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John Kerry warned that if his latest peace mission is unsuccessful, Israel will be isolated, according to columnist Jeffrey Goldberg. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently warned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that if his latest peace mission is unsuccessful, Israel will be isolated. According to Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg, Kerry capitalized on Israel’s anxiety over the European Union’s new guidelines which boycott Israeli entities that operate from beyond the 1949 Armistice Line. Kerry, according to Goldberg's latest column, has warned Netanyahu in recent weeks that if the current peace talks bear no fruit, Israel may soon be facing...

Via Breitbart and the Daily Mail, seven minutes from Joe DiGenova’s chat with WMAL yesterday. The key bit comes at 3:25, after he points out that Obama’s arguably guilty of contempt of court for publicly acknowledging a sealed indictment against the Benghazi attackers at his presser on Friday. This isn’t the first time that someone with inside info has floated the theory that SAMs were key to what the CIA was doing in Benghazi. CNN mentioned that too in its big scoop about agents allegedly being intimidated into silence, although the SAM connection was mentioned as speculation going around on...

A U.S. citizen and a foreign national were charged in federal court in Miami on Tuesday with providing financing and recruits to al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist organizations fighting in Syria and other places. Gufran Ahmed Kauser Mohammed, a 30-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in India, and Mohamed Hussein Said, a 25-year-old Kenyan, were arraigned on a 15-count indictment charging them with links to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations that have operated in Iraq, Syria and Somalia. Both men, who were arrested in Saudi Arabia and turned over to U.S. custody last week, pleaded not guilty and were ordered held...

Anti-Assad rebels from the Jabhat al-Nusra Front are reported to have carried out a raid on the Syrian town of Tal Abyad near the Turkish border this past week. Rebel troops are said to have gone door-to-door killing everyone they encountered—including an estimated 450 women, children, and elderly men. The Jabhat al-Nusra Front is one of the groups receiving military assistance from the Obama Administration and was visited earlier this year by Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) for a photo op. McCain hastened to mention that “the reports of the massacre have yet to be confirmed by the Administration. Even if...

The president of Iraqi Kurdistan vowed Saturday to defend the large Kurdish population across the border in neighboring Syria from al-Qaida-linked fighters. The comments from Massoud Barzani follow weeks of clashes in predominantly Kurdish parts of northeastern Syrian near the Iraqi border between Kurdish militias and Islamic extremist rebel factions that have killed dozens on both sides. The fighting in the oil-rich region has emerged as yet another layer in Syria's increasingly complex and bloody civil war. In a statement posted on the Kurdistan Regional Government's official website, Barzani called for a delegation to visit Kurdish areas in Syria to...

Gen. Mark Welsh, the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, has completed a secret visit to Israel, where was the guest of the Commander of the Israel Air Force, Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel. snip The officials discussed a number of topics including mutual security challenges in light of the regional security situation. Welsh and Eshel also discussed plans to further strengthen the cooperation between the U.S. Air Force and the Israel Air Force, according to the IDF. The meeting, which reportedly was kept secret at the request of the United States, comes in advance of a scheduled visit by...

Events in one Syrian town cast light on the nation’s strifeIlyas was, he told me, the very last Christian to flee Qusayr. He had been one of just a handful in the town to join the revolution — an odd thing for a Christian to do because the Free Syrian Army (FSA) were and are mostly Sunnis, and the Christians mostly sided with Assad. Still, it didn’t save him. One day he heard banging on the door and saw men with Kalashnikovs standing there. There were familiar faces, some he had known for years. He said: ‘They told me: “You’re...

Violence has been on the rise across Iraq since a deadly crackdown by government forces on a Sunni protest camp in April, and attacks against civilians and security forces notably spiked during Ramadan. The surge of attacks has sparked fears that the country could spiral into a new round of widespread sectarian bloodshed similar to that which brought the country to the edge of civil war in 2006 and 2007. In the holy Shiite city of Karbala, police said four people were killed in a car bomb attack near a cafe at night. Karbala is 80 kilometres (50 miles) south...

