3631-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

DEBAGA, Iraq — The battle for the northern city of Mosul could force a million people to flee their homes. But even before it begins, aid agencies are struggling to shelter families displaced by the conflict against the Islamic State.

The United Nations says it is nowhere near ready to deal with the fallout from the U.S.-backed offensive to retake Mosul from the militants, which could begin in less than a month.

The camps in northern Iraq are full. Debaga camp, 40 miles southeast of Mosul on the edges of the semiautonomous Kurdish region, was built a year ago for 700 families. It now houses 10 times as many people, most of whom fled fighting as Iraqi forces retook territory south of the city.

Crowds gather around reporters, hoping they are aid workers bringing humanitarian assistance. “Register me! Register me!” they shout. They complain they don’t have mattresses, medicine, milk for their children or diapers.

Many don’t have tents, with 1,100 families here waiting for shelter. They bed down in the classrooms and yard of the camp’s school and in the hall of a mosque. Some have slung tarpaulins next to walls in an attempt to shield themselves from the sun.

“It’s humiliating,” said Nahla Mohammed, 23, who fled bombing on her farm on the outskirts of Mosul five days earlier with her husband and three children and has been sleeping outside. She said she hadn’t been able to get milk for her 1½ -year-old daughter. “There we were terrified and scared, but here we are hungry and we’ve received nothing. We don’t want to be here, we were forced to come.”

When the offensive begins — the biggest yet against Islamic State militants — assistance is expected to be even more scarce. Aid organizations are strapped for resources.

[Signs of panic and rebellion in the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate]

About 3.3 million people have been displaced in Iraq over the past 2½ years, while the conflict in neighboring Syria has displaced millions more.

Iraq’s finances have been squeezed by falling oil prices and years of grinding battles to retake territory, limiting the government’s ability to respond. The United Nations put out an emergency appeal for $285 million to meet the needs of those expected to flee but says it is facing a shortfall of $165 million to provide the most basic emergency response.

Almost every victory is accompanied by a simultaneous humanitarian crisis,” said Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. “It’s a lot. Sometimes it feels like too much.”

The United Nations is scrambling to build standard camps like the one at Debaga. But if numbers reach the highest predictions, they will be able to handle only a fraction of those fleeing. Four standard camps, with the capacity for a total of 70,000 people, are expected to be completed during October, said Peter Hawkins, the UNICEF representative in Iraq.

However, many more could be displaced.

About 2 million people lived in Mosul before the Islamic State took over, but it is difficult to know how many remain. The United Nations estimates that between 1.2 million and 1.5 million live there now. Some Iraqi officials contend that the population is higher because of the number of people who moved into the city to escape Iraqi army offensives to the south.

Those who find no room at the new camps could turn to the U.N.’s emergency camps — where assistance will be even more basic. Some, however, may flee into the desert toward the Syrian border, making it difficult for aid agencies to reach them.

“The military campaign is going to take off soon, and on the humanitarian side we aren’t yet ready,” Grande said.

With hopes of reducing the misery, the Iraqi government has dropped leaflets over Mosul asking people to stay in their homes during the offensive. In previous battles, for Fallujah and Ramadi, the cities have been emptied.

“Our main aim will be to preserve lives while still keeping people in their homes,” said Gen. Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, head of Iraq’s special forces. That had been achieved to an extent in an offensive last month for the town of Qayyarah, he said, “but Mosul is bigger, so it’s a much more complicated task.”

[U.S. adds more troops to Iraq ahead of Mosul offensive]

Despite the leaflets, civilians are risking their lives to leave.

Umm Abbas, 40, who used a nickname because she still has family members in Mosul, fled the outskirts of the city in August. She was separated from her husband, who had gone into Mosul to sell vegetables at the time an offensive began and Kurdish forces moved toward their farm, she said. The family fled toward the Kurdish soldiers, but her 12-year-old nephew was killed by a suicide car bomber as they reached the Kurdish lines.

“Now we’ve been here for a month and a half with no tent. We live here in the yard,” she said, indicating the packed school behind her at Debaga.

On arrival at the camp, men are separated from women and children and taken to buildings in a fenced-off area for screening by Kurdish security agencies. But even if they are cleared of having associations with the Islamic State, many aren’t released because there isn’t space to house them elsewhere.

Abdullah Ahmed, 52, showed a deep hole in the sole of his foot.

“I’ll have to chop off my leg by the time I get out of here,” he said, explaining that he has diabetes but has been unable to get insulin. Others complained that they had been held for weeks without being interviewed, raising concerns about how authorities will be able to deal with screenings when waves of people are displaced from Mosul.

“We are trying our best to provide the basics of daily life,” said Rizgar Obaid, the camp’s director. “But we lack space, we lack milk for the children and diapers.”

Grande described the humanitarian operation as “one of the most complicated” in recent memory. With the Iraqi state so fractured, the United Nations is coordinating the aid effort with nearly 15 governmental and military bodies, she said.

However, others have criticized international organizations for being inflexible and slow to respond to crises.

“If they want to give out a bottle of water, they need permission from Geneva,” Obaid quipped.

Slowly, some are going home. About 470 families left the camp to return to the village of Hajj Ali last week, cramming their belongings into trucks.

“What’s sweeter than home?” one girl shouted from the back of a truck packed with water containers and mattresses as it drove off.

Iraqi forces, including Shiite militias, are preparing to launch an attack on the city of Hawijah. Islamic State militants are preventing civilians from leaving, but some have made it out, arriving at Debaga with stories of crucifixions, beheadings and hunger.

“Things are going to get much worse before they get better,” Obaid said.

(The Washington Post)

New York Times whitewashes al-Qaeda, accuses Russia of deliberate murder in Aleppo

Paul Mansfield
Sott.net
Mon, 03 Oct 2016 23:29 UTC

Max Fisher: NYT/Al-Qaeda propagandist.

I took time out from reading the news on the war on Syria to read the latest piece of fiction in the New York Times, this one woven together by Max Fisher, who provocatively titled it "Russia's Brutal Bombing of Aleppo May Be Calculated, and It May Be Working".

