Russia-China Joint Approach to the Middle East
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern outlook – 29.01.2024
By repeatedly targeting the Houthis in Yemen and pushing for an escalation in the Red Sea, the US is jumping into the Middle East with a military and strategic mindset. The objective is to create space for Washington – and its global allies – to push back against the recent gains, i.e., normalization between Iran and Saudi and Arab normalization with Syria more than a decade after the start of the so-called “Arab Spring”, that Russia and China have made. A wider war in the region will, in the US calculation at least, re-politicize regional fault lines that might allow Washington to reverse the larger normalization process. Considering the high stakes Washington has in developing a wider war in the region, it makes sense for both Russia and China, who largely have similar interests vis-à-vis normalization processes within the Middle East, to develop a joint approach.
In October, soon after Israel launched its brutal war after the October 7 attacks by Hamas and much before the US started doing its own strikes, Russia, anticipating a deeper US military involvement in the Middle East, confirmed that it was already coordinating its Middle East policy with China. This coordination, on the other hand, is also an outcome of the recent state of Russia-China bilateral ties, which, in the words of the Russian foreign minister, are in the best state in the “centuries-old history”.
This coordination also has its roots in the ways that the Arab world itself has come to see its ties with the US on the one hand and Russia and China on the other. For instance, some recent surveys have shown that an increasing number of people across most Arab states view Russia and China as crucial economic players above all. The core reasons for this favourable view are twofold. First, many Arab societies today view the US as no longer a reliable partner. Second, they view Russia and China not from a revisionist perspective, i.e., as states deepening their involvement in the region to replace the US. Rather, Russia and China continue to emphasize the Middle East as a region that can play an autonomous role, i.e., a role not tied to, or disproportionately overshadowed by, any superpower’s interests.
The fact that Russia and China both see the Middle East from this perspective, their calculation sees the Middle East as a vital region that can really push for shifting the center of the present world order away from the West to creating multiple power centres within a multipolar world order. Therefore, developing a joint policy and indirectly protecting the Middle East from slipping too much under the US radar makes sense for both Moscow and Beijing. Were the Middle East to relapse to being a US vassal region, it would make it extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible, for Russia and China to realize their ambitions for a new world order.
Now, for both Russia and China, keeping the Middle East – which is already on the verge of a wider war – as a center of power, they must project their ties beyond the Gaza war. Of course, Israel’s war on Gaza is the most important issue today, and both Russia and China have adopted and emphasized a pro-Arab/pro-Palestine position. But Russia and China are also taking steps to not allow their ties with the region to be bogged down by this one issue.
China and Russia, as we know it, already have deep economic ties with the Middle East. Both, as we know, remain focused on maintaining and expanding these ties despite the ongoing conflicts. Putin’s recent visit to the Middle East was not simply provoked by the Gaza crisis, nor was this war the sole subject of his discussions with Arab leaders. In fact, a lot of discussion was around the core issue of a multipolar world order. Putin emphasized how the conflict in the Middle East is a US failure, a failure that makes it imperative for the Middle East to not only distance itself from Washington but also adopt a more autonomous role to, among other things, resolve the issue through its initiatives. But beyond this, Putin emphasised that “The UAE is Russia’s main trading partner in the Arab world.”
For China as well, this logic of relationship beyond and above the Palestine issue remains prominent. While Beijing has openly supported the Arab state’s current stance on the issue, its ongoing engagement with this region remains predominantly underpinned by the logic of trade and development, building a relationship that helps the Middle East transform into a powerhouse that can ultimately help China and Russia tackle the hegemony of the West. (That’s why both China and Russia recently adopted new members into BRICS, including those from the Middle East.)
At the same time, China has taken steps to use the scenario, like Russia, to step up itself as a global power that can help mediate regional conflicts. In November, China announced its five-point peace plan that placed heavy emphasis on the United Nations, calling for the implementation of all relevant UN resolutions on the conflict and an international conference organized by the world body that leads to a two-state solution, all overseen by the Security Council. While nothing concrete followed this plan, it served China’s purpose of projecting itself as a power different from the West on the one hand and very close to the Arab world on the other.
For Washington, which has been hoping for differences to emerge between Russia and China taking them back to the era of rivalry, this situation is frustrating, making it extremely difficult for it to not lose ground in the Middle East specifically and across the Global South more generally. But its continuing support for Israel’s war machine and its continuing push for NATO’s expansion is doing exactly the opposite of what the US aims for, i.e., preventing its global decline and the related rise of Russia and China.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
‘Swarming’ the US in West Asia, until it folds
The US is so deeply mired in an unwinnable battle from the Levant to the Persian Gulf that only its adversaries in China, Russia, and Iran can bail it out.
By MK Bhadrakumar | The Cradle | January 29, 2024
Deterrence in defense is a military strategy where one power uses the threat of reprisal to preclude attack from an adversary, while maintaining at the same time the freedom of action and flexibility to respond to the full spectrum of challenges. In this realm, the Lebanese resistance, Hezbollah, is an outstanding example.
Hezbollah’s clarity of purpose in establishing and strictly maintaining ground rules that deter Israeli military aggression has set a high regional bar. Today, its West Asian allies have adopted similar strategies, which have multiplied in the context of the war in Gaza.
America, surrounded
While the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah is comparable to Hezbollah in certain respects, it is the audacious brand of defensive deterrence practiced by the Islamic Resistance of Iraq that is going to be highly consequential in the near term.
Last week, citing sources in the State Department and Pentagon, Foreign Policy magazine wrote that the White House is no longer interested in continuing the US military mission in Syria. The White House later denied this information, but the report is gaining ground.
The Turkish daily Hurriyet wrote on Friday that while Ankara is taking a cautious approach to media reports, it does see “a general striving” by Washington to exit not only Syria but the entire region of West Asia, as it senses that it has been dragged into a quagmire by Israel and Iran from the Red Sea to Pakistan.
