus on British ally Saudi Arabia, which has repeatedly been highlighted by European leaders as a funding source for Islamist extremists, and may prove politically and legally sensitive, the Guardian reports.

The UK has close ties with Saudi Arabia. Prime Minister Theresa May visited the country earlier this year.

In January 2016, a specialist Home Office unit was directed by Downing Street to investigate sources of overseas funding of extremist groups in the UK. The findings were to be shown to Cameron’s then-Home Secretary May.

Eighteen months later, however, the Home Office told the Guardian the report had not been completed and would not necessarily be published, calling the contents “very sensitive.”

A decision on the future of the investigation would be taken “after the election by the next government,” a spokesperson said.

Cameron was urged to launch an investigation in December 2015 as part of a deal with the Liberal Democrats in exchange for the party supporting the extension of British airstrikes against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) from Iraq into Syria.

According to the Guardian, Tom Brake, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesperson, has written to the prime minister asking her to confirm that the investigation will not be shelved.

“As home secretary at the time, your department was one of those reading the report. Eighteen months later, and following two horrific terrorist attacks by British-born citizens, that report still remains incomplete and unpublished,” Brake wrote.

“It is no secret that Saudi Arabia in particular provides funding to hundreds of mosques in the UK, espousing a very hard line Wahhabist interpretation of Islam. It is often in these institutions that British extremism takes root.”

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said he felt the government had not held up its side of the bargain.

The report must be published when it is completed, he said, even if its contents are sensitive.

“That short-sighted approach needs to change. It is critical that these extreme, hardline views are confronted head on, and that those who fund them are called out publicly.

“If the Conservatives are serious about stopping terrorism on our shores, they must stop stalling and reopen investigation into foreign funding of violent extremism in the UK.”

May 31, 2017 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Yemen descending into total collapse as world watches: UN

Press TV – May 30, 2017

The United Nations says impoverished Yemen is on the brink of total collapse, as the country is facing an ongoing bloody military aggression by Saudi Arabia, an emerging famine, and an outbreak of cholera.

“Crisis is not coming, it is not looming, it is here today, on our watch and ordinary people are paying the price,” said UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien in a speech on Tuesday, addressing the UN Security Council.

“The people of Yemen are being subjected to deprivation, disease and death as the world watches,” he said, adding that the crisis is triggering “total social, economic and institutional collapse” in the Arab country.

O’Brien told the council that “the time is now” to finish the world’s largest food emergency and to put Yemen on the path of survival.

His alarming remarks come as the UN Security Council has so far failed to turn off the Saudi war machine and prevent it from inflicting more damage to the kingdom’s poor southern neighbor.

Since March 2015, Yemen has been heavily bombarded by Saudi warplanes as part of a brutal campaign against the impoverished country in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstall Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, the president who has resigned and is a staunch ally of Riyadh.

Latest tallies show that the war has so far killed over 12,000 Yemenis and wounded thousands more. Indiscriminate Saudi bombardments have also taken a heavy toll on the Yemeni infrastructure, schools and hospitals, with prominent rights groups censuring Riyadh’s military for the use of internationally-banned weapons against Yemeni civilians.

The relentless airstrikes have put more than half of all health facilities in Yemen in a state of complete or partial shutdown. Nearly 3.3 million Yemeni people, including 2.1 million children, are currently suffering from acute malnutrition.

Some 19 million out of the country’s 28 million population are in dire need of humanitarian aid and many of them are reported to be on the brink of famine. The relentless airstrikes have also put more than half of all health facilities in Yemen in a state of complete or partial shutdown.

Furthermore, the war-torn nation has been grappling with a deadly cholera outbreak since last October. Over 55,200 Yemenis, one third of them children, are infected by the disease. The UN figures show that since late April nearly 500 Yemeni have lost their lives due to cholera infection. It is estimated that some 150,000 new cases of cholera are surfaced in the next six months.

The chaos in Yemen, caused by the Saudi campaign, has also given the Takfiri al-Qaeda and Daesh terror groups room to operate in the country, further complicating the situation on the ground there.