Max was just getting warmed up with the title, launching into a full-frontal assault on Russia, accusing it of deliberately murdering civilians in Aleppo in order to discredit the so-called opposition, scuttle the last remaining hopes of diplomacy, and, if not win the war, then at least prolong it endlessly.

Fisher then takes us on his magic carpet ride of delusion, telling us that so-called "moderate" rebels have had to turn to extremists or starve and that the US has genuinely tried to convince these moderates to separate from the extremists:

The northern Syrian city is one of the few remaining strongholds for non-jihadist rebel groups. But months of siege forced them into a terrible choice: turn to extremists for help, or starve. It was no choice at all, and groups such as the jihadist-linked Ahrar al-Sham helped briefly break the siege in August...

The United States has tried to counteract this by persuading rebels to reject jihadists, in part by promising support for the opposition and by targeting jihadist militants.

Fisher is well advised not to elaborate on who the rebel groups are who control east Aleppo, as it will reveal it is the Jihadist hardliners who run the show there.

The moderate myth has its foundations in the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Its halcyon days are far behind, and there are doubts as to whether the group even exists anymore. Islamist groups have borrowed its moniker when they want to present to the outside world as moderates fighting for the freedom of Syrians.

The FSA has its hands covered in blood, along with its Islamist allies. Right now in Aleppo, if it is a functioning force, it is allied with extremists who are intensely bombing west Aleppo, causing numerous deaths and injuries, none of which Fisher and his MSM friends ever bother covering.

Back in April, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Colonel Steve Warren let the cat out of the bag by saying: "That said, it's primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo, and of course, al-Nusra is not part of the cessation of hostilities."

The US State Department scrambled to discredit Warren, making the laughable claim that Al-Nusra is not the dominant rebel force in Aleppo. To admit Al-Nusra, now rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), was a dominant force in Aleppo would undermine U.S. support for rebels there and increase the pressure on the U.S. to cooperate with Russia in ridding the city of the terrorists that have besieged it since 2012. Warren reflected the opinion of Russia's military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, who earlier in April said that 8,000 Al-Nusra militants were amassing around Aleppo and preparing to cut off the city's main road to Syria's capital, Damascus.

JFS along with the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham are part of the Jaysh al-Fatah coalition, which has a strong presence in Aleppo. Fisher claims that the moderates are drawn to Ahrar al-Sham through the need to survive, a blatantly false claim. Jaysh al-Fatah formed in Idlib in 2015, quickly taking control of the province. It expanded into Aleppo, dramatically capturing Khan Touman, creating major new problems for the Syrian government trying to regain control of Aleppo. As its name suggests - "army of conquest" - it is not desperately defending civilians and trying to survive under a barrage of Russian and Syrian bombs. It is an Islamist coalition backed by foreign powers, intent on expanding control from Idlib to Aleppo.

The U.S. has been unable or unwilling to separate the so-called moderates from JFS, a key element of the failed ceasefire. Ahrar al-Sham, one of the largest forces in Syria, immediately rejected the ceasefire, stating they would not break with "their comrades in arms" from JFS. Over 20 other opposition groups also rejected the ceasefire, among them groups fighting in the Fatah Halab coalition in Aleppo such as the notorious Nour al-Din al-Zenki. These groups are now consolidating their alliance with JFS, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Mike Whitney, writing for CounterPunch, said the U.S. has no way of separating "moderates" from extremists, compounded by the fact that the Pentagon had no intention of complying with the ceasefire - unleashing its deadly assault against Syrian troops in Deir ez-Zor days later. Whitney stated that Washington will support JFS as long as it continues to act in ways that match Washington's strategic objectives, or as he quotes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as saying, "the United States doesn't have the will to work against al-Nusra or ISIS, because they believe that this is a card they can use for their own agenda."

Moscow has been endlessly patient with Washington, which claims to be in control of the rebels, and has backed off, only to see the rebel groups rearm and reject the ceasefire. The so-called moderates had their opportunity, as did the Pentagon. Their sabotage means they are now bearing the consequences.

Fisher, like so many Western journalists, has abdicated the responsibility of reporting on the ground to the so-called independent White Helmets and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The vivid, horrifying reports of bombed hospitals and schools, complete with images of children pulled from the rubble, is coming from these sources. Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett andRick Sterling have all exposed the White Helmets as a U.S./UK intelligence-created and -funded organisation fully embedded with Al-Qaeda in Syria. SOHR is run out of a house in Coventry, England, by a certain Abdul Rahman who openly professes to be a member of the Syrian opposition, thus eliminating him as an objective information source.

Tony Cartalucci neatly summed up the sheer lunacy in trusting SOHR as a reliable barometer of facts on the ground in Syria:

Clearly for real journalists, Abdulrahman is a useless, utterly compromised source of information who has every reason to twist reality to suit his admittedly politically-motivated agenda of overthrowing the Syrian government. However, for a propagandist, he is a goldmine. That is why despite the overt conflict of interests, the lack of credibility, the obvious disadvantage of being nearly 3,000 miles away from the alleged subject of his "observations," or the fact that a single man is ludicrously calling himself a "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" in the first place, the Western media still eagerly laps up his constant torrent of disinformation.

Fisher, among others in groupthinkistan media, is clearly not a "real" journalist, but rather the servant of a campaign of vilification of Russia dangerously escalating to levels reminiscent of the fever-pitch hysteria against the former Yugoslavia and Libya. We all know how that ended up.

The divide and conquer strategy in the form of propagating the Sunni/Shia divide is utilised by Fisher to distort the battle for hearts and minds in Aleppo.

That legitimacy has been weakened by years of killing civilians, and by the government's strategy of fostering sectarianism, which leaves it with little support among the country's majority Sunni population. As long as non-jihadist Sunni Arab rebels are on the battlefield, they can credibly claim to better represent Syrians. This leaves the Syrian leadership, which is dominated by the Alawite religious minority, vulnerable to any peace deal or military intervention that would install a rebel government in its place ...

indigenous forces rely on the local population, which gives them money, food, shelter, intelligence and recruits. Rebels, including Syria's, are only as strong as their local support.

