3686-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

Anti-ISIS Coalition Too Busy Defeating Themselves To Defeat ISIS

NOVEMBER 1, 2016

As Iraqi military forces were beginning their initial push into Mosul on Tuesday, the Washington Post was reporting that U.S. defense officials are working to overcome serious roadblocks in the way of a successful campaign to eject ISIS militants from Raqqa — the capital, in northern Syria, of ISIS’ self-proclaimed caliphate.

“This is one of the situations in which we have contacts and influence over all the actors,” one official told the Post. “But we’re not in total control.”

The Raqqa offensive, according to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s comments in late October, will begin in a matter of weeks. Originally, the campaign was set to take place in coordination with the effort in Mosul that launched two weeks ago, but unresolved issues among participants forced planners to put the offensive on hold.

And those issues, according to the Post’s anonymous government sources, center largely on the continuing friction between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds.

“More ominously,” writes the Post, in reference to interviews with defense officials, “they cite the explosive dynamics between two allies: Turkey and Syrian Kurdish fighters, who form the bulk of the existing offensive force.”

That “existing offensive force” is the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and those “Syrian Kurdish fighters”come from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The two separate forces — that of the Turkish military and that of the Kurdish YPG — are both purported to be U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS. Turkey doesn’t trustthe YPG, however, because it believes the YPG is connected to a three-decade old Kurdish insurgency within Turkey.

Beyond trust issues, the situation is further complicated by the fact of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s recent independence streak. Riding newfound support at home after surviving a coup attempt, Erdoğan has begun to assert the Turkish military more boldly in Middle Eastern conflicts.

Turkey, for instance, stressed a desire to participate in the Iraq offensive to take Mosul, but wastold by the Iraqi prime minister to keep out of it.

Certainly, then, Erdoğan was less than pleased to hear the comments of Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend — the U.S. military commander in Iraq — last week in Washington, D.C.

“The facts are these,” Townsend said while explaining to reporters that plans to retake Raqqa were underway. “The only force that is capable of any near-term timeline is the Syrian Democratic Forces, of which the Y.P.G. are a significant portion.”

Townsend didn’t say the Turks couldn’t play in Raqqa, though, he simply said they had to play nice.

“We’ll welcome any contributing nation that wants to make themselves part of the coalition,” hestated at a press conference last Thursday. However, he said, they can’t “come with a whole bunch of strings” and must “be willing to do what the coalition needs done.”

In other words, Turkey must control itself around the Kurds or step out of the coalition’s way.

Neither of these prospects appears promising, though, as Turkey has already proven both a willingness to fire on the Kurds and a resolute insistence regarding military participation in the region.

Perhaps the most dangerous element in the overall effort to eject ISIS from Iraq and Syria, however, will be spillover as the conflicts continue to stretch on.

Citing their anonymous defense officials, the Washington Postnoted that, as all the campaigns proceed and potentially intersect, the fighting will come “within shooting distance of Aleppo, where Syria’s civil war is raging between rebels and government forces and their Russian and Iranian allies.”

Or, as one official flatly told the Post: “A lot of forces could collide.”

This article (Anti-ISIS Coalition Too Busy Defeating Themselves to Defeat ISIS) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to James Holbrooks and UndergroundReporter.org. If you spot a typo, please email the error and the name of the article to undergroundreporter2016@gmail.com. Image credit:Flickr/Day Donaldson.

(activistpost.com)

Russia tells rebels to leave Syria's Aleppo by Friday evening

Smoke rises near a damaged road in Dahiyet al-Assad, west Aleppo city, Syria October 30, 2016. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

Russia and the Syrian army on Wednesday told anti-government rebels in Aleppo to leave by Friday evening, signaling an extended moratorium on air strikes in the city.

The Russian Defence Ministry, which is helping forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad to retake full control of Aleppo, said rebels would be allowed to exit the city unharmed and with their weapons between 0900 and 1900 local time on Nov. 4 via two special corridors.

Civilians and the sick and wounded would be allowed to leave via six other corridors, it said.

The Syrian army released a similar statement later in the day calling on rebel fighters to cease fire and to "use this opportunity" to leave the city with their small arms.

Rebels rejected the calls, an official in an Aleppo-based insurgent group said.