Russia’s special presidential representative for the Syrian settlement, Alexander Lavrentiev, also told Tass on Friday that much depends on any “threat of physical impact” on American forces present in Syria. The swift US military exit from Afghanistan took place with virtually no advance notice, in coordination with the Taliban. “In all likelihood, the same may happen in Iraq and Syria,” Lavrentiev said.
Indeed, the Islamic Resistance of Iraq has stepped up its attacks on US military bases and targets. In a ballistic missile attack on Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq a week ago, an unknown number of American troops sustained injuries, and the White House announced its first troop deaths on Sunday when three US servicemen were killed on the Syrian-Jordanian border in strikes earlier that day.
Calling Beijing for help
This situation is untenable for President Joe Biden politically — in his re-election bid next November — which explains the urgency of the National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday and Saturday in Thailand to discuss the Ansarallah attacks in the Red Sea.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby explained Washington’s rush for Chinese mediation thus:
“China has influence over Tehran; they have influence in Iran. And they have the ability to have conversations with Iranian leaders that — that we can’t. What we’ve said repeatedly is: We would welcome a constructive role by China, using the influence and the access that we know they have…”
This is a dramatic turn of events. While the US has long been concerned about China’s growing sway in West Asia, it also needs that influence now as Washington’s efforts to reduce violence are getting nowhere. The US narrative on this will be that the “strategic, thoughtful conversation” between Sullivan and Wang will not only be “an important way to manage competition and tensions [between the US and China] responsibly” but also “set the direction of the relationship” on the whole.
Meanwhile, there has been hectic diplomatic traffic between Tehran, Ankara, and Moscow, as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi traveled to Turkiye, and the moribund Astana format on Syria last week got kickstarted. Succinctly put, the three countries anticipate a “post-American” situation arising soon in Syria.
A US exit from Syria and Iraq?
Of course, the security dimensions are always tricky. On Friday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad chaired a meeting in Damascus for commanders of the security apparatus in the army to formulate a plan for what lies ahead. A statement said the meeting drew up a comprehensive security roadmap that “aligns with strategic visions” to address international, regional, and domestic challenges and risks.
Certainly, what gives impetus to all this is the announcement in Washington and Baghdad on Thursday that the US and Iraq have agreed to start talks on the future of American military presence in Iraq with the aim of setting a timetable for a phased withdrawal of troops.
The Iraqi announcement said Baghdad aims to “formulate a specific and clear timetable that specifies the duration of the presence of international coalition advisors in Iraq” and to “initiate the gradual and deliberate reduction of its advisors on Iraqi soil,” eventually leading to the end of the coalition mission. Iraq is committed to ensuring the “safety of the international coalition’s advisors during the negotiation period in all parts of the country” and to “maintaining stability and preventing escalation.”
On the US side, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the discussions will take place within the ambit of a higher military commission established in August 2023 to negotiate the “transition to an enduring bilateral security partnership between Iraq and the United States.”
Pentagon commanders would be pinning hopes on protracted negotiations. The US is in a position to blackmail Iraq, which is obliged, per the one-sided agreement dictated by Washington during the occupation in 2003, to keep in the US banks all of Iraq’s oil export earnings.
But in the final analysis, President Biden’s political considerations in the election year will be the clincher. And that will depend on the calibration by West Asia’s resistance groups, and their ability to ‘swarm’ the US on multiple fronts until it caves. It is this ‘known unknown’ factor that explains the Astana format meeting of Russia, Iran, and Turkiye on January 24-25 in Kazakhstan. The three countries are preparing for the endgame in Syria. Not coincidentally, in a phone call last Friday, Biden once again told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to scale down the Israeli military operation in Gaza, stressing he is not in it for a year of war,” Axios‘ Barak Ravid reported in a ‘scoop’.
Their joint statement after the Astana format meeting in Kazakhstan is a remarkable document predicated almost entirely on an end to the US occupation of Syria. It indirectly urges Washington to give up its support of terrorist groups and their affiliates “operating under different names in various parts of Syria” as part of attempts to create new realities on the ground, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives under the pretext of ‘combating terrorism.’ It demands an end to the US’ illegal seizure and transfer of oil resources “that should belong to Syria,” the unilateral US sanctions, and so on.
Simultaneously, at a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday between the Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev and Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, the latter reportedly stressed that Iran-Russia cooperation in the fight against terrorism “must continue, particularly in Syria.” Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to host a trilateral summit with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts to firm up a coordinated approach.
The Axis of Resistance: deterrence means stability
Iran’s patience has run out over the US military presence in Syria and Iraq following the revival of ISIS with American support. Interestingly, Israel no longer abides by its “de-confliction” mechanism with Russia in Syria. Clearly, there is close US-Israeli cooperation in Syria and Iraq at the intelligence and operational level, which goes against Russian and Iranian interests. Needless to say, the backdrop of the imminent upgrade of the Russia-Iran strategic partnership also needs to be factored in here.
These developments are a vintage illustration of defensive deterrence. The Axis of Resistance turns out to be the principal instrument of peace for the issues of security that entangle the US and Iran. Clearly, there isn’t any method or any reasonable hope of convergence to this process, but, fortunately, the appearance of chaos in West Asia is deceiving.
Beyond the distractions of partisan argument and diplomatic ritual, one can detect the outlines of a practical solution to the Syrian stalemate that addresses the inherent security interests of the US and Iran that are embedded within an outer ring of US-China concord over the situation in West Asia.
Russia may seem an outlier for the present, but there is something in it for everyone, as the pullout of US troops opens the pathway to a Syrian settlement, which remains a top priority for Moscow and for Putin personally.
American Base Near Syria-Jordan Border Attacked Amidst Rejection of US Role in Area
By John Miles – Sputnik – 28.01.2024
A US base near the Syria-Jordan border was struck by an overnight drone attack in the latest demonstration of widespread rejection of the United States’ role in the region.
The attack killed three US Army soldiers and injured more than 30, according to the latest reports from US officials Sunday.