Fisher is perhaps not cognizant of the fact that the Syrian Army is dominated by Sunnis, naturally enough in a country where 75% of the population are Sunni Muslim. If the government's strategy was "fostering sectarianism," the army would not have been able to hold together against overwhelming odds to the point that it is on the verge of liberating Aleppo. The sectarianism of Fisher and those of his ilk is a myth, plain and simple.

The fact that the people of Aleppo never wanted the rebels, that Sunni and Shia are combining to cleanse east Aleppo of the jihadis and the foreign composition of much of the opposition, is highlighted in the following Twitter exchange:

Sophia ن @les_politiques
.@HKX07 @WardJdw @kshaheen SAA & allies battle to liberate#Aleppo is not sectarian by any measure. It is absolutely the contrary. 1/

Follow
Sophia ن @les_politiques
.@HKX07 @WardJdw @kshaheen Remember, #Aleppo, mostly Sunni, didn't want the rebels, awaits SAA with anticipation. 2/
5:19 PM - 29 Sep 2016

1 Retweet

5 likes

Sophia ن @les_politiques
.@HKX07 @WardJdw @kshaheen Remember, #Aleppo, mostly Sunni, didn't want the rebels, awaits SAA with anticipation. 2/

Follow
Sophia ن @les_politiques
.@HKX07 @WardJdw @kshaheen Shia+Sunnis mass 2 liberate east #Aleppo, taken over by radical Sunnis. How is this 'sectarian'? @martinchulov 3/
5:23 PM - 29 Sep 2016

Retweets

3 likes

Edward Dark @edwardedark
Aleppo city will soon be freed from the jihadis that invaded & destroyed it. After 4 years of hell its people will finally know peace#Syria

Follow
Greg Yakovlev @gyakovlev3
@edwardedark Parts of Aleppo City were invaded by Turkish Grey Wolves ultranationalists, Chechens and Uighurs from Turkestan Islamic Party.
3:59 PM - 29 Sep 2016

Retweets

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Aleppo, once the commercial centre of Syria, did not see the unrest of other parts of Syria back in 2011. Not surprisingly, when rebel forces invaded and took over parts of the city in 2012 they were not warmly welcomed. The "local support" Fisher alludes to has not materialised. A Free Syrian Army commander said at the time, "Around 70% of Aleppo city is with the regime. It has always been that way." Two points stand out here. One is that this is likely a conservative underestimation of support for the government. The other is that clearly there was no desire among the local population for the foreign-sponsored insurgency.

Things haven't improved for the rebels in the popularity stakes since then. An ORB International survey from 2014 makes depressing reading for the poor rebels relying on money, food and shelter - as Fisher portrays them. The survey found:

With current attention on ISIS, just 4% of the country said they best represented the interests and aspirations of the Syrian people, although in ISIS controlled Al Raqqah this increases to 24%. Nationally 9% mention the Free Syrian Army, with 9% also mentioning the Jabhat al-Nusra, increasing to 21% in Idlib.

The rebels did their cause even more damage during the presidential elections of 2014. The elections certainly had flaws in being conducted during a time of war, with only three candidates running and the opposition boycott; but the brutal actions of the rebels in Aleppo were designed to stop people voting.

Edward Dark explains how the rebels presented their credentials on democratic aspirations, much vaunted among the U.S., NATO, the Gulf States and the mainstream media, but ridiculed by any serious analyst:

As is tragically only too common, Aleppo has borne the brunt of rebel anger, as shells and rockets fired from their positions in the east of the city fell heavy as rain in the days leading up to the vote, and continue to do so as I write this and as the voting gets under way. The mayhem and slaughter is unprecedented in the regime areas as hundreds of shells left no neighborhood unmolested. Streets became deserted as people stayed indoors and shops closed, hoping to avoid random death from above. Of course, dozens were not so lucky, and the civilian death toll from just two days of rebel shelling stood at over 50, with scores more wounded and large areas devastated, especially in the Midan neighborhood, an Armenian quarter adjacent to the Bustan al-Basha rebel stronghold. The scenes of death and carnage, especially among children, were so shocking and horrific that even staunchly pro-opposition groups had to speak out against them and demand they stop.

Yet, the bombs ceaselessly continue to fall, claiming even more lives as students attended exams at colleges and schools where ballot boxes were placed, and civil servants were herded from work to polling stations, many against their will but fearing reprisal if they refused to go. Needless to say, the vote is riddled with irregularities and violations, such as multiple voting and improper ID checks, but that is the least of the people's imminent worries. In many cases, regime loyalists braved the danger and went out to vote to spite the rebels, but many people did not, and the turnout is understandably low in Aleppo.

Roll forward to 2016 and we have rebels threatening civilians who planned to leave through the corridors set up by the Syrian government and Russia to enable them to safely leave the conflict zone. The "local support" Fisher believes the rebels have was certainly not reciprocated when they rejected the ceasefire and threatened the safe passage of humanitarian aid into east Aleppo. To erode any semblance of good will even further, the so-called moderate rebels, apparently in retaliation for strikes which damaged water supplies in east Aleppo, turned off the water supply to 1.5 million people in west Aleppo, threatening a humanitarian catastrophe.

Fisher continues the theme of the claim of no government support in Aleppo and intimates an agenda of ethnic cleansing, a position wholly absent of any evidence, but which, like the rest of the article, is a hysterical call for direct U.S. military intervention, risking military conflict with Russia and Syria:

The Syrian government does need popular support to survive, but it draws that from elsewhere in the country and had already functionally destroyed its support in rebel-controlled eastern Aleppo.

The first thing that stands out here is that Fisher admits that Assad enjoys popular support. The 2016 elections proved to be a real thorn in the side of Fisher's sectarian divide narrative. Far from being minority Alawite dominated, the results reflected the demographics of the various governorates. Reflecting these demographics, Sunnis won most seats, but Christians and Shi'ites were able to win seats as well. Assad's ruling Ba'ath party won 200 of the 250 seats, with a 58% turnout of eligible voters, a very high number considering the country is ravaged by war.