"This is completely out of the question. We will not give up the city of Aleppo to the Russians and we won't surrender," Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group told Reuters.

He denied there were corridors guaranteeing safe passage and said civilians did not trust the government side.

President Vladimir Putin had ordered the pause in fighting "to avoid senseless victims", Russia's Defence Ministry said, adding that Syrian authorities would ensure its troops pulled back from the two corridors designated for rebels.

Russia and its Syrian allies say they halted air attacks on Aleppo on Oct 18. Western governments said the strikes had killed civilians in large numbers, an allegation Moscow denied.

Humanitarian pauses designed to allow both rebels and civilians to exit the city have been organized by Moscow and Damascus before, but have largely failed amid continued violence with both sides accusing the other of stopping people from leaving.

A Kremlin spokesman said on Tuesday the moratorium on air strikes was still in force, but could not be extended if rebels in the city did not halt their attacks.

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that rebels inside Aleppo had taken heavy losses during fighting and were effectively trapped.

"All attempts by the rebels to break through in Aleppo have failed," the ministry said. "The terrorists have suffered heavy losses in lives, weapons and equipment. They have no chance to break out of the city."

(Writing by Denis Pinchuk and Andrew Osborn; Additional reporting by John Davison in Beirut; Editing by Gareth Jones)

(Reuters)

Iran claims it's sending elite fighters to infiltrate US, Europe

By Adam Kredo

Published November 02, 2016

Washington Free Beacon

Obama administration under fire after Wall Street Journal reports US agreed to sign 'secret document' lifting sanctions on Iranian banks regime was releasing four American prisoners. Fox News' James Rosen and Amb. John Bolton dissect the developments

NOW PLAYING

US signed secret deal to lift sanctions on Iran banks

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s elite military force, is sending assets to infiltrate the United States and Europe at the direction of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to recent Farsi-language comments from an Iranian military leader.

The IRGC “will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” according to the Iranian military commander, who said that these forces would operate with the goal of bolstering Iran’s hardline regime and thwarting potential plots against the Islamic Republic.

“The whole world should know that the IRGC will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” Salar Abnoush, deputy coordinator of Iran’s Khatam-al-Anbia Garrison, an IRGC command front, was quoted as saying in an Iranian state-controlled publication closely tied to the IRGC.

Iran Overview

Key Facts

Map

Capital City	Tehran
Type of Government	Islamic Republic
Primary Languages	Persian
Currency	Iranian Rial

Population

79.1

MILLION

GDP per Capita

$5,443

Land Area

628,783

square miles

Sources: World Bank: World Development Indicators | CIA World Fact Book.

The military leader’s comments come as Iran is spending great amounts of money to upgrade its military hardware and bolster its presence throughout the Middle East and beyond. Iran intends to spend billions to purchase U.S.-made planes that are likely to be converted for use in its air force.

Congressional leaders and others suspect that Iran has used a large portion of the cash windfall it received as a result of last summer’s nuclear agreement to upgrade its fighting capabilities war machine.

“The IRGC is [the] strong guardian of the Islamic Republic,” Abnoush was quoted as saying. “The Fedayeen of Velayat [fighting force] are under the order of Iran’s Supreme leader. Defending and protecting the Velayat [the Supreme Leader] has no border and limit.”

(foxnews.com)

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte criticized the U.S. for halting a planned arms deal, calling those behind the decision "fools" and "monkeys". (Reuters)

It's only Wednesday, but President Rodrigo Duterte must be ready for the weekend.

Less than two weeks after his trip to China and his call for a “separation” from the United States, the president of the Philippines is for the first time feeling the effects of what seems to be — to some at least — a concerted effort to alienate his allies.

The first hit: the defection of former president Fidel Ramos. Duterte's camp confirmed Wednesday that Ramos, Duterte's China envoy, has resigned just four months into the president's term.

The news came after Ramos, who helped Duterte get elected, put out his second scathing critique of the president's short tenure. The piece, published Sunday, accused Duterte of “unwittingly shooting himself in the mouth” and taking "101.5 million Filipinos” down with him by insulting allies.

“He may claim that to be more ‘insulting than friendly’ to our long-established allies is part of his God-given ‘destiny.’ But, this is obviously wrong, and full of S …. T!!!,” Ramos wrote.