May 30, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Damascus Calls for Cessation of US-Led Coalition Strikes Due to Civilian Deaths

Sputnik – 28.05.2017

Damascus sent letters to the UN Secretary General (UNSG) and the UN Security Council (UNSC), calling for the cessation of the US-led coalition airstrikes in Syria as it causes numerous deaths among civilians and violates international law, local media reported.

The 69-member US-led coalition is conducting airstrikes, ground-based and rocket-propelled artillery fire against the Islamic State terrorist group (outlawed in Russia) on the territory of Syria and Iraq. The strikes in Iraq are conducted in support of the Iraqi government, but those in Syria are not authorized by the UN Security Council or the government of President Bashar Assad

In the letters, the Syrian foreign ministry strongly condemned the coalition’s airstrike on Friday in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor, when the residential quarter of the Mayadin city came under attack and 35 civilians were killed by the strike, the Sana news agency reported Saturday.

Damascus urged the United Nations to halt the airstrikes as it violates the UNSC resolutions and the international law, while causing an enormous damage to the infrastructure and integrity of the country, according to the agency.

The foreign ministry stressed that the US-led coalition’s actions do not facilitate the fight against terrorism as the strikes cause chaos in the country, benefiting the activities of the terrorist groups.

Earlier in May, a report issued by the Syrian Network for Human Rights showed that the US-led coalition strikes had killed over 1,200 civilians since the beginning of the operation in 2014. Later that month, an airstrike carried out by the coalition in Syria’s eastern town of Al Bukamal reportedly killed at least 31 civilians and injured many others.

May 27, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Syrian Army Shoots Down Armed Israeli Drone After Attack on Soldiers – Reports

Sputnik – 27.05.2017

An Israeli combat drone was downed on Friday in southwestern Syria after killing three soldiers , local media reported Saturday.
Troops loyal to the Syrian government shot down a drone overnight suspected of killing three soldiers on Friday in southwestern Syria, according to the reports.

The armed drone was struck down by anti-aircraft units of the Syrian ground forces operating in the Quneitra province, the Al-Masdar newspaper said.

According to the outlet, Syrian troops were attacked in the area between the towns of Al Hamidiyah and Abu Shabta as they made in-roads into territories held by militant forces.

Syrian armed forces reportedly shot down two suspected Israeli drones in the past couple of months.

Syria and Israel have been technically at war since Israeli forces took control over a large part of Golan Heights five decades ago.

May 27, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Memo to US-led Iraqi coalition: ‘Best way to protect civilians is to stop bombing them’

RT | May 26, 2017

In the 16-year war on terrorism, we have seen the predictable and consistent increase in terrorism, the creation of ISIS, and the expansion of ISIS, says David Swanson, anti-war activist and author of War Is A Lie.

A US investigation found over a hundred Iraqi civilians died in a Coalition airstrike in Mosul in March, but put all the blame on Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

The civilians died when an American airstrike set off a large amount of explosives planted in a building by IS fighters in Mosul’s al-Jadida neighborhood, according to a Pentagon investigation which was made public on Thursday.

RT: The US says ISIS is to blame because its weapons stash was hit. Do you accept that argument?

David Swanson: Obviously, not. And this is the tip of the iceberg. If you look at the reports of known civilian deaths collected by organizations like Airwars, it is thousands every month. If you look at how known named civilian deaths relate to the total, in places that have been scientifically studied, you’ll find the total deaths of civilians is around 5-20 percent. We are talking about tens of thousands every month, ongoing. The discussion in the US always blames someone else or pretends it didn’t happen or delays it with an investigation like this one that is minimally reported when completed, but shuts down the story when it is a big story months or weeks earlier. The discussion in Washington, DC right now is about should we sell weapons to Saudi Arabia because they kill civilians. The US kills civilians, routinely. This is what happens when you bomb cities. This week the International Committee of the Red Cross and Interaction, a group of US human rights groups, put out a report on how you minimize killing people in cities and never once hinted at the possibility of ceasing to bomb cities and included things like live underground, form militias, absolutely outrageous. There is a total acceptance that you are going to go on bombing cities, but could you please do it with a little bit smaller bombs. It is still going to be murder.