There is dispute over whether the targeted US installation was in Jordan or Syria. US officials have claimed the attack hit Tower 22 in Jordan, which US media describes as a “small US outpost” in the northeast of the country. Meanwhile Jordanian government spokesman Muhannad al Mubaidin told a local television channel the strike was actually against the Al-Tanf base, which hosts a substantial US military presence in Syria.
The distinction is significant as the Syrian government and other countries consider the US presence in Syria to be illegal.
The instance is the first known time US troops have been killed in attacks targeting the country’s presence in the Middle East since US backing of Israel provoked retaliatory strikes starting in October. US strikes are thought to have produced casualties as recently as four days ago, when the White House reported that an attack on Kataib Hezbollah likely killed several members of the militia.
Although the United States has never formally declared war on Syria, the country has been involved in efforts to oust President Bashar al-Assad for more than a decade. Here, Sputnik takes a look at the controversial US role in the country, which has contributed to the death of at least half a million people.
Covert Operations
Many of the details surrounding the genesis of US presence in Syria are still shrouded in mystery. The intervention is thought to have begun in 2012 or 2013 as a classified program of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) known as Timber Sycamore. The program was launched by the agency’s infamous Special Activities Center, a division that conducts secret paramilitary activity, psychological operations, and economic warfare without oversight from the US public.
Launched at a time of mass US public opposition to unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, CIA officials hoped they could topple Syria’s government through the arming and training of rebel forces in the country. Ironically, many of the militants backed by the CIA had ties to ISIS, a force the United States has ostensibly fought to defeat in the region. This led former US President Donald Trump to claim former President Barack Obama was the “founder of ISIS.”
Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also claimed ISIS is a tool of US foreign policy, claiming he cannot distinguish between the United States and ISIS. Meanwhile Israel admitted in 2019 to arming ISIS-linked Syrian rebels in its shared desire with the US to eliminate al-Assad. Ex-US State Department official Michael Maloof has claimed US foreign policy in the Middle East is oriented around eliminating Israel’s enemies in Syria, Iran, and Libya, among other countries.
Hefty Pricetag
The CIA’s Timber Sycamore program is thought to be one of the most expensive efforts in the agency’s history. It’s been reported that more than $1 billion in weaponry has been sent to Syrian rebels, although the exact figure is not known. Thousands of tons of arms have been shipped from allied US countries.
The Al-Tanf base on the Syria-Jordan border is one of at least ten that the United States operates in Syria without the approval of the country’s government, which has ordered US forces to leave the country. Thousands of US troops have been stationed in the country and an unknown number of Special Operations Forces. The US military has worked to keep details of the US presence secret, and responded angrily when a Turkish news agency published a map of US installations.
US politicians have typically sold the US military presence as necessary to combat ISIS, despite the country’s cooperation with ISIS-linked Islamic radicals in the country. The United States has long sought to expand its presence in the oil-rich region more broadly, to the exclusion of others. The US has criticized the presence of Russian forces in the country, who assist Syria’s military at the invitation of the allied country’s government.
In a rare moment of candor of the type that earns him opposition from members of the US intelligence community, former US President Donald Trump once proclaimed the United States maintains a presence in Syria “only for oil.”
Legalities Be Damned
Many observers claim the American presence in Syria is contrary to US law and the so-called “rules-based order” often purportedly championed by the United States.
US Senator Rand Paul has sought to end the war, which he points out has never been declared by Congress in line with the US Constitution. The war’s backers insist US presidents have the authority to oversee action in Syria based on the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) which gives the executive branch broad latitude in the so-called “War on Terror.” Others say the AUMF itself is an unconstitutional abrogation of Congress’s defined constitutional powers.
“The United States cannot fix Syria,” said Robert Ford, Obama’s former ambassador to Syria, recently. “Yet we still have 900 troops in eastern Syria for eight years, going on nine. I’m puzzled that we haven’t had a national debate on what U.S. troops are doing in Syria.”
“We need to have that debate about the authorization of military force,” he added. “There needs to be a definition of the mission of U.S. forces. There needs to be a set of metrics to measure their success or failure.”
Given that the CIA’s intervention in the country may have begun without even informing the US president at the time, America’s decade-long presence in Syria raises questions about the sprawling US deep state’s lack of accountability.
MMR Vaccine Debate Heats Up as Media Claim ‘Vaccine Hesitancy’ to Blame for Recent Outbreaks
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 25, 2024
Measles outbreaks are in the news again.
In the U.S., local health departments and media reported about 16 cases of measles between December 2023 and January. The outbreaks occurred in Philadelphia, New Jersey, Georgia and Washington.
In the United Kingdom, the UK Health Security Agency reported 209 cases between January and November 2023 and about 319 cases between October 2023 and the present.
Media blamed international travel and declining vaccination rates among children as “probably” behind the outbreaks.
But Dr. Liz Mumper, a pediatrician, told The Defender it doesn’t make sense to assume the unvaccinated are to blame. She said cyclical outbreaks still occur even in populations with nearly 100% vaccination, such as college students.
Dr. Paul Thomas, a retired pediatrician and author of “The Vaccine-Friendly Plan: Dr. Paul’s Safe and Effective Approach to Immunity and Health-from Pregnancy Through Your Child’s Teen Years Paperback,” told The Defender some cases of measles are reported every year. Despite the hype around the recent outbreaks, he said, “There have not been any significant measles outbreaks in the U.S. for decades.”
The largest recent national spike in measles cases occurred in 2019 when 1,274 cases were reported, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It was the worst year for measles in the U.S. since 1992.
Since 2019, the number of cases reported has been significantly lower: In 2020, there were 13 cases, in 2021, 49 cases, in 2022 there were 121 cases and in 2023, there were 56 cases. The post-2019 numbers also tend to be lower than the numbers from 2000-2018, which averaged around 200 per year.
Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Measles is a contagious childhood viral disease characterized by a cough, runny nose and fever, followed by a generalized rash.
It was declared to be eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 — meaning there was no continuous transmission.
Mortality from measles in the U.S. declined significantly during the 20th century — 98% from 1900 to 1963, before the measles vaccine was introduced — due to advances in living conditions, healthcare and nutrition, according to Physicians for Informed Consent.