In an earlier letter, Ramos called Duterte's first 100 days as president a “huge disappointment and letdown.” Ramos faulted Duterte for a bloody campaign against suspected drug users and dealers that has claimed thousands of lives, and he criticized his anti-U.S., anti-U.N. rhetoric.

Ramos, a former chief of the armed forces, was particularly critical of Duterte's comments on U.S.-Philippine military ties. Over the past few months, Duterte surprised many by calling for the withdrawal of U.S. Special Forces from the southern island of Mindanao and the cancellation of future U.S.-Philippine military exercises, only to back down days later.

“Are we throwing away decades of military partnership, tactical proficiency, compatible weaponry, predictable logistics and soldier-to-soldier camaraderie just like that?” Ramos asked.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated his desire to end military relations with the U.S. on Oct. 26, saying, "I want in the next two years my country free of the presence of foreign military troops, I want them out...This will be the last maneuver, war games between the United States and the Philippines military."(Reuters)

Though opinion polls suggest that Duterte still enjoys strong public support, Ramos's comments will no doubt resonate, particularly among those with ties to the military and foreign policy elite.

It will be tough for Duterte's team to spin Ramos’s departure as anything other than a massive loss. Responding to questions about Ramos's critique, a presidential spokesman called Ramos “invaluable” to the administration. Another aide told the media that he was “really surprised” by the resignation.

A second sour surprise: news that the United States may halt the sale of 26,000 M4 assault rifles to the Philippine National Police.

Reuters reported Tuesday that the State Department will stop the weapons sale because of opposition from Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.), the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a vocal critic of Duterte's "drug war."

Although the State Department did not comment to confirm or deny Reuters's reporting, the head of the Philippine National Police said in a statement that he was “saddened” by the news. Duterte, meanwhile, tried to shrug it off, dismissing the report as a U.S. “scare tactic” and saying the necessary weapons can be purchased somewhere else — like Russia.

Duterte is partly right. Stopping the sale of 26,000 guns is a small gesture, compared with the $9 million in aid that the State Department will give to counternarcotics and law enforcement programs in the Philippines in 2017 and with the $32 million that Secretary of State John F. Kerry pledged this summer for Duterte's law enforcement programs.

But it's a move that is intended to show that some U.S. funding for the Philippines can and will be cut if the president's human rights abuses and anti-U.S. rhetoric continue.

“Look at these monkeys, the 26,000 firearms we wanted to buy, they don't want to sell,” Duterte said during a televised speech Wednesday, adding that U.S. lawmakers were “fools.”

“We have many homemade guns here,” he added, according to Reuters.

Phelim Kine, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, called it “the first real US move to put teeth in its criticism of the spiraling death toll of Duterte’s 'drug war.'”