RT: According to the Coalition, it simply didn’t know there were civilians inside. How much of an intelligence failure was this?

DS: The suggestion that it was a blatant lie is the obvious conclusion, and if it was not a blatant lie it was negligence in the extreme. These cities are places where people live and to blame someone else for using them as human shields is absolutely not satisfactory. To write off the deaths of anyone who is not a civilian as completely acceptable and not worth any value and not worth counting at all. In most of these places, including Iraq and Syria, the United States and its Coalition allies are killing more than one armed force of non-civilians in these wars. It is absolutely outrageous and passing the blame doesn’t cut it.

RT: Here is an extract from the Coalition statement: “The Coalition takes every feasible measure to protect civilians from harm. The best way to protect civilians is to defeat Islamic State.” Does this mean killing ISIS fighters takes priority over protecting civilian lives?

DS: In the calculation of the Pentagon, yes; in logic and verifiable facts, no. Through the course of this past 16 years of war on terrorism, you have seen the predictable and consistent increase in terrorism, you have seen the creation of ISIS, you have seen the expansion of ISIS. The best way to protect civilians is to stop bombing them, the best way to stop escalating anti-US and Western terrorism is to stop engaging in terrorism at a greater scale. The best way to make people grasp this issue is to tell the names and the stories as you would if it were in Manchester, England, not just the numbers. Treat them as human beings and the killing will stop.

May 26, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Manchester Bomber Was Product of West’s Libya/Syria Intervention

By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | May 24, 2017

Here’s what the media and politicians don’t want you to know about the Manchester, UK, suicide attack: Salman Abedi, the 22 year old who killed nearly two dozen concert-goers in Manchester, UK, was the product of the US and UK overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and “regime change” policy in Syria. He was a radicalized Libyan whose family fled Gaddafi’s secular Libya, and later he trained to be an armed “rebel” in Syria, fighting for the US and UK “regime change” policy toward the secular Assad government.

The suicide attacker was the direct product of US and UK interventions in the greater Middle East.

According to the London Telegraph, Abedi, a son of Libyan immigrants living in a radicalized Muslim neighborhood in Manchester had returned to Libya several times after the overthrow of Muamar Gaddafi, most recently just weeks ago. After the US/UK and allied “liberation” of Libya, all manner of previously outlawed and fiercely suppressed radical jihadist groups suddenly found they had free rein to operate in Libya. This is the Libya that Abedi returned to and where he likely prepared for his suicide attack on pop concert attendees. Before the US-led attack on Libya in 2011, there was no al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any other related terrorist organization operating (at least with impunity) on Libyan soil.

Gaddafi himself warned Europe in January 2011 that if they overthrew his government the result would be radical Islamist attacks on Europe, but European governments paid no heed to the warnings. Post-Gaddafi Libya became an incubator of Islamist terrorists and terrorism, including prime recruiting ground for extremists to fight jihad in Syria against the also-secular Bashar Assad.

In Salman Abedi we have the convergence of both these disastrous US/UK and allied interventions, however: it turns out that not only did Abedi make trips to Libya to radicalize and train for terror, but he also travelled to Syria to become one of the “Syria rebels” fighting on the same side as the US and UK to overthrow the Assad government. Was he perhaps even trained in a CIA program? We don’t know, but it certainly is possible.

While the mainstream media and opportunistic politicians will argue that the only solution is more western intervention in the Middle East, the plain truth is that at least partial responsibility for this attack lies at the feet of those who pushed and pursued western intervention in Libya and Syria.

There would have been no jihadist training camps in Libya had Gaddafi not been overthrown by the US/UK and allies. There would have been no explosion of ISIS or al-Qaeda in Syria had it not been for the US/UK and allied policy of “regime change” in that country.

When thinking about Abedi’s guilt for this heinous act of murder, do not forget those interventionists who lit the fuse that started this conflagration. The guilt rests squarely on their shoulders as well.

May 25, 2017 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow Considers US Justification of Airstrike Against Syrian Army Unacceptable

Sputnik – 25.05.2017

Moscow considers Washington’s attempts to justify the latter’s coalition airstrike against Syrian troops near the town of al-Tanf over an alleged threat to US and Syrian opposition forces as unacceptable, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

The US-led coalition conducted the airstrike last week under the claim that pro-government forces were moving inside a de-escalation zone in southern Syria, and posing a threat to forces of the United States and its allies. A spokesperson for the coalition told Sputnik that its forces fired warning shots prior to carrying out the airstrike.

“Once again I would like to focus on the airstrike carried out by the US-led coalition on May 18 against the Syrian pro-government troops near the settlement of al-Tanf in southeastern Syria. We regard the US command’s attempts to justify this airstrike with the alleged threat posed by the Syrian units to the opposition forces collaborating with the coalition, as well as to the US servicemen deployed in this area, as unacceptable,” Zakharova said at a press briefing.

She pointed out that the airstrike was carried out in violation of international law.

“There is an impression that the western partners still do not want to realize the necessity to consolidate the efforts of all actors that fight against terrorists in Syria on the ground and in the sky,” the spokeswoman added.

Last week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennadiy Gatilov said the US coalition’s strike was carried out in violation of Syria’s sovereignty, noting that is was not an operation against either Daesh or Jabhat Fatah al Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front) terror groups.

May 25, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Five Civilians Killed in Yemen Raid

Reprieve | May 23, 2017

Reprieve has learned that five civilians were killed in the raid by US Navy SEALs overnight. It is thought that at least two al-Qaeda fighters were also killed.

This contradicts the version of events put forward by the US military, which claimed seven militants were killed.

Reprieve has spoken to sources from the village of Al-Jubah in Marib province, Yemen who witnessed the raid. They confirmed the names of the five dead as:

  • Nasser Ali Mahdi Al-Adhal
  • Al-Ghader Saleh Salem Al-Adhal
  • Saleh Al-Taffaf
  • Yasser Al-Taffaf Al-Adhel
  • Shebreen Saeed Salem Al-Adhal

None of them were fighting for al-Qaeda. One of those killed, Nasser al-Adhal, was around 70 years of age and partially blind. According to witnesses, he was shot when he tried to greet the Navy Seals, mistaking them for guests arriving in the village.

The four other villagers were killed when they started to argue with the Navy Seals after the shooting of Nasser al-Adhal. Six villagers were seriously injured, including another elderly man who was around 69-years-old.

Al-Qaeda fighters gathering nearby, who are thought to have been the original target of the raid, were alerted by the gunshots in the village and firefight ensued in which at least two of them were killed. The Navy SEALs then left with the help of air support from a helicopter.

Commenting, Kate Higham, Head of the Assassinations Programme at Reprieve said:

“This new flawed raid by President Trump shows the US is not capable of distinguishing a terrorist from an innocent civilian. When even a 70-year-old is shot dead, it is clear these attacks are not targeted or precise. President Trump must order an immediate investigation into what went wrong and halt all raids and drone strikes before more innocent Yeminis are killed.”

May 25, 2017 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Hillary Clinton’s Syria Revenge

By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | May 24, 2017

Four months after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. military is fighting Hillary Clinton’s war in Syria. Last week’s U.S. airstrike against a mixed column of Syrian, Iranian, Iraqi and Lebanese soldiers marks a major escalation, as the U.S. draws lines in the sand to claim parts of Syria as its own. Although the presence of the Russian air force has prevented the establishment of Clinton’s “no-fly” zones over Syria, the Americans appear to be attempting to establish “no-go” zones on the ground to provide sanctuary for their Islamic jihadist proxies. The larger goal is to seize eastern Syria, under the guise of fighting ISIS, severing the land route between Syrian government-held territories in the west and the Iraqi border, and further east to Iran.

The U.S. claimed it struck the column, killing at least six soldiers and knocking out several tanks, to protect U.S. and British special forces troops training anti-government jihadists on the Syrian side of the Jordanian border, where Washington is amassing a large invasion force. The attack is a blatant violation of international law, an act of war, since the Americans and Brits have no right to be on Syrian soil, while the Iraqis, Iranians, Lebanese and Russians are guests of the sovereign, internationally recognized government in Damascus.