In Aleppo, Sunnis won over 80% of the seats. Fisher asserts Assad has a "strategy of fostering sectarianism, which leaves it with little support among the country's majority Sunni population." Contrary to Fisher's view, residents of Aleppo did not welcome the rebels and are not bunkered down in solidarity with them under the present siege. 600,000 of them fled from East to West Aleppo in 2012, leaving us with the distorted composition of 1.5 million in west Aleppo, and 250,000 in east Aleppo.

None of this is looking at the situation through rose-coloured glasses - the opposition boycotted elections, the United Nations did not recognise them, and legitimacy is questionable in the middle of a war - but the fact still remains Assad is more popular than the forces opposed to him.

A few salient points driving the campaign to liberate Aleppo need to be made, which Fisher either glosses over or totally ignores.

Terrorists use the ceasefire to regroup and resupply.
Russia has concluded the U.S. is not a partner in peace and can't be trusted.
The U.S. will not or cannot separate their "moderate" rebels from JFS. Even the conciliatory tones of Sergey Lavrov are starting to harden, telling the BBC in an interview: "we have more and more reasons to believe that from the very beginning the plan was to spare al-Nusra and to keep it just in case for Plan B or stage two when it would be time to change the regime."
The U.S. and its Gulf State allies are arming the terrorists with even more powerful rocket launchers and anti-aircraft missiles.In these circumstances the government must take back total control of Aleppo, or it could find the city taken over by the terrorists capitalising on their new and more powerful weapons.

The blame for the collapse of the ceasefire and the escalation of armed conflict in Aleppo lies squarely at the feet of the U.S., or more accurately, the Pentagon. Ash Carter and his generals have treated cooperation with Russia with contempt.

To conclude, I agree with the words of Mike Whitney, writing for CounterPunch:

Putin has responded to Carter's escalation by escalating himself. The circle around Aleppo has closed, supply lines have been cut, the airstrikes have intensified, and the three-pronged ground assault has already begun. So while Washington may have big plans for Syria, they appear to be failing where it counts most ... on the battlefield.

Paul Mansfield

Paul is a budding freelance writer who currently works in the welfare industry in Melbourne, Australia.

Areas of interest include: Russia/US conflict, wars in the Middle East, particularly Syria, the conflict in Ukraine, the occupation of Palestine by Israel, the damage to our economies from the global financial markets, the debt trap imposed on states by bankers seeking to privatize assets and "reform" economies while they line their pockets with cash and impoverish local populations.