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 11/3/2016 10:37:25 AM
	Anti-ISIS Coalition Too Busy Defeating Themselves To Defeat ISIS NOVEMBER 1, 2016 By James Holbrooks As Iraqi military forces were beginning their initial push into Mosul on Tuesday, the Washington Post was reporting that U.S. defense officials are working to overcome serious roadblocks in the way of a successful campaign to eject ISIS militants from Raqqa — the capital, in northern Syria, of ISIS’ self-proclaimed caliphate. “This is one of the situations in which we have contacts and influence over all the actors,” one official told the Post. “But we’re not in total control.” The Raqqa offensive, according to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s comments in late October, will begin in a matter of weeks. Originally, the campaign was set to take place in coordination with the effort in Mosul that launched two weeks ago, but unresolved issues among participants forced planners to put the offensive on hold. And those issues, according to the Post’s anonymous government sources, center largely on the continuing friction between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds. “More ominously,” writes the Post, in reference to interviews with defense officials, “they cite the explosive dynamics between two allies: Turkey and Syrian Kurdish fighters, who form the bulk of the existing offensive force.” That “existing offensive force” is the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and those “Syrian Kurdish fighters”come from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). The two separate forces — that of the Turkish military and that of the Kurdish YPG — are both purported to be U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS. Turkey doesn’t trustthe YPG, however, because it believes the YPG is connected to a three-decade old Kurdish insurgency within Turkey. Beyond trust issues, the situation is further complicated by the fact of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s recent independence streak. Riding newfound support at home after surviving a coup attempt, Erdoğan has begun to assert the Turkish military more boldly in Middle Eastern conflicts. Turkey, for instance, stressed a desire to participate in the Iraq offensive to take Mosul, but wastold by the Iraqi prime minister to keep out of it. Certainly, then, Erdoğan was less than pleased to hear the comments of Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend — the U.S. military commander in Iraq — last week in Washington, D.C. “The facts are these,” Townsend said while explaining to reporters that plans to retake Raqqa were underway. “The only force that is capable of any near-term timeline is the Syrian Democratic Forces, of which the Y.P.G. are a significant portion.” Townsend didn’t say the Turks couldn’t play in Raqqa, though, he simply said they had to play nice. “We’ll welcome any contributing nation that wants to make themselves part of the coalition,” hestated at a press conference last Thursday. However, he said, they can’t “come with a whole bunch of strings” and must “be willing to do what the coalition needs done.” In other words, Turkey must control itself around the Kurds or step out of the coalition’s way. Neither of these prospects appears promising, though, as Turkey has already proven both a willingness to fire on the Kurds and a resolute insistence regarding military participation in the region. Perhaps the most dangerous element in the overall effort to eject ISIS from Iraq and Syria, however, will be spillover as the conflicts continue to stretch on. Citing their anonymous defense officials, the Washington Postnoted that, as all the campaigns proceed and potentially intersect, the fighting will come “within shooting distance of Aleppo, where Syria’s civil war is raging between rebels and government forces and their Russian and Iranian allies.” Or, as one official flatly told the Post: “A lot of forces could collide.” This article (Anti-ISIS Coalition Too Busy Defeating Themselves to Defeat ISIS) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to James Holbrooks and UndergroundReporter.org. If you spot a typo, please email the error and the name of the article to undergroundreporter2016@gmail.com. Image credit:Flickr/Day Donaldson. (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? 11/3/2016 11:06:44 AM
	Wed Nov 2, 2016 \| 5:12pm EDT Russia tells rebels to leave Syria's Aleppo by Friday evening Smoke rises near a damaged road in Dahiyet al-Assad, west Aleppo city, Syria October 30, 2016. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah Russia and the Syrian army on Wednesday told anti-government rebels in Aleppo to leave by Friday evening, signaling an extended moratorium on air strikes in the city. The Russian Defence Ministry, which is helping forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad to retake full control of Aleppo, said rebels would be allowed to exit the city unharmed and with their weapons between 0900 and 1900 local time on Nov. 4 via two special corridors. Civilians and the sick and wounded would be allowed to leave via six other corridors, it said. The Syrian army released a similar statement later in the day calling on rebel fighters to cease fire and to "use this opportunity" to leave the city with their small arms. Rebels rejected the calls, an official in an Aleppo-based insurgent group said. "This is completely out of the question. We will not give up the city of Aleppo to the Russians and we won't surrender," Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group told Reuters. He denied there were corridors guaranteeing safe passage and said civilians did not trust the government side. President Vladimir Putin had ordered the pause in fighting "to avoid senseless victims", Russia's Defence Ministry said, adding that Syrian authorities would ensure its troops pulled back from the two corridors designated for rebels. Russia and its Syrian allies say they halted air attacks on Aleppo on Oct 18. Western governments said the strikes had killed civilians in large numbers, an allegation Moscow denied. Humanitarian pauses designed to allow both rebels and civilians to exit the city have been organized by Moscow and Damascus before, but have largely failed amid continued violence with both sides accusing the other of stopping people from leaving. A Kremlin spokesman said on Tuesday the moratorium on air strikes was still in force, but could not be extended if rebels in the city did not halt their attacks. The Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that rebels inside Aleppo had taken heavy losses during fighting and were effectively trapped. "All attempts by the rebels to break through in Aleppo have failed," the ministry said. "The terrorists have suffered heavy losses in lives, weapons and equipment. They have no chance to break out of the city." (Writing by Denis Pinchuk and Andrew Osborn; Additional reporting by John Davison in Beirut; Editing by Gareth Jones) (Reuters)