Washington claims it is preparing a big offensive to destroy ISIS outposts in eastern Syria — as if invocation of anti-ISIS intent makes Washington immune from international law. However, it is the Syrian Arab Army that has prevented ISIS from seizing the whole of eastern Syria, while the U.S., acting as the Islamic State’s air force, attacked Syrian government troops defending the city of Deir Ezzor in September of last year. Deir Ezzor has been encircled and besieged by ISIS since 2014. The September bombing by jets from an assortment of NATO countries killed at least 100 Syrian soldiers and allowed ISIS to launch a coordinated assault seven minutes later, overrunning key government positions and parts of the city of 100,000 people. Since then, the Syrian garrison and civilian population have been sustained by helicopter supply missions.

The U.S. later claimed the attack was a “mistake,” but it had all the marks of a military mutiny against the lame duck Obama administration’s agreement to a cease-fire with the Russians. As we wrote at the time:

“The cease-fire agreement arrived at between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart calls for the U.S. and Russian armed forces to collaborate, after a period of seven days, in targeting both ISIS and the al Qaida force formerly known as the al Nusra Front, the military backbone of the West’s proxy war against the Syrian government. If the U.S. superpower, whose military assets in the arena far outweigh Russia’s, honestly adhered to the agreement, the war against the Assad government would collapse. The mutineers see the waning weeks and months of the Obama presidency as a make-or-break moment for their jihadist proxy strategy in the region.”

As intended, the U.S. attack on Deir Ezzor snuffed out the cease-fire pact with Russia. The U.S. doubled down on its not-so-covert support for al Qaida (aka al-Nusra, now calling itself Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, and no longer on the U.S. terror list), with the Clinton-led War Party and its corporate media screaming bloody murder as the jihadists were finally driven from Aleppo in the last weeks of 2016.

The triumph in Aleppo allowed Bashar al Assad’s government to free up Syrian forces for a general offensive, and to accelerate the government’s program of negotiating cease-fires and withdrawals by isolated pockets of (non-ISIS and non-al Qaida) “rebel” fighters. With their jihadist proxies in disarray, the Americans concentrated on supporting a largely Kurdish force that is slowly closing in on Raqqa, the so-called capital of ISIS, and with training yet another batch of “moderate” rebels in Jordan for what the U.S. is marketing as a final knockout blow against ISIS in eastern Syria — at Deir Ezzor. But of course, it is the Syrian government that is actually holding the line at Deir Ezzor against both ISIS and the U.S. “coalition.” The column of Syrian and allied troops that the U.S. attacked last week was part of the force the Syrians are gathering to liberate the eastern part of their country. The U.S. war plan is to deliver eastern Syria to its “rebel” mercenaries and jihadists.

The U.S. drew its line in the sand 18 miles from the U.S.-British special ops base on the Syrian of the Jordanian border. The ritual U.S. flag-planting-by-fire is a sick imperial response to the agreement reached by Syria, Russia, Iran and Turkey, earlier this month in Astana, Kazakhstan, to create “de-escalation zones” in Syria, where fighting and government air strikes would be put on hold and aid deliveries allowed to proceed around four main zones held by rebels — excluding ISIS and al Qaida. With Donald Trump now dutifully in synch with the War Party, the U.S. has countered the Syrian-Russian-Iranian-Turkish “de-escalation” with a major escalation: “no-go zones.”

Hillary Clinton may never win the presidency, but she has won the battle over U.S. imperial policy in Syria. The U.S. will soon begin laying political-military trip-wires at strategic “no-go” points around Syria, to create space for Washington’s Islamic jihadist foot soldiers. Hillary’s style of warring diplomacy requires that targeted nations react to U.S. aggressions in prescribed ways: the Russians are supposed to blink in the presence of a real superpower; the Syrians must accept the loss of their territorial integrity and sovereignty; and the Iranians are required to surrender or become the next inferno. Otherwise, “We came, we saw – everybody died.”

Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

May 24, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

European, Japanese & Canadian firms fund production of cluster bombs in breach of intl law – report

RT | May 24, 2017

More than a dozen financial companies based in European states, Japan, and Canada invest in major cluster bomb producers, in violation of an international treaty prohibiting their production that has been ratified by their home countries, a report says.