(sott.net)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 10/4/2016 11:03:46 AM
	ISIS SNIPER KILLS DUTCH PHOTOJOURNALIST JEROEN OERLEMANS IN LIBYA’S SIRTE The photographer had previously been kidnapped with British journalist John Cantlie in Syria. BY JACK MOORE ON 10/3/16 AT 9:10 AM An Islamic State militant group (ISIS) sniper in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte killed a Dutch photojournalist on Sunday, according to the pro-government Libyan forces battling to oust the group from its last enclave in the North African country. Jeroen Oerlemans, 45, was joining mine-clearing teams on an operation in asection of the city that Libyan forces had freed from ISIS, according to Joanie de Rijke, a journalist colleague who had joined him on the trip. Both were covering the conflict for Belgian weekly news magazine Knack. She told Dutch broadcaster NOS that Oerlemans was wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest but was hit in the side, where his body was not covered, as he crossed a street on the frontlines of the battle against the group. “We were standing on the frontline. There was heavy fighting going on,” she said. "There were other people who were constantly crossing that street. He had the bad luck to get hit. Brutal bad luck.” The Dutch photojournalist lost his life alongside at least eight Libyan militiamenfrom the nearby Libyan city of Misrata, local Libyan commander for the pro-government forces, Mohamed Ghasri, told the Wall Street Journal. Eric Strating, the Dutch ambassador to Libya tweeted: “Rest in Peace. Your photographs of Sirte Libya and other places will live on forever.” Smoke rises during a battle between Libyan forces allied with the U.N.-backed government and Islamic State militants in Sirte, Libya October 2. An ISIS sniper killed a Dutch photojournalist in the city on Sunday.REUTERS/HANI AMARA Oerlemans was a seasoned conflict reporter, having reported from Afghanistan and Libya, and was kidnapped alongside British photographer John Cantlie in Syria in July 2012 before militants released him a week later. Cantlie remains in the hands of ISIS and is believed to be held in Iraq. “Journalists have recently begun returning in greater numbers to Libya to cover the conflict and political upheaval, but it remains an extraordinarily dangerous place,” Robert Mahoney, deputy executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said. “The death of Jeroen Oerlemans is a reminder that those who bring us images and video from the front lines often pay the heaviest price.” Oerlemans was set to arrive home on Monday and leaves behind a wife and three children. (Newsweek)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 10/4/2016 11:12:36 AM
	Russia Kills 30 US, Israeli, British Officers Believed To Be Assisting ISIS OCTOBER 3, 2016 By Whitney Webb As part of an ongoing offensive against militant-held sectors of Aleppo, Russian warships hit a military operations center near the city, killing 30 Israeli, US, Saudi, and British officers who were allegedly offering support and intelligence to ISIS militants in Syria. The strike came following a failed ceasefire in the embattled country, which was ultimately derailed after being violated multiple times by US-backed militant groups, the US, and Israel. Russia’s Sputnik news agency reported the incident citing a battlefield source in Aleppo and other reports confirmed the attack. According to sources, Russian warships fired three Caliber missiles at the operations room, where the officers were gathered, in the Dar Ezza region of Western Aleppo.Fars news agency reported that the Syrian army, with Russian support, has been making great advances in wrestling Aleppo from ISIS and militant hands. Were the foreign officers helping ISIS after all? It has been confirmed from various reports, including the militants themselves, that foreign governments are training, supplying, and managing radical “opposition” groups in Syria with the ultimate aim of deposing the Assad regime. In a recent interview with a well-known German journalist, an al-Nusra Front commander supported these claims. He claimed that al-Nusra, a “rebel” group that is linked to both Al-Qaeda and ISIS, were directly supported by the US and that they had received tanks and other heavy weaponry from the US and Saudis via Libya and Turkey. He also said that thecommanders of ISIS are led by Western intelligence. The commander also stated that foreign officers and experts from the US, Israel, and Turkey were inside Aleppo giving militant groups, including ISIS, support and intelligence. Were these same “experts” the targets of the Russian strike? Considering that US lives were lost at the hands of the Russian military, it’s very telling that the Western media has refused to cover this story. Even though the corporate media loves to blame Russia whenever possible, their failure to cover the deaths of US military officers by a Russian missile strike strongly implies that the US and the other foreign officers killed in Aleppo were doing something that the US government does not want to be made public. The Russian airstrike may also have been a covert response to a US-led coalition airstrike less than two weeks ago that “accidentally” killed 62 and wounded over 100 Syrian soldiers. ISIS attacked within 7 minutes of the strike, implying that the terrorist group knew of the airstrike in advance. This “accident” ultimately revived claims of US-covert support for ISIS with Syrian General Command calling it “conclusive evidence” of US duplicity. Tensions further escalated following the bombing of a UN aid convoy in rebel-held territory in Aleppo, which the US quickly blamed on Russia despite mounting evidence that the bombing was the work of a US Hellfire drone. Now, US-Russian diplomatic relations regarding Syria are in tatters and the US is expected to end it for good in the coming days. Was this recent Russian strike the real reason for the end of diplomatic cooperation? This article (Russia Kills 30 US, Israeli, British Officers Believed To Be Assisting ISIS) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 10/4/2016 11:23:09 AM
	WOMEN IN POLAND TO STRIKE OVER ABORTION BAN Thousands of women are expected to take part in the action. BY JOSH LOWE ON 10/3/16 AT 9:55 AM A woman protests in front of the Parliament in Warsaw, Poland October 1. Women in the country are planning to strike over a mooted abortion ban.KACPER PEMPEL/REUTERS Women in Poland are planning a strike against a mooted change to the country’s abortion laws. Poland’s hard-right Law and Justice (PiS) government, which took office last October, is trying to push through a law that would further toughen up the country’s already restrictive abortion laws, criminalizing abortion in every circumstance other than where there is a risk to the mother’s life. Those breaking the ban could see prison terms of five years. Critics point out that it would not allow for abortion even where a pregnancy came about through rape, and that women who suffer miscarriages might fall under suspicion. “A lot of women and girls in this country have felt that they don’t have any power, that they are not equal, that they don’t have the right to an opinion,” Magda Staroszczyk, a strike co-ordinator, told The Guardian. “This is a chance for us to be seen, and to be heard.” Thousands of women are expected to take part in the action, inspired by a similar effort in Iceland in 1975 over low pay and the position of women in society. Other draconian, anti-women’s rights proposals from PiS include tough restrictions on IVF fertility treatment and an end to state funding for the procedure, and a call for a ban on the morning-after pill. (Newsweek)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 10/4/2016 12:38:11 PM
	Battle for Islamic State stronghold could trigger a new crisis: A million displaced Iraqis An Iraqi woman and her child who had fled the violence around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, rest in the Debaga camp on Sept. 1, 2016. (Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images) By Loveday Morris October 3 at 1:20 PM DEBAGA, Iraq — The battle for the northern city of Mosul could force a million people to flee their homes. But even before it begins, aid agencies are struggling to shelter families displaced by the conflict against the Islamic State. The United Nations says it is nowhere near ready to deal with the fallout from the U.S.-backed offensive to retake Mosul from the militants, which could begin in less than a month. The camps in northern Iraq are full. Debaga camp, 40 miles southeast of Mosul on the edges of the semiautonomous Kurdish region, was built a year ago for 700 families. It now houses 10 times as many people, most of whom fled fighting as Iraqi forces retook territory south of the city. Crowds gather around reporters, hoping they are aid workers bringing humanitarian assistance. “Register me! Register me!” they shout. They complain they don’t have mattresses, medicine, milk for their children or diapers. Many don’t have tents, with 1,100 families here waiting for shelter. They bed down in the classrooms and yard of the camp’s school and in the hall of a mosque. Some have slung tarpaulins next to walls in an attempt to shield themselves from the sun. “It’s humiliating,” said Nahla Mohammed, 23, who fled bombing on her farm on the outskirts of Mosul five days earlier with her husband and three children and has been sleeping outside. She said she hadn’t been able to get milk for her 1½ -year-old daughter. “There we were terrified and scared, but here we are hungry and we’ve received nothing. We don’t want to be here, we were forced to come.” When the offensive begins — the biggest yet against Islamic State militants — assistance is expected to be even more scarce. Aid organizations are strapped for resources. [Signs of panic and rebellion in the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate] About 3.3 million people have been displaced in Iraq over the past 2½ years, while the conflict in neighboring Syria has displaced millions more. Iraq’s finances have been squeezed by falling oil prices and years of grinding battles to retake territory, limiting the government’s ability to respond. The United Nations put out an emergency appeal for $285 million to meet the needs of those expected to flee but says it is facing a shortfall of $165 million to provide the most basic emergency response. Almost every victory is accompanied by a simultaneous humanitarian crisis,” said Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. “It’s a lot. Sometimes it feels like too much.” The United Nations is scrambling to build standard camps like the one at Debaga. But if numbers reach the highest predictions, they will be able to handle only a fraction of those fleeing. Four standard camps, with the capacity for a total of 70,000 people, are expected to be completed during October, said Peter Hawkins, the UNICEF representative in Iraq. Iraqi men who had fled the violence around Mosul board a bus in the Debaga camp before returning to their villages on Sept. 1, 2016. (Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images) However, many more could be displaced. About 2 million people lived in Mosul before the Islamic State took over, but it is difficult to know how many remain. The United Nations estimates that between 1.2 million and 1.5 million live there now. Some Iraqi officials contend that the population is higher because of the number of people who moved into the city to escape Iraqi army offensives to the south. Those who find no room at the new camps could turn to the U.N.’s emergency camps — where assistance will be even more basic. Some, however, may flee into the desert toward the Syrian border, making it difficult for aid agencies to reach them. “The military campaign is going to take off soon, and on the humanitarian side we aren’t yet ready,” Grande said. With hopes of reducing the misery, the Iraqi government has dropped leaflets over Mosul asking people to stay in their homes during the offensive. In previous battles, for Fallujah and Ramadi, the cities have been emptied. “Our main aim will be to preserve lives while still keeping people in their homes,” said Gen. Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, head of Iraq’s special forces. That had been achieved to an extent in an offensive last month for the town of Qayyarah, he said, “but Mosul is bigger, so it’s a much more complicated task.” [U.S. adds more troops to Iraq ahead of Mosul offensive] Despite the leaflets, civilians are risking their lives to leave. Umm Abbas, 40, who used a nickname because she still has family members in Mosul, fled the outskirts of the city in August. She was separated from her husband, who had gone into Mosul to sell vegetables at the time an offensive began and Kurdish forces moved toward their farm, she said. The family fled toward the Kurdish soldiers, but her 12-year-old nephew was killed by a suicide car bomber as they reached the Kurdish lines. “Now we’ve been here for a month and a half with no tent. We live here in the yard,” she said, indicating the packed school behind her at Debaga. On arrival at the camp, men are separated from women and children and taken to buildings in a fenced-off area for screening by Kurdish security agencies. But even if they are cleared of having associations with the Islamic State, many aren’t released because there isn’t space to house them elsewhere. Abdullah Ahmed, 52, showed a deep hole in the sole of his foot. “I’ll have to chop off my leg by the time I get out of here,” he said, explaining that he has diabetes but has been unable to get insulin. Others complained that they had been held for weeks without being interviewed, raising concerns about how authorities will be able to deal with screenings when waves of people are displaced from Mosul. “We are trying our best to provide the basics of daily life,” said Rizgar Obaid, the camp’s director. “But we lack space, we lack milk for the children and diapers.” Grande described the humanitarian operation as “one of the most complicated” in recent memory. With the Iraqi state so fractured, the United Nations is coordinating the aid effort with nearly 15 governmental and military bodies, she said. However, others have criticized international organizations for being inflexible and slow to respond to crises. “If they want to give out a bottle of water, they need permission from Geneva,” Obaid quipped. Slowly, some are going home. About 470 families left the camp to return to the village of Hajj Ali last week, cramming their belongings into trucks. “What’s sweeter than home?” one girl shouted from the back of a truck packed with water containers and mattresses as it drove off. Iraqi forces, including Shiite militias, are preparing to launch an attack on the city of Hawijah. Islamic State militants are preventing civilians from leaving, but some have made it out, arriving at Debaga with stories of crucifixions, beheadings and hunger. “Things are going to get much worse before they get better,” Obaid said. (The Washington Post)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 10/4/2016 12:54:57 PM
	New York Times whitewashes al-Qaeda, accuses Russia of deliberate murder in Aleppo Paul Mansfield Sott.net Mon, 03 Oct 2016 23:29 UTC Max Fisher: NYT/Al-Qaeda propagandist. I took time out from reading the news on the war on Syria to read the latest piece of fiction in the New York Times, this one woven together by Max Fisher, who provocatively titled it "Russia's Brutal Bombing of Aleppo May Be Calculated, and It May Be Working". Max was just getting warmed up with the title, launching into a full-frontal assault on Russia, accusing it of deliberately murdering civilians in Aleppo in order to discredit the so-called opposition, scuttle the last remaining hopes of diplomacy, and, if not win the war, then at least prolong it endlessly. Fisher then takes us on his magic carpet ride of delusion, telling us that so-called "moderate" rebels have had to turn to extremists or starve and that the US has genuinely tried to convince these moderates to separate from the extremists: The northern Syrian city is one of the few remaining strongholds for non-jihadist rebel groups. But months of siege forced them into a terrible choice: turn to extremists for help, or starve. It was no choice at all, and groups such as the jihadist-linked Ahrar al-Sham helped briefly break the siege in August... The United States has tried to counteract