Islamists demand gold from Christians in return for "protection"

"Pay us gold & we won't kill you."

• Syrian Islamists demand that Christians pay them the Muslim "dhimma" in gold.  In return Christians will be allowed to live, but they cannot display religious insignia outside of churches, ring church bells or pray in public.

An al Qaeda splinter group has demanded that Christians in a Syrian city it controls pay a levy in gold and curb displays of their faith in return for protection, according to a statement posted online on Wednesday.

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), mainly composed of foreign fighters, is widely considered the most radical of the groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad, and is also engaged in a violent struggle with rival Islamist rebels.

Its directive to Christians in the eastern city of Raqqa is the latest evidence of the group’s ambition to establish a state in Syria founded on radical Islamist principles, a prospect that concerns Western and Arab backers of other rebel groups fighting Assad reports Reuters News.

ISIL said it would ensure Christians’ safety in exchange for the levy and their adherence to restrictions on their faith, citing the Islamic legal precept of ‘dhimma’.

It said Christians must not make renovations to churches or other religious buildings, display religious insignia outside of churches, ring church bells or pray in public.

It demanded every Christian man pay a tax of up to 17 grams of gold, a levy that was common in Muslim states centuries ago.

The directive also bans Christians from owning weapons and from selling pork or wine to Muslims or drinking wine in public.

The concept of dhimma, governing non-Muslims living under Islamic rule, dates back to the early Islamic era in the seventh century, but was largely abolished during the Ottoman reforms of the mid-19th century.

The Religion of Peace™

Muslims slit the throats of Christian students

Christian Children are Slaughtered

• The world is silent as Muslim terrorists slaughter Christian children in a Nigerian school.
• Note, wars cost money and the Islamic terrorists are financed by wealthy Middle East Arabs.  

Islamic militants have set fire to a locked dormitory at a school in northern Nigeria, then shot and slit the throats of students who tried to escape through windows during a pre-dawn attack Tuesday. At least 58 students were killed, including many who were burned alive.

They "slaughtered them like sheep" with machetes, and gunned down those who ran away, said one teacher, Adamu Garba.
 

Soldiers guarding a checkpoint near the coed government school were mysteriously withdrawn hours before it was targeted by the militants, said the spokesman for the governor of northeastern Yobe state reports the UK Telegraph.

 

Female students were spared in the attack, said the spokesman, Abdullahi Bego, though girls and women have been abducted in the past by militants of the Boko Haram movement, whose name means "Western education is forbidden."
 

This time, the insurgents went to the female dormitories and told the young women to go home, get married and abandon the Western education they said is anathema to Islam, Bego said. All of the dead were teenage boys or young men.

Local officials buried the bodies of 29 victims and another 29 were taken to Damaturu Specialist Hospital, according to the hospital records and an Associated Press reporter who went to the mortuary. Most of the victims appeared to be between 15 and 20 years old, Bego said.

Eleven wounded survivors of the attack were being treated at the hospital.

Touring the smoldering ruins on Tuesday at the Federal Government College of Buni Yadi, Gov. Ibrahim Gaidam decried the federal government's failure to protect the population.

"It is unfortunate that our children in schools are dying from lack of adequate protection from the federal government," Mr Gaidam told reporters.

He called on President Goodluck Jonathan to deploy more troops to the region.

Mr Jonathan, who rarely comments on individual attacks, said in a statement that he felt "immense sadness and anguish" by the loss of life at the school, and vowed that the military would "continue to prosecute the war against terror with full vigor, diligence and determination."

A Must See Video

The Victims of Boko Haram Islamic Terrorism 

The Religion of Peace™

Muslims Demolish Church in Anti-Christian Campaign



Police watch as Sudanese Church of Christ building in Omdurman is demolished.

(Morning Star News)

The Religion of Peace™

And Islamo-Fascist state sponsored terrorism against

Christians goes on and on. 

JUBA, South Sudan (Morning Star News) – Sudanese authorities on Monday (Feb. 17) demolished a church building in Omdurman without prior notice, area sources said.

In what Sudanese Christians believe is part of a campaign by Islamist President Omar al-Bashir to rid the country of Christianity, bulldozers accompanied by local police and personnel from the National Intelligence and Security Services destroyed the Sudanese Church of Christ building in the Ombada area of Omdurman, across the River Nile from Khartoum, they said.

“The government has confiscated the land where the church was built – please pray for the church to get a place for worship,” a Christian who requested anonymity for security reasons said. “We had not any prior indication from the officials that the church would be destroyed; they have not even warned us.”

Workers tear down church building in Omdurman, Sudan.

(Morning Star News)

Officials gave no reason for the demolition except that, as it was located in a “Muslim area,” the 300-member church was not wanted there, the church member said. Another source, a church leader, confirmed to Morning Star News that authorities destroyed the building and confiscated the land without warning.

“We have orders from above to demolish this church building,” the police officer in charge of the demolition told the church member, sources said. “We do not want any church in this area.”

The orders came from the Ombada locality, or city council, the sources said.

Following the secession of South Sudan in July 2011, Sudan since 2012 has expelled foreign Christians and bulldozed church buildings on the pretext that they belonged to South Sudanese, but officials did not offer that basis in this case.

“Generally, the church is not wanted in the area,” the church member said.

Leaders of the church have yet to determine a site for worship this Sunday.

“Possibly the church will meet in a house of one of their members next week,” the source said.

Harassment, arrests and persecution of Christians have intensified since the secession of South Sudan, when Bashir vowed to adopt a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognize only Islamic culture and the Arabic language.

Besides raiding Christian bookstores and arresting Christians, authorities threatened to kill South Sudanese Christians who do not leave or cooperate with them in their effort to find other Christians (see Morning Star News, July 12, 2013).

South Sudan’s secession has also served as a pretext for Bashir’s regime to deport Christians based on their ethnicity, sources said. In a report issued in April 2013, Christian Solidarity Worldwide noted an increase in arrests, detentions and deportations of Christians since December 2012. The organization also reported that systematic targeting of Nuba and other ethnic groups suggests the resurgence of an official policy of “Islamization and Arabization.”

Due to its treatment of Christians and other human rights violations, Sudan has been designated a Country of Particular Concern by the U.S. State Department since 1999, and in April 2013, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended the country remain on the list.

USCIRF noted the crackdown in a statement last year.

“With the independence of South Sudan, senior Sudanese government officials have called for a more comprehensive and rigid application of Sharia law in Sudan, where southerners who are Christian have been subject to a range of religious freedom violations,” USCIRF stated. “In particular, there have been credible reports of the destruction of churches, refusal to permit construction of new churches and other forms of intimidation and harassment.”

South Sudanese lost citizenship in Sudan and were ordered to leave by March 1, 2012, but thousands have been stranded in the north due to job loss, poverty, transportation limitations and ethnic and tribal conflict in South Sudan. South Sudanese Christians in Sudan have faced increased hostilities due to their ethnic origins – though thousands have little or no ties to South Sudan – as well as their faith.

Many foreign Christians have been expelled from the country, and others have fled.

Syrian rebels get anti-aircraft missiles from Islamist Saudi Arabia

What could possibly go wrong?

• Comrade Obama is backing Islamist Saudi Arabia's arming of the Syrian Islamist rebels who are trying to overthrow the pro-Iran but secular pro-Russian Syrian government that protects the local Christians from Islamists.
• Fuck it, I mean who wouldn't want to get involved?

Frustrated by the deadlock of the second round of Geneva 2 talks, Saudi Arabia has reportedly offered to supply the rebels with anti-aircraft missiles. Meanwhile Russia has accused the US of once again hijacking peace talks and pushing for regime change.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Russian-made antitank guided missiles and Chinese man-portable air-defense systems are up for grabs, already waiting in warehouses in Jordan and Turkey.

An Arab diplomat and several opposition figures with knowledge of the Saudi efforts have told WSJ that these supplies are likely to tip the battlefield scales, as the rebels will become capable of taking on the government’s air power and destroying heavy armored vehicles reports RT News. 

“New stuff is arriving imminently,” a Western diplomat with knowledge of the planned weapons deliveries told the American publication.
.

Leaders of the Syrian opposition said they don't yet know the total amount of military aid that will be shipped. The new weapons are expected to reach southern Syria from Jordan while the opposition in the north will get arms from Turkey, the Western diplomat said.

Raising fears that civilian aircraft may eventually become targets, last June several media outlets suggested that Saudi Arabia had already begun supplying anti-aircraft launchers and missiles to militants in Syria. But so far Saudi Arabia, as well as the US, has been officially opposed to arming the rebels with big guns and antiaircraft missiles as they could fall into extremist hands.

Mercenaries on US payroll?

The Wall Street Journal also reports that their rebel sources claimed the US government is paying their salaries to fight the Assad forces. The Southern Front brigades allegedly received $3 million in cash in salaries during the two meetings in Jordan, one held on January 30 and the other late last year.

Meanwhile, congressional aides told the WSJ about scheduled meetings with Syrian opposition leaders next week. The Syrian delegation will allegedly seek extra armaments in order to battle al-Qaeda and al-Nusra elements.

“We're trying to assure the international community that they can support moderates without the threat of arms falling into the hands of al-Qaeda,” said Oubai Shahbandar, a senior adviser to the Syrian opposition. Saudi Arabia and US have so far refused to comment.

Al-Qaeda overruns towns in Iraq

An Iraqi security forces member takes his position with his weapon in defense against clashes
with al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the city of Ramadi, 100 km
(62 miles) west of Baghdad, February 14, 2014

Al-Qaeda on the March in Iraq

• Since George W. Bush "liberated" Iraq we have Islamic terrorists spreading all over the Middle East, Africa and Asia.  Thanks for nothing George.

(Reuters News)  -  Iraqi troops backed by helicopter gunships fought on Saturday to retake full control of a northern town from militants who overran parts of it earlier this week, the mayor and other local officials said.

Talib Mohammed, the mayor of Sulaiman Pek, 160 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad, said the army had met fierce resistance in some parts of the town, after gaining some ground on Friday.

"Snipers and roadside bombs are preventing the army from totally controlling the town," he said. "A police captain was killed by a sniper this morning while he was trying to evacuate his family."

Militants raised the black flag of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - a Sunni group also fighting in neighboring Syria - over parts of Sulaiman Pek on Thursday.

Iraq's endless war to get much worse

An army captain in Sulaiman Pek said snipers were hindering bomb disposal teams faced with dozens of explosive devices.

"Our job is not easy, it's a guerrilla war," said Captain Falah Abdul-Ameer. "Snipers are a big issue now. We can't work out their exact location, they shoot and change places."

South of Baghdad, ISIL militants killed at least eight soldiers in overnight clashes in Jurf al-Sakhar, 60 km (40 miles) from the capital, army and police sources said.

They said 12 militants were also killed in the fighting, which started when the army responded to reports of insurgents gathering in the swamps and orchards in the area.

ISIL and other Sunni Muslim rebels have gained strength in Iraq over the past year. On January 1 they seized the city of Falluja in the western desert province of Anbar. They also have footholds in Ramadi, the nearby provincial capital.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited an army base west of Ramadi on Friday night to meet military commanders and tribal leaders, and discuss army operations, local officials said.

During the visit to al-Assad base, Maliki promised 10,000 jobs in the security forces for tribal fighters who have sided with the government against militants, the officials said.

Fighting erupted in Ramadi between militants and security forces backed by tribesmen early on Saturday, police and local officials said. Helicopters bombarded militant positions in central areas of the city, amid explosions and gunfire.

Miss Me Yet?
"Remember those mass graves in Iraq that George Bush told you about?  Well I was filling those graves with crazy-ass pro-Iran Islamist bastards.  I hope you are happy with the Middle East since Bush 'liberated' us."
Sincerely,
Saddam Hussein

British Muslims 'carried out torture' in Syria

Two British siblings, who were radicalized in UK mosques, died while fighting Kurdish rebels in Northern Syria. The Kurdish rebels, who are predominantly Sunni Muslims, have switched sides and allied themselves with the Syrian government out of hatred for the Saudi-backed foreign extremists entering their country. Read more: Madote.com

Great - The British Export Terrorists

British Muslims have carried out acts of torture and possibly executions in Syria, according to new video footage posted on social network sites.

Hundreds of British citizens have travelled to Syria to fight against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Many are believed to have joined Islamist rebel groups linked to al-Qaeda, notably Jabhat al-Nusra.

One man from London posted a video on Facebook showing a prisoner being flogged with an iron bar. The victim is apparently from the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a rival rebel movement. He is assaulted with such force that the bar breaks in half. The prisoner endures this while lashed to a car tire reports the UK Telegraph.
.

The accompanying message on Facebook posted by the British man reads: “This FSA scum never thought we wud [sic] jump out at them and pick them up after saying some abusive words to our brothers.”

He added: “Two then got ahead of themselves and swore at Allah, at this point there was no stopping us LOL although we where [sic] told to jus [sic] leave them.”

This particular Facebook account has been verified as belonging to a British fighter from London.

Shiraz Maher, a senior fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, said there was no doubt about its authenticity, but he was unable to name the individual involved. “When I contact them, they’ll talk about the situation on the ground in Syria, but they won’t give anything like biographical details,” said Maher.

Another man, who is also from London, tweeted a photograph showing three blindfolded prisoners with their hands tied behind their backs. “Got these criminals today. Insha’Allah they will be killed tomorrow. can’t wait for that feeling when you just killed someone”, reads the accompanying tweet.

Some days later, the same man posted a photograph of a bloodied hand on Facebook. “My first time!” reads the caption.

This image has been picked up by numerous social media pages used by radical Islamists.  Maher said there was no doubt this Twitter account belonged to a British fighter from London.

Counter-terrorism officials believe that British fighters in Syria pose a significant threat to national security. If they return to Britain, hardened by the experience of close combat, the fear is that they might carry out attacks at home.

British Nationals Fight with al Qaeda in Syria  

Congress secretly goes to war with Syria

Shhhh . . . . It's a Secret

• Democrats and Republicans in Congress lock arms and secretly voted to send U.S. weapons to the Syrian rebels to overthrow the government. 
• This goes right along with our secret FISA courts issuing secret warrants so the secret military run NSA can secretly spy on every American.
• The Republic is dead.  Hail Caesar! 

(Reuters News)  -  Light arms supplied by the United States are flowing to so-called "moderate" Syrian rebel factions in the south of the country and U.S. funding for months of further deliveries has been approved by Congress, according U.S. and European security officials.

The weapons, most of which are moving to non-Islamist Syrian rebels via Jordan, include a variety of small arms, as well as some more powerful weapons, such as anti-tank rockets.

The deliveries do not include weapons such as shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, known as MANPADs, which could shoot down military or civilian aircraft, the officials said.

The weapons deliveries have been funded by the U.S. Congress, in votes behind closed doors, through the end of government fiscal year 2014, which ends on September 30, two officials said.
.
The apparently steady weapons flow contrasts with the situation last summer, when lethal U.S. aid to the Syrian rebels dried up for a time due to congressional reservations.

Congress approved funding for weapons deliveries to the Syrian rebels in classified sections of defense appropriations legislation, two sources familiar with the matter said. It was not clear when the funding was approved, but unclassified defense funding passed Congress in late December.

A White House spokeswoman had no comment. Other U.S. agencies did not respond to requests for comment.

McCain screams at Syrian Christian Leaders in meeting

McCain Explodes at Syrian Christians

• McCain marched into the Senate committee room yelling and quickly stormed out. “He was incredibly rude,” the source told Judicial Watch “because he didn’t think the Syrian church leaders should even be allowed in the room.”
• The darkest day of my political life was when I voted for this fucking bastard in November, 2008.  I should have cast a protest vote for the Libertarians.

Hell-bent on arming opposition forces in Syria—despite strong evidence that they’re run by Islamic terrorists—John McCain displayed behavior unbecoming of a United States Senator during a recent meeting with Syrian Christian leaders touring Capitol Hill.

The delegation of Syrian clergy came to Washington to raise awareness among lawmakers of the growing crisis among the region’s minority Christian community. Christians make up about 10% of the Syrian population and they are being targeted and ruthlessly murdered by radical elements of the rebel forces, according to the visiting church officials. They say the media and human rights groups in the west have been largely silent on the ordeal of the Christians in Syria reports Judicial Watch.