Investment in companies that produce cluster bombs continues to grow despite an international agreement banning the use and production of such munitions that has been signed by more than 100 nations to date, a Netherlands-based NGO called PAX noted in its latest report on the issue.

Over the past four years, the total volume of investment in cluster bomb producers amounted to $31 billion, while the total number of investors reached 166 financial institutions, the report published on Tuesday says.

Investment sharply increased between 2016 and 2017, jumping by $3 billion.

Cluster bombs are banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international treaty adopted on May 30, 2008, which entered into force on August 1, 2010. So far, it has been signed by 119 countries, of which 101 have ratified it. Madagascar became the 101st nation to ratify the CCM on May 20.

The convention explicitly prohibits the use, production, transfer, or stockpiling of cluster munitions, as well as facilitating any of those activities.

Cluster munitions, which are dropped by air or fired by artillery, scatter hundreds of explosive submunitions, or bomblets, across a wide area, causing indiscriminate damage. The bomblets often remain unexploded on or in the ground, where they can kill or cripple civilians long after being dropped.

The PAX report, entitled ‘Worldwide Investments in Cluster Munitions; a shared responsibility’, examined investments in six major cluster bomb manufacturers: US companies Orbital ATK and Textron, as well as China’s Norinco and China Aerospace Science and Industry, and South Korea’s Hanwha and Poongsan.

The NGO found that most investors are not from countries that signed the CCM, with 85 of 166 from the US. As many as 30 financial institutions that fund cluster bomb production are located in China and another 27 are based in South Korea.

However, PAX also discovered that 15 corporate investors are based in countries that did sign the CCM. This list includes four Japanese companies, as well as three British and three Canadian firms, with the rest from France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland.

Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), one of the world’s largest comprehensive financial groups, which operates in 50 countries and controls $2.6 trillion in assets, is also in the top ten companies investing in cluster bomb producers, according to the PAX report.

The MUFG, which invested a total of $914 million into cluster bomb producing companies over four years, is also one of the top five loan and banking service providers for cluster bomb manufacturers.

“Cluster bombs are banned and would not be produced without funding… How can blue chip banks continue to invest in producers of such horrendous and banned weapons – do they simply not care?” PAX program officer Maaike Beenes said, urging financial institutions “to take responsibility with more ethical investments.”

His words were echoed by Firoz Alizada, a spokesperson for the Cluster Munition Coalition, an international network of NGOs actively campaigning to eradicate cluster munitions. “Cluster bombs are banned for a clear reason, because they disproportionately harm civilians,” Alizada said, as cited by Reuters.

“That is why no banks or financial institutions should put a penny in companies that produce these illegal and harmful weapons, and no company or country should produce cluster munitions,” he added.

The Japanese companies mentioned in the PAX report refused to comment on “individual transactions” involving investment or loans for companies involved in cluster bomb production, the Japanese Asahi Shimbun daily reports.

In the meantime, Motoko Mekata, a professor at Chuo University and the director of the Japan Campaign to Ban Landmines (JCBL), said that the “financial institutions will be criticized as lacking ethics if they continue to be involved in cluster bomb makers by making narrow interpretations that they can invest in or extend loans to businesses that are not directly related to cluster bomb manufacturing,” Asahi Shimbun reports.

The issue of cluster munitions has recently come into the public spotlight in connection with the situation in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition continues to wage an aerial campaign against Shiite Houthi rebels in order to restore the ousted government of Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

According to UN estimates, up to 10,000 people have been killed in the fighting so far, including 4,000 civilians. According to the UN, the majority of civilian deaths have resulted from airstrikes conducted by the Saudi-led coalition, which has repeatedly been accused of using cluster bombs.

In December of 2016, Human Rights Watch accused the coalition led by the Saudi Arabia, which has not signed the CCM, of using Brazilian-made surface-to-surface rockets containing banned cluster munitions in strikes that hit two schools in northern Yemen. Similar accusations were made earlier by Amnesty International.

Read more:

  Britain admits selling 500 cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia, some used in Yemen

May 24, 2017 Posted by | War Crimes | | Leave a comment

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