Putin talks NSA, Syria, Iran, and Drones in Exclusive Video

The intensity of the Obama administration's participation in this cover-up became clear in May 2012. At that time, Congress had placed a clause inside the Defense Appropriations Act requiring the Pentagon to award Purple Hearts to Ft. Hood's victims. Rather than accept this eminently reasonable demand, which simply required the administration to acknowledge reality, Obama's emissaries announced he would veto the appropriations bill and so leave the Pentagon without a budget unless the clause was removed. SNIP THE SAME is the case with regards to the September 11, 2012, attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. Already on the day...

Syria, in 2013. Compilation videos on the subject of tanks. The tanks in the fighting in the city. Tank battles in Syria in the first person.

What exactly happened at the U.S. consulate and nearby CIA annex in Benghazi on September 11, 2012? We now know that dozens of CIA operatives at the CIA Annex who survived the second attack have been shuffled around the country living under assumed names, forbidden to talk to the press; forbidden to talk to Congress, and are given monthly polygraph tests to ensure that they keep their mouths shut. Despite the Obama regime’s gag order on these CIA agents, the truth—or at least part of the truth—has come out. Dozens of the al-Qaeda offshoot Ansar al-Sharia stormed the consulate with...

Russian supersonic missiles behave like wolves August 8, 2013 Viktor Litovkin, special to RBTH Yakhont anti-ship cruise missile at the 3rd International Airspace Show in Moscow. Source: RIA Novosti Large-scale construction of the next-generation Project 885 Yasen-class submarine armed with Onyx supersonic missiles is starting in Russia. These ships will compete with the latest American Seawolf-class nuclear submarines and will be world leaders in terms of fire power. Large-scale construction of the next-generation Project 885 Yasen-class multi-purpose nuclear attack submarine, armed with Onyx supersonic cruise missiles, is starting in Russia. The ships will compete with the latest American Seawolf-class nuclear...

SNIPPET: "Gufran Ahmed Kauser Mohammed, 30, and Mohamed Hussein Said, 25, face an indictment charging them with conspiring to provide and attempting to provide material support to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations that have operated in Iraq, Syria and Somalia, according to authorities." SNIPPET: "The defendants, while based overseas in 2011-13, allegedly sent thousands of dollars via Western Union to an al-Qaida terrorist affiliate, al-Nusrah Front, which is fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. They also allegedly sent funds to al-Shabaab, another terrorist group seeking to overthrow the U.S.-backed transitional government in Somalia."

President Obama on Wednesday announced the U.S. would give an additional $195 million in humanitarian aid to displaced Syrians as a gesture to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month. “Many of us have had the opportunity to break fast with our Muslim friends and colleagues — a tradition that reminds us to be grateful for our blessings and to show compassion to the less fortunate among us, including millions of Syrians who spent Ramadan displaced from their homes, their families, and their loved ones,” the president said in a statement. “To help the...

With conditions continuing to deteriorate in Syria, the Obama administration is making a major policy shift by agreeing for the first time to allow thousands of new Syrian refugees into the United States, The Cable has learned. The numbers are relatively small: just 2,000 refugees, compared to an estimated two million people who have fled Syria during the civil war. But it's a significant increase from the 90 or so Syrian refugees who have been permanently admitted to the U.S. in the last two years. And it's not entirely uncontroversial. The refugees, mostly women and children, will be screened for...

One of the more surprising news to hit the tape yesterday was that Saudi Arabia, exasperated and desperate by Russia's relentless support of the Syrian regime and refusal to abandon the Syrian army thus facilitating the Qatari plan to pass its natgas pipeline to Europe under Syria, had quietly approached Putin with a proposal for a huge arms deal and a pledge to boost Russian influence in the Arab world if only Putin would abandon Syria's Assad. It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone that in the aftermath of yesterday's dilettante mistake by Obama which alienated Putin from...

The ‘Syria problem' is playing out in other post-Arab Spring countries, from Libya to Tunisia and Egypt, where the space vacated by despotic regimes has been taken over by Islamic militants. Terror organisations have a ready platform In May, US President Barack Obama said that he was hoping to “refine and repeal” the mandate that he got from the Congress to fight the war on terror against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, as the core group was on the “path to defeat” and “this war, like all wars, must end”. Less than three months later, he has evacuated the US...

US opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program may be softening, a former head of IDF intelligence said Wednesday. “The American stance on an Israeli strike against Iran has changed dramatically recently,” said Amos Yadlin, who served as chief of the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate from 2006 to 2010. “In 2012 the [Americans'] red light was as red as it can get, the brightest red,” Yadlin said in an interview with Army Radio Wednesday morning. “But the music I’m hearing lately from Washington says, ‘If this is truly an overriding Israeli security interest, and you think you want to...

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel plan to meet here in Washington with their Russian counterparts on Friday for a day of talks that could determine the fate of a September summit meeting between President Obama and the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. State Department officials on Tuesday afternoon confirmed the meeting with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Sergei K. Shoigu, the defense minister. Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said the four officials would discuss “a number of pressing bilateral and global issues.” “There’s a lot to discuss,´´Ms. Psaki said.

A little over two years ago, on July 8 2011, a convoy carrying the then US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford made its way through army checkpoints to the besieged city of Hama, then the center of protests against the rule of the Assad regime. The surprise visit was seen as the first concrete sign of US support for the Syrian opposition. … But these days, the veteran US diplomat is being showered with invective and diatribe—on Twitter. The latest social media campaign against Ford was sparked by media reports over the weekend that US Secretary of State John Kerry...

Gripped by more than a year of conflict the thriving commercial hub has been transformed into a series of battlefields and front lines, its residents struggling to live on amid the widespread disease, dirty water and crippling food shortages. The aerial pictures show the extent of the destruction of the city, one of the oldest and most historically rich in the world. The Ancient City of Aleppo is a Unesco World Heritage site, this year placed on the UN organisation's list of World Heritage in Danger. “Aleppo has been utterly devastated, its people fleeing the conflagration in huge numbers," said...

The FSA's statement said that three military officers, one of them a colonel, were killed. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) shot down a helicopter and 3 military officers in the helicopter were killed. According to a written statement by the FSA, the FSA's troops shot down a military helicopter with a missile near the International Damascus Airport. The statement said that three military officers, one of them a colonel, were killed. There was no statement or comment from the Syrian administration about the incident.

In wake of Tuesday’s decision by police officials in charge of the Temple Mount to ban non-Muslims entrance to the holy site, some two hundred protesters stood Wednesday morning at the foot of the Mugrabi entrance seeking to reverse their exclusion. The mass protest was prearranged following an announcement by Police Commander Avi Bitton that the Temple Mount will remain closed to Jews and tourists at least until after the end of Ramadan’s closing festival of “Eid” which is to be next Sunday, the 11th of August. video .....

...Those who talk about a durable peace are by definition giving up on Palestine...

Arizona Senator John McCain is in Egypt with South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham just weeks after the new government, run by the Muslim Brotherhood, was overthrown by the military. Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was heavily protested by millions of people as he tried to turn the fragile State into a dictatorship under Sharia law. More from The Daily Beast: During their whirlwind tour of Cairo Tuesday, two top GOP senators held the most extensive meeting to date between U.S. officials and senior officials in the embattled Muslim Brotherhood, whose supporters are fighting in the streets to overturn last month’s...

The Syrian Army attacked a large group of antigovernment insurgents near the capital, Damascus, on Wednesday, killing more than 60, according to monitors and state media. The rebels killed near Damascus belonged to the Nusra Front, and some were foreigners, SANA said. It published a series of photographs showing bloodstained bodies in olive drab uniforms lying on what seemed to be open sandy, desert ground. The Nusra Front is an extremist group that the United States has designated a terrorist organization. In recent months, government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been seeking to clear areas around Damascus of...

Moscow, August 7, Interfax – Delays in the process of suppressing terrorists in Syria can result in setting up an Islamic caliphate in the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes. "Earlier, we saw how some members of the Security Council didn’t want to condemn terrorist acts in Syria, saying, that, no matter how cynical it may sound, those who carry out these acts struggle against the regimen, which exhausted itself. This position is absolutely unacceptable, terrorism should be treated without any double standards," he said at a press conference summing up his talks with Ghana Foreign Minister Hannah Tetteh....

#BreakingNews - Activists: #FSA downs Iranian cargo plane at #Damascus International Airport. #Syria

n a rare diplomatic snub, President Obama is canceling plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow next month. The decision reflects both U.S. anger over Russia's harboring of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and growing frustration within the Obama administration over what it sees as Moscow's stubbornness on other key issues, including missile defense and human rights. Obama will still attend the Group of 20 economic summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, but a top White House official said the president had no plans to hold one-on-one talks with Putin while there. Instead of visiting Putin in...

The following statement was issued by the White House on President Barack Obama’s decision not to hold a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin: “Following a careful review begun in July, we have reached the conclusion that there is not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda with Russia to hold a U.S.-Russia Summit in early September. We value the achievements made with Russia in the President’s first term, including the New START Treaty, and cooperation on Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea. However, given our lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and...

The top US military officer is scheduled to arrive in Israel and Jordan next week, in a visit which will focus in part on Iran and the war in Syria, the US military said Wednesday. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will meet in Israel with his counterpart, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, to discuss advances in Iran's nuclear program, which Israel regards as an existential threat, given the Islamic regime's declared ambition of destroying the Jewish State, and continued support for anti-Israel terrorist groups. "In Israel, the chairman expects to discuss the United States'...

BEIRUT—Foreign jihadists showed their gathering strength in Syria's civil war with the capture of a military air base in northern Syria. Foreigners fighting with an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq—called the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS—led the capture of the Minigh air base north of Aleppo early Tuesday, according to local activists and some rebel commanders. The seizure offers Syria's rebels a strategic victory after eight months of failed advances on the base.

Since launching the surprise assault at dawn on Sunday, the mainly Islamist rebel brigades led by two al Qaeda-linked groups have captured half a dozen villages on the northern edges of the Alawite mountain range, the activists say. The rebel strike into Alawite territory and their capture of a military airport north of Aleppo mark two major gains for Assad's foes after months of setbacks during which they lost ground around the capital Damascus and the central city of Homs. Combined with a steady fightback in the southern province of Deraa, they highlight the challenge Assad faces in trying to...

Turkey's former armed forces chief has been jailed for life for plotting to overthrow the government, after five years of trials involving officers, lawyers, writers and journalists. Gen Ilker Basbug was among dozens of people convicted of involvement in the so-called Ergenekon plot. Critics of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have accused him of staging show trials to eliminate his enemies. His supporters say the trials have pushed the military out of politics. Verdicts are being read out one by one at a specially constructed courtroom in Istanbul. Twenty-one people have been acquitted and some 40 convicted so far, including...

Nearly a year after the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, CNN’s Erin Burnett looks back at the night that took the lives of four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens. With special reports from CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon and chief national correspondent John King, Burnett revisits the night of the attack, the U.S. military response, the latest on the investigation, and the political firestorm in Washington D.C.

When the Central Intelligence Agency's "favorite Saudi prince" - which was how the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz last week described the chief of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar bin Sultan - landed in Moscow in his private jet on Wednesday and drove straight to Novo-Ogarevo in the city suburbs to meet President Vladimir Putin at his residence, it didn't turn out to be the "hush-hush" visit that the spy chief is usually accustomed to and would have expected. The Russian news agency Itar-Tass scrambled to carry a crisp report, quoting the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that the Saudi prince and...

On 19 July 2013, Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered an unclassified letter to Senator Carl Levin concerning the risks of US military intervention in Syria. While the letter is was ostensibly delivered to the Senate, it actually delivered the equivalent to ten American thermonuclear bombs hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem simultaneously. While the letter was supposedly written by Dempsey, it was surely approved and intensely vetted by President Obama himself. So while the letter had Dempsey’s signature, it was Obama’s policy. The Dempsey/Obama letter outlined all the catastrophic effects which would...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Tuesday evening with a delegation of 36 American congressmen headed by Congressman Steny Hoyer. During the meeting Netanyahu claimed that though Iran's president said pressure wouldn't help, in the last two decades pressure was the only thing that helped. snip

Federal prosecutors have filed the first charges in the Benghazi terror attack against Ahmed Khattalah, the leader of a Libyan militia believed to be responsible for the Sept. 11, 2012, consulate attack that killed four Americans. The charges are under seal, CNN first reported.

Here’s a riddle: How do you make it easier to push through legislation in Congress that is overwhelmingly opposed in the public without any political consequences? SecrecyAnswer: Keep the votes secret. That’s exactly what’s happened to an Obama administration plan to provide weapons directly to the Syrian rebels. The Senate committee that approved the plan was, unusually, allowed to classify their votes, presumably in order to insulate themselves from any repercussions from their constituents. Because really…why should elected representatives have to tell the people they supposedly represent how they are doing the job they were elected to do!?...

Former Democratic pollster and Fox News contributor, Pat Caddell, appeared on Fox News Channel over the weekend where he alleged that there is a White House-led cover-up of the details surrounding the Benghazi attacks. Furthermore, he added, that cover-up of information regarding the White House’s response to that attack is being aided by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). “We have John Boehner, who has been purposely suppressing anything about Benghazi because he knew what we found out this week,” Caddell alleged. “And he approved it.”

A congressional select committee could offer immunity to the CIA’s dispersed, intimidated survivors. You can always tell the depth of an event’s illegality by the measures people take to cover it up. By that measure, the conduct of President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and David Petraeus leading up to the terrorist attack that killed four Americans on 9/11 2012 must be must be so sufficiently wrongful that, if revealed, they could lead to the president’s impeachment.How else can we gauge what is apparently the most energetic coverup in modern history? We know, from several sources, that the survivors of the attack —...

Via SITE Intelligence, an excerpt of a video release by the Al Nusrah Front's Himam News Agency shows members of the group fixing an electrical transformer. The full 4-minute video was posted on jihadist internet forums on July 27, 2013, and reflects the latest attempt by Syria's al Qaeda affiliates to soften their image. See Threat Matrix coverage: The softer side of Salafist-Jihad.

Maulana Asim Umar, from a video by As Sahab. His face is intentionally blotted. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. As Sahab, al Qaeda's propaganda arm, has released a video featuring Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Maulana Asim Umar, who calls on Indian Muslims to participate in the "global jihad to give a final push to the collapsing edifice of America." The video, titled "Why is There No Storm in Your Ocean?," was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. It was produced in May, but posted on jihadist forums on July 23. Asim Umar tells the Muslims of India that...

March 4, 2013 Obama Claims Al Qaeda Defeated, Al Qaeda Claims It Has Scud Missiles Daniel Greenfield Hmm this is a tough one. Whom to believe? The man who set the Muslim world on fire and unleashed the Islamist takeover of entire countries. Or Al Qaeda. In any case, Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the local Al Qaeda affiliated groups, claims to have captured a bunch of Scud missiles. They are reportedly planning to turn them into orphanages for the poor or possibly kill a lot of people. There’s just no way to know. Syrian rebels affiliated with al-Qaeda recently captured...

Editor's note: Below is Thomas Joscelyn's testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, on al Qaeda, the nature of the group's central command and its relationship with its affiliates, and the future challenges the West faces in battling the terror organization. Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Sherman and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the threat posed by al Qaeda. We have been asked to "examine the nature of global al Qaeda today." In particular, you asked us to answer the following questions: "What is [al...

Towns and villages in Syria that have been home to Christians for hundreds of years are being steadily emptied by sectarian violence and targeted kidnappings.Tens of thousands Syriac Christians – members of the oldest Christian community in the world – have fled their ancestral provinces of Deir al-Zour and Hasakah in northeastern Syria, residents have said. "It breaks my heart to think how our long history is being uprooted," said Ishow Goriye, the head of a Syriac Christian political Hasakah Mr Goriye, told The Daily Telegraph how, over the past two years he has watched as Christian families from Hasakah...

The U.S. intelligence community has been leaking information on Israeli air strikes in Syria, and U.S. President Barack Obama is behind the leaks, according to a report in the World Tribune. Diplomats told the Tribune that the Obama administration has enabled the U.S. intelligence community to disclose details of Israeli military operations against the armed forces under Syrian President Bashar Assad. These leaks include reporting Israeli air and naval strikes on advanced Iranian and Russian weapons that arrived in 2013. “This is a decision that could come only from Obama,” a diplomat said. “[T]his reflects his dismay over the Israeli...

WASHINGTON – Is the CIA trying to cover up information relating to the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans? Members of Congress are seeking an investigation into covert CIA efforts to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels, CNN reported over the weekend. Among the many secrets still yet to be told about the Benghazi mission, is just how many Americans were there the night of the September 2012 attack. According to one source, that number was 35, with as many as seven wounded, some seriously. It is unknown how many of...