	"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? 11/3/2016 5:36:40 PM
	Philippines’ Duterte discovered this week that his actions have consequences By Emily Rauhala November 2 at 8:19 AM Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte criticized the U.S. for halting a planned arms deal, calling those behind the decision "fools" and "monkeys". (Reuters) It's only Wednesday, but President Rodrigo Duterte must be ready for the weekend. Less than two weeks after his trip to China and his call for a “separation” from the United States, the president of the Philippines is for the first time feeling the effects of what seems to be — to some at least — a concerted effort to alienate his allies. The first hit: the defection of former president Fidel Ramos. Duterte's camp confirmed Wednesday that Ramos, Duterte's China envoy, has resigned just four months into the president's term. The news came after Ramos, who helped Duterte get elected, put out his second scathing critique of the president's short tenure. The piece, published Sunday, accused Duterte of “unwittingly shooting himself in the mouth” and taking "101.5 million Filipinos” down with him by insulting allies. “He may claim that to be more ‘insulting than friendly’ to our long-established allies is part of his God-given ‘destiny.’ But, this is obviously wrong, and full of S …. T!!!,” Ramos wrote. In an earlier letter, Ramos called Duterte's first 100 days as president a “huge disappointment and letdown.” Ramos faulted Duterte for a bloody campaign against suspected drug users and dealers that has claimed thousands of lives, and he criticized his anti-U.S., anti-U.N. rhetoric. Ramos, a former chief of the armed forces, was particularly critical of Duterte's comments on U.S.-Philippine military ties. Over the past few months, Duterte surprised many by calling for the withdrawal of U.S. Special Forces from the southern island of Mindanao and the cancellation of future U.S.-Philippine military exercises, only to back down days later. “Are we throwing away decades of military partnership, tactical proficiency, compatible weaponry, predictable logistics and soldier-to-soldier camaraderie just like that?” Ramos asked. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated his desire to end military relations with the U.S. on Oct. 26, saying, "I want in the next two years my country free of the presence of foreign military troops, I want them out...This will be the last maneuver, war games between the United States and the Philippines military."(Reuters) Though opinion polls suggest that Duterte still enjoys strong public support, Ramos's comments will no doubt resonate, particularly among those with ties to the military and foreign policy elite. It will be tough for Duterte's team to spin Ramos’s departure as anything other than a massive loss. Responding to questions about Ramos's critique, a presidential spokesman called Ramos “invaluable” to the administration. Another aide told the media that he was “really surprised” by the resignation. A second sour surprise: news that the United States may halt the sale of 26,000 M4 assault rifles to the Philippine National Police. Reuters reported Tuesday that the State Department will stop the weapons sale because of opposition from Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.), the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a vocal critic of Duterte's "drug war." Although the State Department did not comment to confirm or deny Reuters's reporting, the head of the Philippine National Police said in a statement that he was “saddened” by the news. Duterte, meanwhile, tried to shrug it off, dismissing the report as a U.S. “scare tactic” and saying the necessary weapons can be purchased somewhere else — like Russia. Duterte is partly right. Stopping the sale of 26,000 guns is a small gesture, compared with the $9 million in aid that the State Department will give to counternarcotics and law enforcement programs in the Philippines in 2017 and with the $32 million that Secretary of State John F. Kerry pledged this summer for Duterte's law enforcement programs. But it's a move that is intended to show that some U.S. funding for the Philippines can and will be cut if the president's human rights abuses and anti-U.S. rhetoric continue. “Look at these monkeys, the 26,000 firearms we wanted to buy, they don't want to sell,” Duterte said during a televised speech Wednesday, adding that U.S. lawmakers were “fools.” “We have many homemade guns here,” he added, according to Reuters. Phelim Kine, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, called it “the first real US move to put teeth in its criticism of the spiraling death toll of Duterte’s 'drug war.'” Who is Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte? View Photos He made headlines recently after saying he wanted U.S. troops out of his country. Brian Murphy contributed to this report. (The Washington Post)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Menu

Forums

Anti-ISIS Coalition Too Busy Defeating Themselves To Defeat ISIS

Russia tells rebels to leave Syria's Aleppo by Friday evening

Iran claims it's sending elite fighters to infiltrate US, Europe

Menu

Forums

Russia tells rebels to leave Syria's Aleppo by Friday evening

What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail

Iran claims it's sending elite fighters to infiltrate US, Europe

Who is Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte?