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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
10/17/2017 10:18:07 AM

Final assault starts on Syria's Raqqa as some Islamic State fighters quit

By John Davison and Ellen Francis
Final assault starts on Syria's Raqqa as some Islamic State fighters quit

By John Davison and Ellen Francis

AIN ISSA, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S.-backed militias launched their "final" assault on Syria's Raqqa on Sunday after letting a convoy of Islamic State fighters and their families quit the city, leaving only a hardcore of jihadists to mount a last stand.

"The battle will continue until the whole city is clean," said a statement by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias.

SDF spokesman Talal Selo told Reuters that "no more than 200-300" foreign militants remained to fight on in the city after the convoy left. "This is the final battle," he said.

Under the withdrawal deal between Islamic State and tribal elders, the jihadists would let all other civilians trapped in Raqqa have safe passage out of the city, he said. Selo added that he believed only a few may have remained.

Raqqa's fall to the SDF now looks imminent after four months of battle hemmed the Islamic State jihadists into a small, bomb-cratered patch of the city.

"We still expect there to be difficult fighting," said Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the U.S.-led international coalition backing the SDF in the war against Islamic State with air strikes and special forces. The coalition will continue to operate on the basis that civilians remain in Raqqa, he said.

Raqqa was the first big Syrian city that Islamic State seized as it declared a "caliphate" and rampaged through Syria and Iraq in 2014, becoming an operations center for attacks abroad and the stage for some of its darkest atrocities.

But Islamic State has been in retreat for two years, losing swathes of territory in both countries and forced back into an ever-diminishing foothold along the Euphrates river valley.

"Last night, the final batch of fighters (who had agreed to leave) left the city," said Mostafa Bali, another SDF spokesman.

There were conflicting accounts as to how many people left in the convoy.

Selo said 275 Syrian militants left along with their family members. Laila Mostafa, head of the Raqqa Civil Council formed under SDF auspices to oversee the city, said that figure included both the fighters and their family members. In a statement, she denied an earlier comment by another council member that some foreign fighters had left in the convoy.

Before the evacuation, the coalition estimated that about 300-400 fighters were still holed up in the Islamic State enclave.

HUMAN SHIELDS

Fighters who left in the convoy, which the coalition is tracking, had given biometric data including fingerprints, Dillon said.

The convoy was still in territory held by the SDF on Sunday morning, Selo said.

Bali described the civilians who left with Islamic State fighters in the convoy as human shields. The jihadists had refused to release them once they left the city as agreed, wanting to take them as far as their destination to guarantee their own safety, he said.

Such withdrawals of fighters along with groups of civilians have grown commonplace in Syria's six-year war, as a way for besieging forces to accelerate the fall of populated areas.

The convoy would head to the remaining Islamic State territory in eastern Syria, Omar Alloush of the Raqqa Civil Council had said on Saturday.

The agreement was brokered by the council and tribal elders to "minimize civilian casualties", the coalition has said. Tribal leaders from Raqqa said they sought to prevent bloodshed among civilians still trapped in the city.

"If there are any civilians remaining (in the enclave) they would be the families of those foreigners. The civilians exited completely," Selo said on Sunday.

The SDF's decision to hasten the battle's end by allowing Islamic State fighters to leave Raqqa was at odds with the stated wishes of the U.S.-led coalition that backs the militias.

Dillon said it was not involved in the evacuation but added: "We may not always fully agree with our partners at times. But we have to respect their solutions."

In August, the coalition spent weeks preventing a convoy of Islamic State evacuees from an enclave on the Syrian-Lebanon border from reaching jihadist territory in eastern Syria.

JIHADIST CAPITAL

The SDF launched the battle for Raqqa on June 6 after a months-long campaign to isolate the city against the north bank of the Euphrates.

Islamic State, then known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, had captured the city in January 2014, seizing it from rebel factions which had ousted the Syrian army a few months earlier.

As the group became more entrenched in Syria and Iraq leading up to its capture of Mosul in June that year, Raqqa became its most important center, and it celebrated its series of victories with a massive parade through the city.

Many of its top leaders were at times based there, and former hostages said Mohammed Emwazi, better known as Jihadi John, imprisoned them along with those he later executed, in a building near an oil installation near the city.

The group killed dozens of captured Syrian soldiers there in July 2014 and it was also the site of a slave market for Yazidi women captured in Iraq and given to fighters.

The coalition has said Raqqa was a hub for attacks abroad, and in November 2015, after militants killed more than 130 people in Paris, France launched air strikes on Islamic State targets inside Raqqa.

But the group is now in disarray. In Syria it does not only face the U.S.-backed SDF offensive but a rival one by the Syrian army supported by Russia, Iran and allied Shi'ite militias.

A Syrian military source said on Saturday the army had captured the city of al-Mayadin in the Euphrates valley, leaving Islamic State only a few more towns and villages, and surrounding desert territory, in Syria.

But the battle for Raqqa has come at great cost to its people. Intense coalition air strikes and the months of street-to-street fighting have pulverized much of the city. Thousands of people have fled as refugees and hundreds of civilians have died.

(Reporting by John Davison in Syria and Ellen Francis in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Mark Potter)

(Yahoo News)

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
10/17/2017 10:44:44 AM

Iraqi forces launch operation for Kurdish-held oil fields, military base


Iraqi troops drive toward positions occupied by Kurdish forces on Saturday near Kirkuk, Iraq. (Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images)

Clashes broke out early Monday in northern Iraq as Iraqi forces moved to recapture Kurdish-held oil fields and a military base near the city of Kirkuk, setting the stage for a battle between two U.S. allies.

After a three-day standoff, Iraqi forces advanced into the contested province with the goal of returning to positions they held before 2014, when they fled in the face of an Islamic State push. The positions have since been taken over by Kurdish troops.

The conflict between Kurdi­stan and the Iraqi government over land and oil is decades old, but a Kurdish referendum for independence last month inflamed the tensions. The Iraqi government, as well as the United States, Turkey and Iran all opposed the vote.

The flare-up presents an awkward dilemma for the United States, which has trained and equipped the advancing Iraqi troops, which include elite counterterrorism forces, and the Kurdish peshmerga on the other side.

But the Iraqi side is also backed up by Shiite militia forces close to Iran, at a time when the Trump administration has been vocal about curbing Iranian influence in the region, having sanctioned Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps last week.

Iraqi forces said they were under instructions to avoid violence, but Kirkuk residents said that gunfire and explosions could be heard in the city in the early hours of the morning. Kurdish media reported that thousands of Kurdish volunteer fighters had rushed to take up arms.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had ordered his forces to “protect all citizens” as they retake positions, state television reported.

Kurdish forces took full control of the ethnically and religiously mixed city of Kirkuk after the Iraqi military fled from large swaths of northern Iraq in 2014 in the face of an Islamic State push. It also seized oil fields formerly run by Baghdad that pump hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day. Now Iraq wants that ground back.

Army, police and forces from Iraq’s popular mobilization units, which include the Iran-backed militias, have massed in the area, as Kurdish forces furiously dug defenses. Humvees and firing positions protected by sandbags were stationed on the main highway from Baghdad to Kirkuk. Bulldozers dragged earth to the road to build blockades to stop armored convoys from advancing. Bridges were blocked.

As Kurdish authorities warned they were about attack, Abadi tried to defuse tension, taking to Twitter to assure that Iraqi forces “cannot and will not attack our citizens.” Iraqi commanders initially dismissed troop movements as routine deployments aimed at securing nearby Hawija, recently recaptured from Islamic State militants.

But Shiite militia leaders close to Iran said that they were there to move into the province and had presented a list of demands to Kurdish Peshmerga commanders.

Those demands included a Kurdish withdrawal from positions including the city’s K1-military base and oil fields.

“The orders are to surround K1 and oil fields and stop and call on the Kurdish forces to retreat,” said a counterterrorism officer who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic. “There are strict orders to avoid violence.” But militia commanders took a more combative tone. Anyone who fights Iraqi forces is “the same as ISIS,” said Karim al-Nuri, a spokesman for Iraq’s mobilization units. State television said that counterterrorism forces, the 9th Division of the Iraqi army and federal police forces had taken “large areas” of the province without a fight. It said popular mobilization units took positions “outside Kirkuk.”

Earlier in the day Col. Ryan Dillon, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad had described the situation as “stable” but said the “heightened tension” was distracting from the fight against Islamic State militants.

After recapturing the city of Hawija, Iraqi forces were supposed to deploy to the borders with Syria to stamp out the last pockets controlled by Islamic State militants.

The confrontation with Baghdad has also brought out splits among the Kurds. Earlier in the day, senior Kurdish officials from its two main parties met in the town of Dukan to discuss how to proceed in negotiations with Baghdad. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, which has closer ties to Iran and Baghdad, has been more open to agreeing to a deal for Baghdad to enter key sites, in contrast to the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Given the financial sanctions announced against the IRGC, “it’s comical really,” said a Kurdish official who declined to be named when criticizing an ally. “If you want to push back Iranian influence, don’t stay quiet. In the Middle East silence is taken as a sign of weakness.”


(The Washington Post)


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
10/17/2017 10:56:00 AM

“Help Us”: Small Town Residents PLEAD For Assistance As Muslim Takeover In Full View

Posted by | Oct 16, 2017 |

Authorities in a small Normandy town are begging for help as they try to deal with hordes of marauding Muslims who try to hijack rides into Britain.