A number of churches have been destroyed or burned, children were killed when rebels fired mortar rockets at an Armenian Christian school in Damascus and countless others have been abducted by Islamic fighters, the Syrian delegation reveals in a statement published by the research group, Westminster Institute, that brought them to Washington. Eleven nuns have also been abducted and are still in captivity and two bishops are still missing after getting kidnapped during a humanitarian mission.

Aleppo's last remaining Christians

A must see video.

Syrian Christians' Deadly Battle With Islamist Persecution

"They said they'd chop our heads off if we stayed. They said we were supporting the regime and they burnt one of my cousins." Mohammed Jelloud, a local Arab man, says of the oppression of rebel groups with ties to Al Qaeda.

But Senator McCain, an Arizona Republican, evidently doesn’t want to hear negative stories about the rebels he’s working to arm. So he stormed out of a closed-door meeting with the Syrian clergy officials last week. Held in the Senate Arms Services Committee meeting room, the reunion also included senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Graham is a Republican and the rest are Democrats.

McCain marched into the committee room yelling, according to a high-level source that attended the meeting, and quickly stormed out. “He was incredibly rude,” the source told Judicial Watch “because he didn’t think the Syrian church leaders should even be allowed in the room.” Following the shameful tantrum McCain reentered the room and sat briefly but refused to make eye contact with the participants, instead ignoring them by looking down at what appeared to be random papers.

The outburst was so embarrassing that Senator Graham, also an advocate of U.S. military intervention in Syria, apologized for McCain’s disturbing outburst. “Graham actually apologized to the group for McCain’s behavior,” according to the source, who sat through the entire meeting. “It was truly unbelievable.”

The GOP bastard McCain wants Syrian
Christians to just shut up so he can
get on with running guns to Islamists.

Not really, for those familiar with McCain’s history on this matter. The veteran lawmaker is enamored with a controversial young “Syria expert,” Elizabeth O’Bagy, who has managed to convince him as well as the president and secretary of state that Syrian rebels are mostly moderate and not terrorists. While persuading the U.S. of this, O’Bagy concealed that she was a political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a group that advocates for Syria’s rebels from Washington D.C.

Before getting exposed by conservative media outlets, O’Bagy claimed to be an objective analyst at a Washington D.C. think-tank that studies military affairs when in fact she had a “reputation as the leading expert on the armed opposition in the Syrian revolution,” according to SETF. In September O’Bagy was abruptly fired from the think-tank for padding her resume and McCain graciously hired her. “Elizabeth is a talented researcher, and I have been very impressed by her knowledge and analysis in multiple briefings over the last year,” McCain said in a statement to the political news publication that broke the story in late September.

Besides the fact that a Syrian Islamist group is essentially steering U.S. policy, a number of domestic and international media outlets have confirmed that terrorists—mainly Al Qaeda—are running opposition forces in Syria.

For instance the New York Times published a piece that reveals Islamist rebels—including the most extreme groups in the notorious Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda-aligned force—are running the show in Syria. “The Islamist character of the opposition reflects the main constituency of the rebellion,” the story says. “Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.”

Incredibly, last month an international news agency reported that Congress secretly approved U.S. weapons flow to what officials describe as “moderate” Syrian rebel factions. The White House refused to comment on the back-door operation, but the story cites U.S. and European officials who say the weapons deliveries have been funded by the U.S. Congress, in votes behind closed doors, through the end of government fiscal year 2014.

"Thank you America for our guns."

Benghazi rescuers required to sign non-disclosure agreements

"I, John Brennan, do solemnly swear to lie to Congress

and the American people at every opportunity." 

From the Lying Sack of Crap Department  -  Another of these bi-partisan liar losers who worked for both George "Mission Accomplished" Bush and Comrade Obama.

CIA director John Brennan told a congressional hearing Tuesday that security operators involved in Benghazi rescue efforts were required to re-sign non-disclosure agreements because the documents were being "updated".

Brennan was pressed by Rep. Devin Nunes, R.-Calif., of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about the 2012 Benghazi attack and why the security operators who were involved in rescue efforts that night were asked to re-sign their non-disclosure agreements reports Fox News.

“There were a number of contractors whose contracts were being updated, amended,” Brennan said.“And any time there is an amendment to a contract, there’s the requirement for a non-disclosure agreement to be re-signed, which is the case there.

Brennan was then asked if he was in Libya in October 2012, one month after the Benghazi attack, to which he first answered “no” until his staff reminded him that he did travel to Libya at that time in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Consulate that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

At the end of Nunes’questioning, Brennan said, with no explanation how he forgot he was in Libya after the Benghazi attack, “I was in Libya in October of 2012. I just checked with my staff.”

John Brennan Dodges a Question

About CIA Spying on Americans

• Once again, a national-security official is asked a question with just one defensible answer. And he doesn't give it.

Senator Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, has often used his perch on the Senate Intelligence Committee to ask national-security officials if they're misbehaving. He typically focuses on abuses that are actually happening, so his latest exchange with CIA Director John Brennan demands wider attention. Udall asked if the CIA is engaged in domestic spying or searches on American citizens.
An idle question? One wouldn't think so.

And the CIA director appeared to evade the question. For that reason, I suspect, but certainly cannot prove, that the intelligence agency is, in fact, engaged in this behavior. But don't take my word for it.

Look at the transcript and judge for yourself:

UDALL: This committee was created to address a severe breach of trust that developed when it was revealed that the CIA was conducting unlawful domestic searches. The Church Committee went to work, found that to be true. 

I want to be able to reassure the American people ... that the CIA and the director understand the limits of their mission and authorities. We're all aware of executive order 12333. That order prohibits the CIA from engaging in domestic spying and searches of US citizens within our borders. Can you assure the committee that the CIA does not conduct such domestic spying and searches?  

BRENNAN: I can assure the committee that the CIA follows the letter and the spirit of the law in terms of what the CIA's authorities are, in terms of its responsibilities to collect intelligence that will keep this country safe. Yes, Senator, I do. 

Hmm.  Whatever the Hell that means.

(The Atlantic)

A Lying Sack of Crap

 

 

5,000 Mercenaries Hired by Iraq

Military "Contractors" a Growth Industry

The rapidly developing Al-Qaeda incursion is forcing the Iraqi government not only to buy more American weapons and supplies, but also to payroll an army of mercenaries and private contractors, previously hired by the US Defense Department.

According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 5,000 specialists have been contracted by the Iraqi government. They are currently working in the country as analysts, military trainers, security guards, translators and even cooks. Some 2,000 of them are Americans.

“You have a situation where the government has become dependent on contractors,” Allison Stanger, a political-science professor at Middlebury College, told WSJ. “It's a real quantum shift.”

"The military task has, in fact, been outsourced in Iraq,” confirmed analyst Steven Schooner, a professor at George Washington University Law School reports RT News.

Washington’s relationship with Baghdad has undergone a major transformation. Officially, the US has just several hundred troops in Iraq and the US Defense Department does not contract private security companies to operate in Iraq.

Baghdad spends money on American weaponry, vehicles and equipment, while American defense companies are earning money in Iraq by placing military contractors there.

Private defense companies, such as Triple Canopy and Dyncorp International, have multibillion contracts in Iraq for years to come.

An assault operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a faction of Al-Qaeda currently occupying Fallujah, is promising to be a serious undertaking implying the use of the utmost in firepower, so Baghdad is buying $6 billion worth of military equipment from the US, including 24 Apache attack helicopters and nearly 500 Hellfire missiles.

According to the US State Department and Pentagon, it is estimated there were over 12,500 contractors in Iraq, working for the US government as of January 2013. By October, according to a quarterly report, their number had decreased to 6,624 specialists. Less than a quarter of them (1,626) were American citizens, the rest were Iraqis (2,191), with 2,807 civilian experts from foreign countries.

The US has allegedly spent over $200 billion on contractors in both Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade. Now that the US administration has transferred these expenditures to the Iraqi government, the American military industrial complex and private security companies are ready to make a fortune in Iraq.

Muslims throw grenade in Roman Catholic church

The Religion of Peace Strikes Again

Five people were injured Sunday when motorcycle-riding men hurled a grenade into a church in the troubled southern Philippines in a city known for Muslim rebel activity, officials said.

One of two men on the motorcycle threw the grenade into the Roman Catholic church in a suburb of the city of Zamboanga just as a group of senior citizens were meeting there, police and district officials said.

Four senior citizens and one passer-by were injured, said district chief Jodifer Arquiza reports AFP News.

“It (the motive) is unlikely to be personal. What can they get from these senior citizens? Perhaps this is a message,” he told reporters.

The local police chief, Chief Inspector Felixberto Martinez, said they were pursuing all possible leads but could not give a motive for the attack.

The bombing came days after troops elsewhere in Mindanao island launched a major operation against a breakaway Muslim rebel group opposed to peace talks with the main Muslim rebel organisation, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Zamboanga City was also the scene of a bloody siege in September by another Muslim armed group which feared that the peace talks with the MILF would sideline them.

More than 240 people were killed in the three weeks of fighting in Zamboanga, a city with a mixed Christian and Muslim population.




Philippine soldiers in Zamboanga. Five people were injured when
motorcycle-riding men hurled a grenade into a church in a suburb
of the city of Zamboanga.
Photo: AP

Russia moving into Eastern Mediterranean oil bonanza

Follow the Money Trail

• If you thought Comrade Obama was crying in his pillow at night over the little children refugees in Syria then you are a fool.
• In this interesting column the author exposes the real reason for Middle Eastern wars and terrorism - oil.
• When you "follow the money" you need to ask how do these freedom fighters or terrorists manage to obtain very, very expensive weapons and an endless supply of expensive ammo?  The corrupt big shots pony up billions in weapons and cash and then put a "public face" on their war with film of families driven from their homes by the war the elite created. 

By William Engdahl
RT News

The wars for control of Syria, and actually there is more than one going on simultaneously, have a strong background in an undeclared war over who will control the region’s gigantic and newly-discovered oil and gas reserves.

Now, Russia has just secured a major contract with the Syrian government. This comes after they brilliantly handed President Obama a face-saving way out of unwanted direct military action in Syria by brokering a deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad to remove the country’s stock of chemical weapons. Regardless of whether Assad remains president, Russia holds exploration and development rights to a major part of Syria’s offshore waters.

On December 25, Syrian Oil Minister Suleiman Abbas on behalf of the Syrian government signed a 25-year deal with the Russian SoyuzNefteGaz company to explore for oil in the Middle Eastern country's territorial waters off the Mediterranean coast. SoyuzNefteGaz is headed by Russia's former energy minister, Yuri Shafranik, and its main shareholder is the Central Bank of Russia. It was founded in 2000 "to enhance economic cooperation with former Soviet countries, the Middle East and North Africa," according to RIA Novosti, the state Russian news agency. It also has projects in Iraq and Uzbekistan.

The Syrian deal is part of Putin’s long-term strategy in the region, in other words.

The new agreement covers an 845-square-mile [2,188 square kilometers] area stretching southward from the government-controlled city of Tartus, where Russia also has its only Naval base in the Mediterranean. The rights extend to Banias, and about 45 miles into the Mediterranean in the Syrian Exclusive Economic Zone. The Russian company has been involved for a number of years in onshore oil projects in Syria.

With the move to develop Syria’s offshore energy potential, Russia is stepping into a hot and rapidly developing scramble for what are estimated to be oil and gas reserves comparable to one or more new Saudi Arabia-size regions. A look at the offshore map of the region would be revealing.

Since it discovered significant gas in its offshore waters in 2010, Israel has become a major player in the development of oil and gas in the Eastern Mediterranean, including in Cyprus which has confirmed significant gas fields of its own. Lebanon’s offshore exploration has been disrupted (perhaps conveniently for some rivals) by the war in Syria, as has Syria’s own oil and gas exploration.

In March 2011, Assad signed another gas pipeline deal: this time with arch-Qatar enemy, Iran. Qatar is fundamentalist Sunni and home to the radical Muslim Brotherhood. Iran is fundamentalist Shiite Muslim and Iraq is ruled by a Shiite Prime Minister. Both Iran and Iraq back Assad in the current war for control of Syria. The Iranian gas pipeline would extend from its Persian Gulf field through Iraq and through Syria. No sooner was the ink dry on the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline when a full-scale terror war, financed by Qatar to the tune of billions of dollars, exploded across Syria.

Now Russia has stepped in, after the failure of Qatar, the Saudis and Turkey to topple the Assad regime and replace it, either with a fundamentalist Wahabite Saudi regime or a fundamentalist Salafist Muslim Brotherhood, one that would do business with them and not with Russia.

Follow the Money



Smedley Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.
.
During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler is well known for having later become an outspoken critic of U.S. wars and their consequences.
.
By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to twice receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
.
See more at General Smedley Butler

Snowden - NSA spies on foreign companies not terrorists

Bullshit Exposed

• In a new interview Edward Snowden exposes that the NSA is not that worried about terrorism.  Aside from spying on Americans, the NSA spends its time spying on foreign companies.
• For example, Brazil was second only to the United States in the number of transmissions intercepted as the NSA went after the emails of the state owned oil company.

Berlin (AFP)  -  The US National Security Agency (NSA) sometimes uses data it collects for economic purposes, intelligence leaker Edward Snowden reveals in an extract of an interview with a German television chain to be broadcast Sunday.

"If there is information, for example on Siemens, which is in the national interest, but has nothing to do with national security, they will still use this information," said Snowden, according to the German translation of the interview on public television ARD.

See our article Obama spies on the terrorist hotbed of Brazil.

The interview was carried out by a journalist for NDR, a regional chain belonging to the broadcaster that has analyzed secret documents that Snowden leaked to journalists.

Under top secrecy, the chain this week in Moscow filmed the first interview with Snowden since he left Hong Kong in 2013 to seek refuge in Russia.

On its website, NDR said that Snowden assured he was no longer in possession of any confidential documents, as they had all been handed out to handpicked journalists. The former NSA contractor said he no longer wants to, or is able to, take part in any future revelations.

Other than the consequences of his revelations about NSA surveillance programs, Snowden will also address "his personal path" to leaking the information.

 

Snowden Interview: U.S. Spy On Foreign Companies

Saudi ideology is a 'threat to world'

Bashar and first lady Asma al-Assad.
A first lady without a burqa.  No wonder the Islamists are angry.

Syria says Saudi Arabia is the Enemy

• Figuring out the Middle East cast of characters is like trying to organize 100 rattle snakes in a pit into groups of "good" and "bad" snakes.
• One element of truth - On 9-11 we were attacked by the citizens of Saudi Arabia.  Not the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned during a meeting in Damascus with Iran's foreign minister that Saudi Arabia's political and religious ideology is "a threat to the world," state television reported.

He was referring to Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim tradition which is predominant in Saudi Arabia, a key backer of Syria's revolt against Assad reports AFP News.

"President Assad warns during his meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of the threat posed by Wahhabi thinking to all the world, not just to the region," the report said.

"The Syrian people and some peoples in the region know how serious the threat posed by Wahhabism is, and everyone must contribute to the confrontation against it and to eradicating it from the root," said Assad, who belongs to the Alawite offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Indigenous Christians living in fear in Syria as Muslims

take their homes and property. West silent

Syrian Christians are living in fear as Muslims take their homes and property. Muslim extremist have taken homes of the indigenous Christian community and use them as their own personal homes and bases. Just like the Nazis did during World War II, they took the homes and property of Jews and Jewish people.

 

"Supporting Jihadists in Syria also gives the Saudis an opportunity to ship their own radicals to Syria, where they can fight & possibly die "
.
With a large number of unemployed, underemployed and radicalized young men, the Jihad in Syria provides a pressure valve similar to the past struggles in Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia and Afghanistan. The Saudis are not only trying to winnow down their own troubled youth; we have received reports from a credible source that the Saudis are also facilitating the travel of Yemeni men to training camps in Turkey, where they are trained and equipped before being sent to Syria to fight.
.
The reports also indicate that the young men are traveling for free and receiving a stipend for their service. These young radicals from Saudi Arabia and Yemen will even further strengthen the Jihadist groups in Syria by providing them with fresh troops.   (Uprooted Palestinians.blogspot)