this by persuading rebels to reject jihadists, in part by promising support for the opposition and by targeting jihadist militants. Fisher is well advised not to elaborate on who the rebel groups are who control east Aleppo, as it will reveal it is the Jihadist hardliners who run the show there. The moderate myth has its foundations in the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Its halcyon days are far behind, and there are doubts as to whether the group even exists anymore. Islamist groups have borrowed its moniker when they want to present to the outside world as moderates fighting for the freedom of Syrians. The FSA has its hands covered in blood, along with its Islamist allies. Right now in Aleppo, if it is a functioning force, it is allied with extremists who are intensely bombing west Aleppo, causing numerous deaths and injuries, none of which Fisher and his MSM friends ever bother covering. Back in April, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Colonel Steve Warren let the cat out of the bag by saying: "That said, it's primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo, and of course, al-Nusra is not part of the cessation of hostilities." The US State Department scrambled to discredit Warren, making the laughable claim that Al-Nusra is not the dominant rebel force in Aleppo. To admit Al-Nusra, now rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), was a dominant force in Aleppo would undermine U.S. support for rebels there and increase the pressure on the U.S. to cooperate with Russia in ridding the city of the terrorists that have besieged it since 2012. Warren reflected the opinion of Russia's military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, who earlier in April said that 8,000 Al-Nusra militants were amassing around Aleppo and preparing to cut off the city's main road to Syria's capital, Damascus. JFS along with the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham are part of the Jaysh al-Fatah coalition, which has a strong presence in Aleppo. Fisher claims that the moderates are drawn to Ahrar al-Sham through the need to survive, a blatantly false claim. Jaysh al-Fatah formed in Idlib in 2015, quickly taking control of the province. It expanded into Aleppo, dramatically capturing Khan Touman, creating major new problems for the Syrian government trying to regain control of Aleppo. As its name suggests - "army of conquest" - it is not desperately defending civilians and trying to survive under a barrage of Russian and Syrian bombs. It is an Islamist coalition backed by foreign powers, intent on expanding control from Idlib to Aleppo. The U.S. has been unable or unwilling to separate the so-called moderates from JFS, a key element of the failed ceasefire. Ahrar al-Sham, one of the largest forces in Syria, immediately rejected the ceasefire, stating they would not break with "their comrades in arms" from JFS. Over 20 other opposition groups also rejected the ceasefire, among them groups fighting in the Fatah Halab coalition in Aleppo such as the notorious Nour al-Din al-Zenki. These groups are now consolidating their alliance with JFS, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Mike Whitney, writing for CounterPunch, said the U.S. has no way of separating "moderates" from extremists, compounded by the fact that the Pentagon had no intention of complying with the ceasefire - unleashing its deadly assault against Syrian troops in Deir ez-Zor days later. Whitney stated that Washington will support JFS as long as it continues to act in ways that match Washington's strategic objectives, or as he quotes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as saying, "the United States doesn't have the will to work against al-Nusra or ISIS, because they believe that this is a card they can use for their own agenda." Moscow has been endlessly patient with Washington, which claims to be in control of the rebels, and has backed off, only to see the rebel groups rearm and reject the ceasefire. The so-called moderates had their opportunity, as did the Pentagon. Their sabotage means they are now bearing the consequences. Fisher, like so many Western journalists, has abdicated the responsibility of reporting on the ground to the so-called independent White Helmets and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The vivid, horrifying reports of bombed hospitals and schools, complete with images of children pulled from the rubble, is coming from these sources. Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett andRick Sterling have all exposed the White Helmets as a U.S./UK intelligence-created and -funded organisation fully embedded with Al-Qaeda in Syria. SOHR is run out of a house in Coventry, England, by a certain Abdul Rahman who openly professes to be a member of the Syrian opposition, thus eliminating him as an objective information source. Tony Cartalucci neatly summed up the sheer lunacy in trusting SOHR as a reliable barometer of facts on the ground in Syria: Clearly for real journalists, Abdulrahman is a useless, utterly compromised source of information who has every reason to twist reality to suit his admittedly politically-motivated agenda of overthrowing the Syrian government. However, for a propagandist, he is a goldmine. That is why despite the overt conflict of interests, the lack of credibility, the obvious disadvantage of being nearly 3,000 miles away from the alleged subject of his "observations," or the fact that a single man is ludicrously calling himself a "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" in the first place, the Western media still eagerly laps up his constant torrent of disinformation. Fisher, among others in groupthinkistan media, is clearly not a "real" journalist, but rather the servant of a campaign of vilification of Russia dangerously escalating to levels reminiscent of the fever-pitch hysteria against the former Yugoslavia and Libya. We all know how that ended up. The divide and conquer strategy in the form of propagating the Sunni/Shia divide is utilised by Fisher to distort the battle for hearts and minds in Aleppo. That legitimacy has been weakened by years of killing civilians, and by the government's strategy of fostering sectarianism, which leaves it with little support among the country's majority Sunni population. As long as non-jihadist Sunni Arab rebels are on the battlefield, they can credibly claim to better represent Syrians. This leaves the Syrian leadership, which is dominated by the Alawite religious minority, vulnerable to any peace deal or military intervention that would install a rebel government in its place ... indigenous forces rely on the local population, which gives them money, food, shelter, intelligence and recruits. Rebels, including Syria's, are only as strong as their local support. Fisher is perhaps not cognizant of the fact that the Syrian Army is dominated by Sunnis, naturally enough in a country where 75% of the population are Sunni Muslim. If the government's strategy was "fostering sectarianism," the army would not have been able to hold together against overwhelming odds to the point that it is on the verge of liberating Aleppo. The sectarianism of Fisher and those of his ilk is a myth, plain and simple. The fact that the people of Aleppo never wanted the rebels, that Sunni and Shia are combining to cleanse east Aleppo of the jihadis and the foreign composition of much of the opposition, is highlighted in the following Twitter exchange: Sophia ن @les_politiques .@HKX07 @WardJdw @kshaheen SAA & allies battle to liberate#Aleppo is not sectarian by any measure. It is absolutely the contrary. 1/ Follow Sophia ن @les_politiques .@HKX07 @WardJdw @kshaheen Remember, #Aleppo, mostly Sunni, didn't want the rebels, awaits SAA with anticipation. 2/ 5:19 PM - 29 Sep 2016 1 Retweet 5 likes Sophia ن @les_politiques .@HKX07 @WardJdw @kshaheen Remember, #Aleppo, mostly Sunni, didn't want the rebels, awaits SAA with anticipation. 2/ Follow Sophia ن @les_politiques .@HKX07 @WardJdw @kshaheen Shia+Sunnis mass 2 liberate east #Aleppo, taken over by radical Sunnis. How is this 'sectarian'? @martinchulov 3/ 5:23 PM - 29 Sep 2016 Retweets 3 likes Edward Dark @edwardedark Aleppo city will soon be freed from the jihadis that invaded & destroyed it. After 4 years of hell its people will finally know peace#Syria Follow Greg Yakovlev @gyakovlev3 @edwardedark Parts of Aleppo City were invaded by Turkish Grey Wolves ultranationalists, Chechens and Uighurs from Turkestan Islamic Party. 