Since 2000, there have been only four measles deaths in the Americas — three in 2000 and one in 2022, according to a November 2023 CDC report.
The overwhelming majority of the approximately 130,000 measles deaths annually occur in countries in the global south that have weak health infrastructures, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Those deaths, along with measles hospitalizations in the global north, are associated with vitamin A deficiency.
“Measles can be deadly if a child does not have access to safe water and medical care,” Mumper said. “In developed countries, fatalities from measles are very rare.”
Effective treatments include vitamin A in high doses and attention to hydration status, Mumper said.
“Many natural methods to help the body fight viruses, like extra vitamin D and vitamin C are effective but not widely recommended by mainstream medicine,” she added.
Prior to the introduction of the vaccine in the U.S. in 1963, most people contracted measles and gained lifetime immunity, and the number of deaths had dropped to 0.9 per 100,000 for children under age 10.
The vaccines significantly reduced the number of reported measles cases, with efficacy rates that can be upwards of 95%, Thomas said. However, he added immunity from the vaccines wanes over time.
“From a mechanistic standpoint, the lifelong 100% natural immunity comes when measles is caught through respiratory spread. Giving a vaccine by injection may be an inherently poor substitute for Mother Nature,” Mumper said.
Approximately 83% of children globally received one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine by their first birthday in 2022.
Hotez, Offit blame the ‘anti-vaxers’ for measles outbreaks
Although case numbers have declined in the U.S. since 2020, and the recently reported cases were either among adults or children who may be too young to have completed the MMR vaccine schedule, news reports about the outbreaks consistently link them to lower post-pandemic vaccination rates among kindergarteners.
The CDC recommends two doses of the MMR vaccine, with the first dose at 12 to 15 months old and the second dose between ages 4 and 6.
The agency reported that from the 2019-20 school year to the 2021-22 school year vaccination rates for state-required vaccines among kindergarten children declined from approximately 95% to approximately 93%, and the exemption rate increased to 3.0%.
CDC data going back to 2011 show that rates typically vary from year-to-year, but consistently stay above 93%.
Thomas said the drop has been minimal and “given the loss of immunity in both children and adults in the vaccinated, this minor reduction in MMR uptake by children is not going to make a difference [in infection rates].”
Dr. Peter Hotez, a go-to “expert” for mainstream media on vaccines — and a vaccine developer and patent holder himself, who has repeatedly smeared vaccine safety advocates as “anti-science aggressors” — told ABC and CBS News that he thought the sporadic outbreaks were likely a result of lowered vaccination rates and that they were going to get worse.
“We’re just seeing now, this is the tip of the iceberg,” Hotez said. “We’re going to be seeing this in communities across the United States in the coming weeks and months because of the spillover of the U.S. anti-vaccine movement of childhood immunizations.”
According to ABC — quoting Hotez, Dr. Paul Offit and the Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Gregory Poland — this is due to vaccine “misinformation” linking vaccines and autism, combined with the politicization of the COVID-19 vaccines, which Hotez said caused “an acceleration of anti-vaccine sentiments.”
Hotez has been making these arguments for years, writing a New York Times op-ed in 2020 claiming there is no link between vaccines and autism and blaming unvaccinated people for infectious disease outbreaks.
Offit said given the vaccine’s efficacy, it was “unconscionable” for parents to forgo vaccination for their children.
But there is a significant and growing body of evidence suggesting the MMR vaccine can cause autism in certain susceptible children. That includes evidence that U.S. Department of Justice lawyers suppressed testimony by their own expert witness making the link, and evidence from whistleblower William Thompson, Ph.D., that the CDC covered up its own data showing a link between vaccines and autism.
In a Substack post from 2022, Dr. Peter McCullough evaluated a study on the “Association Between Vaccine Refusal and Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in the United States,” namely measles and pertussis.
The study indicated that since measles was declared eradicated in 2000, there have been 18 published studies of 1,416 measles cases — 43.2% of the cases occurred in vaccinated people and no hospitalizations or deaths were reported.
McCullough concluded:
“Large fractions of ‘preventable disease outbreaks’ involving measles and pertussis occur because vaccines fail to provide adequate protection. Given the neuropsychiatric concerns over the MMR vaccine and the stochastic risk of allergic/immunologic reactions to any injection including components of (DTaP, Tdap) or MMR, the parental movement for vaccine choice is well justified.
“For measles and pertussis, the vaccines convey imperfect protection and breakthrough infection (vaccine failure) should receive considerable ‘blame’ by public health researchers.”
Mumper said the vaccine schedule has changed, lowering efficacy. “Vaccine efficacy was calculated to be ~94% when the first dose was given at 15 months,” she said.
“Now babies are scheduled to get the first dose at 12 months (only 85% efficacy) and their second dose at kindergarten.”
Mumper added, “People with different genotypes respond differently to MMR vaccines, so there is variable measles transmission depending on the individual’s immune response. Up to 10% of the population does not develop enough protective antibodies.”
New outbreaks lead push for adults to get another MMR
Derek Gatherer, Ph.D., a lecturer in biomedical and life sciences at Lancaster University who is funded by the U.K. government to study “vaccine hesitancy,” said the solution to the problem of measles outbreaks is more vaccination — for adults.
Gatherer published a recent article in The Conversation blaming the vaccine-hesitant for the outbreaks. He argued that even adults who are already vaccinated should consider getting more MMR jabs.
“Measles is the most infectious disease known to science — adults should consider getting another MMR vaccine,” he declared.
Gatherer conceded that the measles risk to adults is extremely small, but said “adult MMR is still worthwhile as it goes beyond just protecting the person who receives the vaccination,” stopping asymptomatic infections from spreading.
Thomas said it is not common to recommend booster shots to adults for illnesses they were vaccinated for as children. “However,” he added, “the pharmaceutical industry, backed by the CDC, has been looking at the adult population as an untapped resource to expand market share and penetration.”
Reports of cases rising in the UK
In the U.K., measles was considered eliminated in 2016, but it resurfaced in 2018.
U.K. MMR vaccination rates average 85%, down from a peak of 88.6% in 2014, with some locations reporting rates as low as 74%.
According to The Guardian, “Most experts agree that misinformation about the MMR jab is very unlikely to play a significant role in declining vaccination rates.
“It is too easy to blame anti-vaccine sentiment for the measles outbreaks,” Helen Bedford, professor of children’s health at the University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health told the paper. “Although some mistrust of vaccines may play a small part, research shows that parental vaccine confidence remains high.”
Experts there pointed to pandemic disruptions in vaccination, concerns among Muslim and Jewish communities about the use of porcine gelatin in the vaccine, and also the fact that because the disease is so rare, people are less concerned about possible risks.
England’s National Health Service is launching an MMR vaccination campaign, the BBC reported, contacting 4 million parents via text, email or letter to inform them their child has not had one or two doses of the vaccine.
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Kenyan Court Ruling Obstructs Biden’s Plan for UN Force in Haiti
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | January 28, 2024
The Kenyan High Court has issued a ruling that will prevent President William Ruto from sending over 1,000 police to Haiti. The Biden administration had incentivized Nairobi into agreeing to lead a multinational UN force mission in Haiti. UN Peacekeepers have a troubling legacy in Haiti, including causing a cholera epidemic that killed thousands.
In October, the UN Security Council voted for Washington’s resolution to deploy a multinational police force to Haiti aimed at restoring order in Port au Prince. The White House spent a year searching for a nation to lead the mission before Nairobi agreed.
President Ruto agreed to send more than 1,000 Kenyan troops to Haiti to act as a police force. Washington agreed to fund the mission and signed a new defense cooperation agreement with Kenya.
However, the Kenyan opposition, led by Ekuru Aukot, challenged the planned deployment at the country’s high court. On Friday, the court ruled in favor of Aukot. However, the Kenyan government plans to appeal the ruling.
The ruling is a major setback for the Biden administration’s plan to send a multinational force into Haiti to restore order. In a statement responding to the Kenyan High Court’s decision, the White House said it was committed to deploying a UN force to Port au Prince.
“The United States’ commitment to the Haitian people remains unwavering. We reaffirm our support of ongoing international efforts to deploy a Multinational Security Support mission for Haiti.” The statement continues, “and [we] renew our calls for the international community to urgently provide support for this mission.”
Deploying UN police to Port au Prince is opposed by many Haitians. UN Peacekeepers have a dark legacy in Haiti. The last UN mission to the country was plagued with sexual abuse against the Haitians. Additionally, the peacekeepers caused a cholera outbreak that killed roughly 10,000 people.
US NSA Purchasing Web Browser Data Without Warrant – Letter
By Mary Manley – Sputnik – 27.01.2024
Amid rising concerns that foreign governments may be purchasing the personal data of citizens, this recent disclosure is the latest evidence of the US government doing such.
The US National Security Agency is buying Americans’ internet browning information from commercial brokers without a warrant, according to a letter between US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
Wyden, who made the letter from Thursday public, called for US intelligence officials to cease purchasing Americans’ data unless it has been obtained in a “lawful manner”.
“As you know, U.S. intelligence agencies are purchasing personal data about Americans that would require a court order if the government demanded it from communications companies,” writes Wyden.
“Such location data is collected from Americans smartphones by app developers, sold to data brokers, resold to defense contractors, and then resold again to the government. In addition; the National Security Agency (NSA) is buying Americans’ domestic internet metadata,” he continues.
He added that “until recently, the data broker industry and the intelligence community’s (IC) purchase of data from these shady companies has existed in a legal gray area”. And that app and advertising companies did not disclose their sale and sharing of personal data with brokers nor did they “obtain informed consent”.
“The secrecy around data purchases was amplified because intelligence agencies have sought to keep the American people in the dark. It took me nearly three years to clear the public release of information revealing the NSA’s purchase of domestic internet metadata,” the senator emphasized.
The senator then points out that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) brought an action against the data broker X-Mod Social earlier this month. Wyden says that lawyers for the company admitted that they were selling data collected from phones in the US to “US military customers, via defense contractors”.
The FTC then emphasized that the sales of location data is dangerous as it can be used to track people to “sensitive locations, including medical facilities, places of religious worship, places that may be used to infer an LGBTQ+ identification, domestic abuse shelters, and welfare and homeless shelters”. They add that consumers should be made aware that their data is being sold to “government contractors for national security purposes”.
Under Secretary of Defense Ronald S. Moultrie defended the methods of government data collecting in a separate letter released by Wyden.
“I am not aware of any requirement in U.S. law or judicial opinion… that DOD obtain a court order in order to acquire, access or use information, such as CAI, that is equally available for purchase to foreign adversaries, U.S. companies and private persons as it is to the U.S. government,” he wrote.
Army General Paul M. Nakasone, the director of the NSA, also justified the agency’s actions by explaining that the NSA acquires “commercially available information” but that those acquisitions are limited. Adding that they don’t include location data from phones “known to be used in the US”, and that the “non-content” data they do buy is located abroad and is critical for the US Defense Industrial base, according to a separate letter.
“NSA understands and greatly values the congressional and public trust it has been granted to carry out its critical foreign intelligence and cybersecurity missions on behalf of the American people,” Gen. Nakasone wrote.
In the end of his letter, Wyden wrote that the US government should not be “funding and legitimizing shady industry whose flagrant violations of Americans’ privacy are not just unethical, but illegal”. He then requested that Haines direct each IC element to take on a list of actions he outlined, including taking an inventory of the information they have already collected and to discard any information that does not meet consent laws.
Canceled US Joint Exercises in Africa Shows Washington’s Influence Abroad Slipping
Sputnik – 28.01.2024
Retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson told Sputnik the move may be related to internal pressure not to work alongside “troops associated with coup governments.”
The United States military leadership has scrapped plans to hold joint exercises with several African states such as Sudan, Mali, Niger, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Burkina Faso.
According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon’s change of plans was, “at least in part,” the result of US Democrats pressuring the Biden administration to bar “troops associated with coup governments” from participating in US-led military exercises.
Exercises such as these are usually planned many months in advance, so the decision to scrap these plans means “there’s an issue with the governments that were supposed to participate,” said retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson.
Describing the military exercises’ cancellation as a “significant” development, Johnson told Sputnik that this move by the Pentagon may have also been prompted by the decision of the host African governments not to participate.
“In any event, I think what it does signify is that US influence over other countries, its ability to basically tell countries what to do and compel countries to follow US policy, is slipping, that the US influence in areas like Africa is growing weaker, not stronger,” he remarked.
Johnson also suggested that the decision by Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso to withdraw from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) may be related to this development, considering that ECOWAS is primarily regarded as an entity “under Western influence.”
According to him, the fact that these countries chose to part ways with ECOWAS and pursue “bilateral agreements among themselves” does seem like signs of them “distancing themselves from US control.”
Red Sea Crisis Is Opportunity for U.S. to Weaken Europe & China
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 28, 2024
The Red Sea conflict is intensifying as is the impact on commercial shipping and the global economy, according to shipping news reports.
One might think that common sense would prevail here to solve the conflict diplomatically and quickly. If a ceasefire was called in Gaza to stop the horrendous slaughter of Palestinian civilians by Israel then that would end the restrictions imposed on shipping by Yemen.
Yemeni leaders have unequivocally said so. End the genocide and we will end the interdiction on shipping.
The moral imperative to immediately end the appalling suffering in Gaza is therefore a straightforward – not to say absolutely necessary – way to restore normal navigation through the Red Sea and for wider peace in the region. It’s not a dilemma. It’s not a conundrum. And it’s inexcusable to prevaricate.
The United States has the power to end the Israeli genocide. But the Biden administration has refused to exert its control over the Netanyahu regime.
Washington has opted to escalate the military aggression in the Red Sea by launching at least eight waves of air strikes since January 11 on Yemen – the poorest nation in the Arab region, having already suffered a genocidal war at the hands of the U.S. and Britain supporting Saudi Arabia’s aggression between 2015 and 2022.
The Yemenis have in turn defiantly warned that their operations to interdict shipping will continue until the genocidal siege on Gaza has ended.
Biden even admits that the military action to deter the Yemenis is limited in achieving its supposed objectives.
So, why continue to aggravate the situation and escalate potential conflict across the region? Not only will bombing Yemen not work, but it is also inflaming violence across the Middle East and risking a head-on confrontation with Iran which is allied with the Yemenis.
As Iranian Professor Mohammad Marandi points out in our interview this week a big incentive for the U.S. and its Israeli ally is to blow up the region as a reckless and nefarious way to conceal how disastrous the defeat in Gaza is for the Americans and their Israeli client regime.
But there may be more to it. Another incentive for taking a militarized response to the Red Sea crisis is the strategic gain that this gives the United States with regard to Europe and China.
The Red Sea shipping restrictions are hitting the European and Chinese trade most acutely. American economic interests are relatively unaffected.
It is estimated that about 60 percent of China’s exports to Europe are shipped through the Red Sea, according to the Washington DC-based Middle East Institute.
Put another way, Eurostat figures indicate that 20 percent of all EU imports come from Asia via the Red Sea.
Inevitably, the longer the insecurity and hostilities persist in the Red Sea, the worse will be the damage to Europe-China trade and their economies.
Reuters reports that China is urging Iran to rein in the actions of the Ansar Allah and Yemeni armed forces in the Red Sea. That indicates how severe the impasse is impacting Chinese trade with Europe.
The Europeans meanwhile seem oblivious to the damage that the United States’ policy is inflicting on their economies. The Europeans have meekly gone along with Washington’s militarized aggression against Yemen.
It is a long-term and deeply coveted goal for Washington to cleave European trade and political relations with China. China has become the European Union’s top trading partner, surpassing the United States in that historic role.
During recent Democrat and Republican administrations, Washington has vigorously sought to undermine European-Chinese relations. The Americans have reacted testily to any trade and investment pacts signed between the two.
The Red Sea crisis is thus a handy opportunity for the United States to kill two birds with one stone.
By ramping up the shipping problems through militarizing the conditions, the U.S. can weaken the economies of Europe and China while also sticking a very big wedge between the two.
In short-term American imperial calculation that is a tantalizing gain. The U.S. consolidates its hegemonic control over the weaker European allies while damaging China’s economic power.
This short-term zero-sum thinking by the American imperial planners is of course self-defeating in the long term from the far-reaching deterioration in the global economy and international peace and security. But long-term thinking about the common global good is not a priority for U.S. capitalist imperialism. One might even say they are fundamentally in opposition.
There is a close analogy here to the Ukraine crisis. Washington has pursued hostilities with Russia as a way to undermine European-Russian trade and their wider cultural and political relations. Washington calculates that such antagonism will bolster its hegemonic ambitions. The ideologically slavish European leaders have gone along with that policy even though it has resulted in an economic and security disaster for Europe.
The European leaders are either too stupid or too brainwashed to assess what is going on and how they are being manipulated by Washington for its selfish strategic interests.
If the European regimes had any independence or integrity they would not have gone down the path of conflict with Russia in Ukraine. But as it is, they have been had by Uncle Sam – big time. What’s more, they don’t seem to realize or even care.
Likewise, the same fate of shooting themselves in the foot is occurring over the Middle East crisis. The Europeans are backing a genocide in Gaza in deference to U.S. imperialist interests and the Israeli regime. That has rebounded with the Red Sea crisis that is set to hammer EU-China trade. Rather than seeking to resolve the conflict diplomatically, the Europeans are making it worse and in the process damaging their own international standing and strategic interests.
No wonder the Americans ultimately treat their European vassals with contempt. Because they are utterly spineless and clueless.
Here’s why the ICJ ruling on genocide is a crushing defeat for Israel
The Hague-based court has not called for a ceasefire and has no enforcement power, but its decision is resounding nonetheless
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | January 28, 2024
The United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled on the case that South Africa had brought against Israel. Those who mistake realism for simplistic materialism – the ‘it’s only there if I can touch it’ variety – may underestimate the significance of that ruling. In reality, it is historic. Here’s why.
First, and most importantly, the court has ruled against Israel. South Africa’s well-prepared brief was over 80 pages long, closely argued, and very detailed. But its gist was simple: It had applied to the ICJ – which only handles cases between countries, not individuals – to find that Israel is committing genocide in its attack on Gaza, thereby infringing on fundamental Palestinian rights as brutally as possible.
Such a finding always takes years. For now, at this preliminary stage, South Africa’s immediate request was for the judges to decide that there is, in essence, a high enough probability of this genocide taking place to do two things: First, continue the case (instead of dismissing it) and, secondly, issue an injunction (in this context called “preliminary measures”) ordering Israel to abstain from its genocidal actions so that the rights of its Palestinian victims receive due protection.
The court has done both, with a majority of 15 to 2. One of the two judges dissenting is from Israel. Those voting, in effect, against Tel Aviv included even the president of the court, from the US, and the judge from Germany, a country that has taken a self-damagingly pro-Israel line. As to the Israeli pseudo-argument claiming ‘self-defense,’ the court rightly ignored it. (Occupying powers simply do not have that right regarding occupied entities under international law. Period.)
This is a clear victory for South Africa – and for Palestine and Palestinians – and a crushing defeat for Israel, as even Kenneth Roth, head of thoroughly pro-Western Human Rights Watch recognizes with commendable clarity.
It is true that the ICJ has no power to enforce its rulings. That would have to come through the UN Security Council, where the US is protecting Israel, whatever it does, including genocide. Yet there are good reasons why representatives of Israel have reacted with statements so arrogant and aggressive that they only further damage Tel Aviv’s badly damaged international standing:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for instance, has displayed his legal nihilism by dismissing as “outrageous” the closely reasoned finding of the court, at which Israel had every opportunity to argue its case. Israel’s far-right Minister of National Security, convicted racist and terrorist supporter Itamar Ben-Gvir, has derided the ruling with an X post simply saying: “Hague schmague.”
And, of course, as always, everyone not toeing Israel’s line is smeared as an “antisemite”: The ICJ is now joining the UN, the World Health Organization and, by now, almost everyone and everything outside the ideological bubble of Zionism on the list of those slandered in this manner.
Notwithstanding the ICJ’s lack of an army to compel Tel Aviv to obey the law, these outbursts of rage betray great fear. You may ask why. After all, the one thing the ICJ did not do was order a ceasefire. Some commenters have focused on that fact, to argue – gleefully on the side of Israel and its allies, with great disappointment on the side of Israel’s victims, opponents, and critics – that this vitiates the ruling.
They are wrong. As, for instance, the Palestinian legal expert Nimer Sultany (based at the London School of Oriental and Asian Studies) has explained, a direct ceasefire order was always unlikely. There are several reasons for that: The ICJ cannot issue such an order to Hamas, so issuing one to Israel alone would have been difficult in principle and, by the way, would also have provided ammunition for Israeli propaganda. Since only the UN Security Council could give teeth to the ICJ’s ruling, trying to decree such a one-sided ceasefire would have made it easier for the US to sabotage the Council by discrediting the court’s ruling as biased. Although it was consistent for South Africa to ask for a ceasefire at the ICJ, the best institution to order one is still the Security Council. And it is plausible to interpret the specific demands that the ICJ has made of Israel as practicable only under an official or de-facto ceasefire. Indeed, Arab countries are now, it seems, gearing up to take that position and use the court’s ruling to demand a ceasefire at the Security Council. This may very well fail again, but even that failure will serve to weaken the position of the US, Israel’s vital sponsor.
Beyond the issue of the ceasefire, there are other – and, from an Israeli perspective, probably more frightening – factors. For even if the US keeps shielding Israel, this is a bigger world. Western governments and politicians that have supported Tel Aviv unconditionally – with arms, diplomatic and public-relations cover, and by repressing Israel’s critics – will feel a chill: The UN Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute don’t just condemn perpetrating a genocide but also not preventing or being complicit in one.
With the ICJ now having confirmed at the very least that genocide is probable enough to merit a case and require immediate action, Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Ursula von der Leyen, Olaf Scholz, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Annalena Baerbock, to name only a few, should start worrying: While the ICJ does not go after individuals, the International Criminal Court (ICC) does. Despite dragging its feet as much as it could, it is now especially likely to be compelled to open a full-fledged investigation.
In addition, cases can also be brought under national jurisdictions. All of this will take years. But it could end very badly for hubris-addled Western politicians who never imagined that such charges could escape their control (where they serve as politicized tools to go after African leaders and geopolitical opponents) and become their very own, potentially life-changing problem. In sum, the cost of siding with Israel has gone up. Not all but most politicians are solid opportunists. Tel Aviv will find it harder to mobilize its friends.
It is true that some Western governments and leaders, for instance, Canada or Rishi Sunak, have hurried to show their disdain for international law by attacking the ICJ’s ruling. But there’s an element of desperate bravado, of whistling in a darkening forest. And there’s a Catch-22 as well: Because, the more representatives of the West display their arrogance, the more they alienate the world. They may think that they are relieving Israel’s isolation. In reality, they are joining it on its downward trajectory: They are showing, once again, that their touted “rules-based order” is the opposite of the equal rule of international law for all.
Non-Western powers like China and Russia that have long resisted the hypocrisy of that ‘rules-based order’ and are not complicit in Israel’s atrocities, are earning global good will and geopolitical advantage. Hence, their positions and strategy will be confirmed by the ICJ ruling. This, as well, will weaken Israel further in the international arena.
If the world is bigger than the US or the West, it also contains much more than politics in the narrow sense of the term. In the realm of narratives, this is also a harsh setback for Israel and its supporters: Those who arrogantly dismissed the South African case as baseless or “a mockery,” for instance in The Economist, are now paying with their credibility. Their value as weapons in Israel’s struggle for global public opinion is reduced.
Last but not least, the domains of politics and narratives intersect, of course, with that of war: It is inevitable that those fighting Israel with arms will feel encouraged, and rightly so. For forces such as the Palestinian Resistance, the Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement de facto ruling Yemen, Hezbollah, and Iran, this ICJ ruling coincides with Israel’s military failure in Gaza: For while its troops have massacred civilians (and obsessively recorded proud evidence of their crimes that is now coming to haunt them), they are far from either “eradicating Hamas” (the putative war aim) or freeing the hostages by force. Seeing that Israel’s international isolation is getting worse, its opponents will have ever less reason to give up.
This, in short, was a great setback for Israel. Its political model, combining apartheid, militarism, and a might-makes-right outlook, is not ‘working’ any longer, not even on its own terms. The future is not predictable. That Israel will be in worsening trouble is.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul.
MAGA and Progressive Lawmakers Unite to Lambast Biden’s Attacks on Houthis
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 28.01.2024
US representatives and senators of all stripes have subjected the president to sharp criticism over his strikes in Yemen.
US President Joe Biden’s recent air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen have provoked cross-party criticism in Congress.
Representatives Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), as well as other 12 House Democrats and six Republicans, have joined ranks to express “serious concerns” about the “unauthorized” strikes.
“We believe the US’ unauthorized strikes in Yemen violate the Constitution and US statute,” wrote the lawmakers, arguing that Congress has the sole power to declare war and authorize military action.
Addressing Biden himself, they continued: “We urge your Administration to seek authorization from Congress before involving the US in another conflict in the Middle East, potentially provoking Iran-backed militias that may threaten US military service members already in the region, and risking escalation of a wider regional war,” the letter said, as quoted by Axios.
Since January 12, the US and its allies have been carrying out strikes with cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs against the Houthis in Yemen.
The US-led coalition has conducted 11 strikes against the Shiite militia so far in response to the Houthis targeting Israel-linked vessels in the Red Sea in a bid to force Tel Aviv to halt military actions against Palestinians in Gaza.
Earlier this week, another bipartisan group of senators questioned Washington’s effort to protect foreign ships in the Red Sea.
“As Commander-in-Chief, you have the power and responsibility to defend the United States under Article II of the Constitution,” a letter signed by Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) said. “However, most vessels transiting through the Red Sea are not US ships, which raises questions about the extent to which these authorities can be exercised.”
Commenting on the strikes on Yemen targets, the lawmakers drew attention to the fact that “there is no current congressional authorization for offensive US military action against the Houthis.”
“[U]nless there is a need to repel a sudden attack, the Constitution requires that the United States not engage in military action absent of a favorable vote of Congress,” the lawmakers insisted.
While non-interventionists on both sides of the US political aisle are urging Biden to show restraint, the hawks are chastising the president for not doing enough against the Yemen Shiite group.
For his part, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) lambasted the president for “failing to sufficiently exercise the authority he has.”
“[Biden’s] played whack-a-mole against warehouses and launch sites, but left the terrorists’ air defenses and command-and-control facilities intact,” argued McConnell.
McConnell highlighted the 2002 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) that empowered then-US President George W. Bush to kick off the Iraq War. In 2023, US lawmakers sought to strip US presidents of the AUMF; however, the legislative measure got stuck in the US Congress.
Not only US lawmakers but also right- and left-wing American scholars have recently warned the Biden administration against escalating tensions in the Middle East.
They particularly argued that the cost of the global trade disruption caused by the Red Sea crisis would be far less than the cost of the US operations against Yemen, especially given the risk of a clash with Iran, which traditionally supported Shiite militias in the small Middle Eastern state. A larger regional war is looming, they warned.
Pentagon contradicts White House about US troop presence in Yemen
The Cradle | January 28, 2024
US defense officials claim they have no boots on the ground in Yemen, despite a recent acknowledgement that US forces are indeed present in the war-torn Gulf state, a 27 January report from The Intercept shows.
On 17 January, a journalist asked US Defense Department press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder if he could give assurances that the US had no troops on the ground in Yemen. Ryder responded, “I’m not aware of any U.S. forces on the ground.”
However, the White House reported to Congress on 7 December that “A small number of United States military personnel are deployed to Yemen to conduct operations against al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS.”
Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, who worked on Yemen as a Capitol Hill staffer, told The Intercept it is possible Brig. Gen. Ryder “is trying to skirt the question to avoid greater scrutiny.”
Pentagon officials also deny that the US is at war with Yemen despite bombing it.
“We don’t think that we are at war,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said on 18 January. “We don’t want to see a regional war.”
One journalist in the press briefing responded, saying, “We’ve bombed them five times now … if this isn’t war, what is war?”
This month, the US began a new bombing campaign against Yemen, which is now primarily governed by the Ansarallah resistance movement. With US and UK backing, Saudi Arabia and the UAE fought a war against Ansarallah between 2015 and 2022.
This month’s US bombing campaign came after Ansarallah-led Yemeni forces began attacking Israeli-linked shipping vessels in the Red Sea. Ansarallah wishes to stop the Israeli military campaign on Gaza, which has killed over 26,000 Palestinians and is widely viewed as constituting genocide.
But as the US bombing campaign in Yemen began, “defense officials suddenly became more reticent about the American military presence in Yemen,” The Intercept noted.
Though US officials claim their forces are in Yemen to fight Al-Qaeda-linked groups, a BBC investigation released on 22 January revealed that the UAE, a close US ally, has hired Al-Qaeda militants to fight for the Southern Transitional Council (STC), the Emirati-backed government in sparsely populated eastern Yemen.
A whistleblower cited in the investigation provided the BBC with “a document with 11 names of former Al-Qaeda members now working in the STC,” among them former high-ranking operatives of the extremist group.
Nasser al-Shiba, a former high-ranking Al-Qaeda member, is now the commander of the of the STC’s armed units, several sources told the BBC.
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From the Archives
Newly Released FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks
By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | May 17, 2019
NEW YORK — For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. … continue
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