Authorities in a small Normandy town are begging for help as they try to deal with hordes of marauding Muslims who try to hijack rides into Britain.

One small town in France is reeling under the weight of Muslim migrants looking for a new way into Britain. Deputy Mayor Luc Jammet said Ouistreham, a small-town in Normandy, is overrun with migrants who have become aggressive since security around Calais has tightened. He explained that the infrastructure and police force are simply not equipped to deal with these “well-coordinated groups of young men determined to get to Britain.” He and others are pleading for outside assistance.

When security was heightened in Calais, these invaders from Eritrea and Sudan, and others who hail from countries such as Albania, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan have created a dangerous, and deteriorating condition. Reporters spoke to the town’s security chief who said, “It is getting worse. We need more help. We need more police officers.”

He added, “There is a big number of migrants who are waiting to go to the UK. If some have success getting on the ferries then more will come here. We want to make sure that the town doesn’t become the new Sangatte. The town is worried. We are powerless.”

According to first hand reports, gangs of Muslims take up militant positions around the town about three hours before shipments are expected. Then they try to overpower drivers and hijack rides into Britain.

According to first hand reports, gangs of Muslims take up militant positions around the town about three hours before shipments are expected. Then they try to overpower drivers and hijack rides into Britain.

The situation is highly volatile. Not only are the small town residents swiftly losing all sense of their own identity, they have become the victims of these Muslims who now control the streets. Drivers and residents live in fear of attack from “migrants” who try to force their way into vehicles bound for Britain.

“Every day they are sitting against the wall of my house. We don’t feel safe,” said Alain Hurel, a 46-year-old waiter who lives in Ouistreham. “One day they tried to take my partner’s phone off her. There are not enough police. We are on the frontline and no one is helping,” she added.

Reporters witnessed gangs of men take up militant like positions around the town every day, a few hours before the ferry is about to depart.

These Islamist men of military age have absolutely no respect for the law. They think that violence will prevail, and sadly for this town in France, it has.

These Islamist men of military age have absolutely no respect for the law. They think that violence will prevail, and sadly for this town in France, it has.


“Some create a diversion to distract police while others target lorries at traffic lights on a residential road … [we] watched as dozens sprung from hiding places and forced open lorries. Those left outside bolted the doors as the lights turned green,” they reported.

“Lorry drivers aware of the problem refuse to stop at red lights, creating an obvious risk,” correspondents said.

In June, tree trunks were used as barricades across the road, forcing two drivers to suddenly stop. A third vehicle wasn’t prepared to meet the road block and wrecked. The driver was killed in the blaze that followed. After the Calais “jungle camp” was dismantled last year, the number of violent attacks against drivers has increased.


These Muslims have no compunction about killing others to get a way to Britain where they can receive free everything and be protected from any disparagement of their savage culture. Reports indicate that more than 56,000 attempts were made to breach United Kingdom borders from French Ports in 2016, and that number has only grown.

Authorities intercepted 153 water crossings every day last year. To increase that number, trucks are key targets for militant Muslims who try to go to England. Director of Policy and Public Affairs for the Road Haulage Association Rod McKenzie said “Our members are terrified and angry. Gangs of marauding migrants, often armed with iron bars are attacking their vehicles.”

Swarms of migrants have been taking over trucks bound for ferries to England. These "undocumented" immigrants are causing havoc in Europe and the townspeople and authorities in this Normandy town are pleading for help.

Swarms of migrants have been taking over trucks bound for ferries to England. These “undocumented” immigrants are causing havoc in Europe and the townspeople and authorities in this Normandy town are pleading for help.

He added, “The police are heavily outnumbered and it’s clear that they can no longer cope with the ever increasing numbers trying to make the crossing to the UK.” Many drivers have refused to make that journey because of the risk.

The town of Ouistreham is so ill equipped to handle these marauding hordes that the problem shows no signs of stopping. This is what happens when unfettered migration of a conquering culture is permitted unchecked. The town, and others, are begging for help about a problem that liberals created, supported, and encouraged, but now ignore.


(conservativedailypost.com)


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
10/17/2017 11:14:30 AM

North Korea warns states: Don't join any U.S. action and you're safe

FILE PHOTO - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during the Second Plenum of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang October 8, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS/File Photo

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea warned countries at the United Nations on Monday in a statement: don't join the United States in military action against the Asian state and you will be safe from retaliation.

The caution was contained in a copy of North Korean Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim In Ryong's prepared remarks for a discussion on nuclear weapons by a U.N. General Assembly committee. However, Kim did not read that section out loud.

"As long as one does not take part in the U.S. military actions against the DPRK (North Korea), we have no intention to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any other country," according to Kim's prepared remarks.

"The entire U.S. mainland is within our firing range and if the U.S. dares to invade our sacred territory even an inch it will not escape our severe punishment in any part of the globe," the statement read.

Tensions have soared between the United States and North Korea following a series of weapons tests by Pyongyang and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously ratcheted up sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs since 2006.

North Korean Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim did tell the U.N. General Assembly committee on Monday: "Unless the hostile policy and the nuclear threat of the U.S. is thoroughly eradicated, we will never put our nuclear weapons and ballistic rockets on the negotiation table under any circumstance."

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)

(Yahoo News)

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
10/17/2017 1:33:54 PM

Islamic State defeated in its Syrian capital Raqqa

By John Davison and Rodi Said

Fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces raise a white flag near the National Hospital complex where the Islamic State militants are holed up, at the frontline in Raqqa, Syria October 16, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By John Davison and Rodi Said

RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) - U.S.-backed militias said they had defeated Islamic State in its former capital Raqqa on Tuesday, raising their flags over the jihadist group's last footholds in the city after a four-month battle.

The fighting was over but the alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias was clearing the stadium of mines and any remaining militants, said Rojda Felat, commander of the Raqqa campaign for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

A formal declaration of victory in Raqqa will soon be made, once the city has been cleared of mines and any possible Islamic State sleeper cells, said Talal Silo, the SDF spokesman.

The fall of Raqqa, where Islamic State staged euphoric parades after its string of lightning victories in 2014, is a potent symbol of the jihadist movement's collapsing fortunes.

Islamic State has lost most of its territory in Syria and Iraq this year, including its most prized possession, Mosul. In Syria, it has been forced back into a strip of the Euphrates valley and surrounding desert.

The SDF, backed by a U.S.-led international alliance, has been fighting since June to take the city Islamic State used to plan attacks abroad.

Another Reuters witness said militia fighters celebrated in the streets, chanting slogans from their vehicles.

The fighters and commanders clasped their arms round each other, smiling, in a battle-scarred landscape of rubble and ruined buildings at a public square.

The flags in the stadium and others waved in the city streets were of the SDF, its strongest militia the Kurdish YPG, and the YPG's female counterpart, the YPJ.

Fighters hauled down the black flag of Islamic State, the last still flying over the city, from the National Hospital near the stadium.

"We do still know there are still IEDs and booby traps in and amongst the areas that ISIS once held, so the SDF will continue to clear deliberately through areas," said Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition.

In a sign that the four-month battle for Raqqa had been in its last stages, Dillon said there were no coalition air strikes there on Monday.

TRAPPED BY FIGHTING

Fatima Hussein, a 58-year-old woman, sitting on a pavement smoking a cigarette said she had emerged from her house after being trapped for months by the fighting. Islamic State had killed her son for helping civilians leave the city, she said.

The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, took the National Hospital in fierce fighting overnight and early on Tuesday, said spokesman Mostafa Bali in a statement.

"During these clashes, the National Hospital was liberated and cleared from the Daesh mercenaries, and 22 of these foreign mercenaries were killed there," said Bali, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

An SDF field commander who gave his name as Ager Ozalp said three militiamen had been killed on Monday by mines that have become an Islamic State trademark in its urban battles.

Another field commander, who gave his name as Abjal al-Syriani, said SDF fighters had found burned weapons and documents in the stadium.

The stadium and hospital became the last major positions held by Islamic State after the departure of some of its fighters on Sunday, leaving only foreign jihadists to mount a last stand.

The SDF has been supported by a U.S.-led international coalition with air strikes and special forces on the ground since it started the battle for Raqqa city in early June.

The final SDF assault began on Sunday after a group of Syrian jihadists quit the city under a deal with tribal elders, leaving only a hardcore of up to 300 fighters to defend the last positions.

PASSPORTS AND MONEY

Raqqa was the first big city Islamic State captured in early 2014, before its rapid series of victories in Iraq and Syria brought millions of people under the rule of its self-declared caliphate, which passed laws and issued passports and money.

It used the city as a planning and operations centre for its warfare in the Middle East and its string of attacks overseas, and for a time imprisoned Western hostages there before killing them in slickly produced films distributed online.

The SDF advance since Sunday also brought it control over a central city roundabout, where Islamic State once displayed the severed heads of its enemies, and which became one of its last lines of defence as the battle progressed.

The offensive has pushed Islamic State from most of northern Syria, while a rival offensive by the Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi'ite militias, has driven the jihadists from the central desert.

On Tuesday, a military media unit run by Lebanon's Hezbollah group said the Syrian army on whose side Hezbollah fights had pushed into the last Islamic State districts in Deir al-Zor.

The only populated areas still controlled by the jihadist group in Syria are the towns and villages downstream of Deir al-Zor along the Euphrates valley. They are areas that for the past three years Islamic State ran from Raqqa.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Francis and Dahlia Nehme in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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