3:59 PM - 29 Sep 2016 Retweets likes Aleppo, once the commercial centre of Syria, did not see the unrest of other parts of Syria back in 2011. Not surprisingly, when rebel forces invaded and took over parts of the city in 2012 they were not warmly welcomed. The "local support" Fisher alludes to has not materialised. A Free Syrian Army commander said at the time, "Around 70% of Aleppo city is with the regime. It has always been that way." Two points stand out here. One is that this is likely a conservative underestimation of support for the government. The other is that clearly there was no desire among the local population for the foreign-sponsored insurgency. Things haven't improved for the rebels in the popularity stakes since then. An ORB International survey from 2014 makes depressing reading for the poor rebels relying on money, food and shelter - as Fisher portrays them. The survey found: With current attention on ISIS, just 4% of the country said they best represented the interests and aspirations of the Syrian people, although in ISIS controlled Al Raqqah this increases to 24%. Nationally 9% mention the Free Syrian Army, with 9% also mentioning the Jabhat al-Nusra, increasing to 21% in Idlib. The rebels did their cause even more damage during the presidential elections of 2014. The elections certainly had flaws in being conducted during a time of war, with only three candidates running and the opposition boycott; but the brutal actions of the rebels in Aleppo were designed to stop people voting. Edward Dark explains how the rebels presented their credentials on democratic aspirations, much vaunted among the U.S., NATO, the Gulf States and the mainstream media, but ridiculed by any serious analyst: As is tragically only too common, Aleppo has borne the brunt of rebel anger, as shells and rockets fired from their positions in the east of the city fell heavy as rain in the days leading up to the vote, and continue to do so as I write this and as the voting gets under way. The mayhem and slaughter is unprecedented in the regime areas as hundreds of shells left no neighborhood unmolested. Streets became deserted as people stayed indoors and shops closed, hoping to avoid random death from above. Of course, dozens were not so lucky, and the civilian death toll from just two days of rebel shelling stood at over 50, with scores more wounded and large areas devastated, especially in the Midan neighborhood, an Armenian quarter adjacent to the Bustan al-Basha rebel stronghold. The scenes of death and carnage, especially among children, were so shocking and horrific that even staunchly pro-opposition groups had to speak out against them and demand they stop. Yet, the bombs ceaselessly continue to fall, claiming even more lives as students attended exams at colleges and schools where ballot boxes were placed, and civil servants were herded from work to polling stations, many against their will but fearing reprisal if they refused to go. Needless to say, the vote is riddled with irregularities and violations, such as multiple voting and improper ID checks, but that is the least of the people's imminent worries. In many cases, regime loyalists braved the danger and went out to vote to spite the rebels, but many people did not, and the turnout is understandably low in Aleppo. Roll forward to 2016 and we have rebels threatening civilians who planned to leave through the corridors set up by the Syrian government and Russia to enable them to safely leave the conflict zone. The "local support" Fisher believes the rebels have was certainly not reciprocated when they rejected the ceasefire and threatened the safe passage of humanitarian aid into east Aleppo. To erode any semblance of good will even further, the so-called moderate rebels, apparently in retaliation for strikes which damaged water supplies in east Aleppo, turned off the water supply to 1.5 million people in west Aleppo, threatening a humanitarian catastrophe. Fisher continues the theme of the claim of no government support in Aleppo and intimates an agenda of ethnic cleansing, a position wholly absent of any evidence, but which, like the rest of the article, is a hysterical call for direct U.S. military intervention, risking military conflict with Russia and Syria: The Syrian government does need popular support to survive, but it draws that from elsewhere in the country and had already functionally destroyed its support in rebel-controlled eastern Aleppo. The first thing that stands out here is that Fisher admits that Assad enjoys popular support. The 2016 elections proved to be a real thorn in the side of Fisher's sectarian divide narrative. Far from being minority Alawite dominated, the results reflected the demographics of the various governorates. Reflecting these demographics, Sunnis won most seats, but Christians and Shi'ites were able to win seats as well. Assad's ruling Ba'ath party won 200 of the 250 seats, with a 58% turnout of eligible voters, a very high number considering the country is ravaged by war. In Aleppo, Sunnis won over 80% of the seats. Fisher asserts Assad has a "strategy of fostering sectarianism, which leaves it with little support among the country's majority Sunni population." Contrary to Fisher's view, residents of Aleppo did not welcome the rebels and are not bunkered down in solidarity with them under the present siege. 600,000 of them fled from East to West Aleppo in 2012, leaving us with the distorted composition of 1.5 million in west Aleppo, and 250,000 in east Aleppo. None of this is looking at the situation through rose-coloured glasses - the opposition boycotted elections, the United Nations did not recognise them, and legitimacy is questionable in the middle of a war - but the fact still remains Assad is more popular than the forces opposed to him. A few salient points driving the campaign to liberate Aleppo need to be made, which Fisher either glosses over or totally ignores. Terrorists use the ceasefire to regroup and resupply. Russia has concluded the U.S. is not a partner in peace and can't be trusted. The U.S. will not or cannot separate their "moderate" rebels from JFS. Even the conciliatory tones of Sergey Lavrov are starting to harden, telling the BBC in an interview: "we have more and more reasons to believe that from the very beginning the plan was to spare al-Nusra and to keep it just in case for Plan B or stage two when it would be time to change the regime." The U.S. and its Gulf State allies are arming the terrorists with even more powerful rocket launchers and anti-aircraft missiles.In these circumstances the government must take back total control of Aleppo, or it could find the city taken over by the terrorists capitalising on their new and more powerful weapons. The blame for the collapse of the ceasefire and the escalation of armed conflict in Aleppo lies squarely at the feet of the U.S., or more accurately, the Pentagon. Ash Carter and his generals have treated cooperation with Russia with contempt. To conclude, I agree with the words of Mike Whitney, writing for CounterPunch: Putin has responded to Carter's escalation by escalating himself. The circle around Aleppo has closed, supply lines have been cut, the airstrikes have intensified, and the three-pronged ground assault has already begun. So while Washington may have big plans for Syria, they appear to be failing where it counts most ... on the battlefield. Paul Mansfield Paul is a budding freelance writer who currently works in the welfare industry in Melbourne, Australia. Areas of interest include: Russia/US conflict, wars in the Middle East, particularly Syria, the conflict in Ukraine, the occupation of Palestine by Israel, the damage to our economies from the global financial markets, the debt trap imposed on states by bankers seeking to privatize assets and "reform" economies while they line their pockets with cash and impoverish local populations. (sott.net)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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