Kurds Repel ISIS; Turkey Attacks Kurds; Kurds Welcomes Russia; Russian Bombers Slam ISIS…

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Three days into its bombing campaign in Syria, Russia on Friday at last targeted Islamic State positions, striking at the defacto capital of the terror organization and at least one other site.

The Russian strikes at the Islamic State came after two days in which its aircraft attacked locations belonging to other fighting groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad, including CIA-supported rebels, sparking calls for the Obama administration to do something to protect fighters it had trained and equipped.

But President Barack Obama made clear that the U.S. had no plans to deepen its role in Syria.

“We’re not going to make Syria into a proxy war between the United States and Russia,” Obama said at a White House press conference. “That would be bad strategy on our part.”

He also rejected calls he should act to preserve U.S. credibility and influence.
“This is not some, you know, superpower chess board contest, and anybody who frames it in that way isn’t paying very close attention to what’s been happening on the chess board,” he said.

But there were signs that U.S. influence over events in Syria was eroding, with the Kurdish militia that has been Washington’s closest ally on the ground there extending a public welcome to Russia and offering to fight alongside Russia against the Islamic State. It also asked Moscow for weapons.

We want Russia to provide us air support as well as weapons in our fight against the ISIL militants. Sipan Hemo, YPG commander

“We will fight alongside whoever fights Daesh,” Salih Muslim, co-president of the Democratic Union Party, the Kurdish political party whose militia, the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, have closely coordinated its operations with the United States, told the online magazine Al Monitor in an interview. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL.

“We want Russia to provide us air support as well as weapons in our fight against the ISIL militants,” a YPG commander, Sipan Hemo, was quoted as telling the Russian Sputnik news portal. “We can organize an effective cooperation with Russia on the issue.”

The United States and the YPG have been close allies for the past year after their coordination broke an Islamic State siege of the Kurdish city of Kobani, and U.S. airstrikes are credited with helping the YPG seize an estimated 6,800 square miles of northern Syria from the Islamists in recent months. U.S. officials in recent weeks have pointed to the YPG as the most effective anti-Islamic State group in Syria.

But the YPG recently has slowed its offensive after Turkey, a U.S. NATO ally and bitter rival of the Kurds, objected to its success, and U.S. bombing missions over northern Syria have dropped precipitously.

Some analysts speculated that the YPG was interested in Russian support because Moscow was unlikely to respond to Turkey’s worries that the Kurds’ success would fuel a push for independence among its own Kurdish minority.

Russian involvement might also discourage Turkey from entering Syria to squelch any cooperation between the YPG and the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, whose guerrillas have been battling Turkish authorities for 30 years. On Friday Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, warned the YPG not to support the PKK offensive in Turkey. “If there is any leakages from Syria like in Iraq . . . we would not hesitate to strike at any group that poses a threat to our national security.”

“The U.S. is active in the north. The Russians will not meddle in the north. But should Turkey attempt to intervene, they will,” Muslim said. “They will prevent Turkish intervention, not to defend us but to defend Syria’s border.”

Ten Islamic State targets were struck Friday primarily in the wcountryside outside Raqqa, according to Sarmad Aljilany, an activist with the “Raqqa is being slaughtered silently” Internet portal.

There were no estimates of damages or deaths, but the Islamic State canceled Friday prayer services at the four main mosques in Raqqa – where attendance is usually obligatory.

The Syrian Opposition Coalition, the anti-Assad civilian political group, said Russian aircraft also bombed Islamic State positions in Qaryatain, a city in eastern Homs province that the Islamic State captured in August.

There were also reports of Russian attacks on locations where no Islamic State forces were present. Local activists said aircraft targeted the hospital in Latamneh, the headquarters for a CIA-backed unit known as the Al Izza Brigade in northern Hama province and also struck Maarat al Numan in Idlib province.

Syrian and American aircraft also undertook bombing runs. The Syrian air force conducted 15 airstrikes in the Islamic State-held town of Al Bab, hitting many civilian targets including the main market and a hospital, according to the Al Bab Local Coordination Committee, an anti-Assad group.

An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire. Barack Obama

Meanwhile, U.S. aircraft carried out eight airstrikes against Islamic State targets in eastern Syria, well away from Russian and Syrian government aircraft. Six were carried out in Hasaka province, where the U.S. has worked closely with the YPG, and there was one each in Palmyra, an Islamic State-held city that dates back to Roman times, and Deir el Zour, another Islamic State bastion.

The YPG’s embrace of the Russian intervention came as seven members of the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition urged Russia to target the Islamic State and not other fighting groups in its attacks.

In a statement, the United States, France, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Britain expressed the “deepest concern” about the bombing of Hama, Homs and Idlib provinces “which led to civilian casualties and did not target Daesh.”

“These actions constitute a further military escalation and will only fuel more extremism and further radicalization,” the seven countries said.

Obama also struck that theme at his new conference.

“A military solution alone, an attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population, is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire, and it won’t work,” Obama said he told Russian President Vladimir Putin when the two men met at the United Nations earlier this week.

His remarks came as Republicans looking to replace him have stepped up their criticism of his Syria policy. Even as his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would push for a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors in the country.

But Obama dismissed much of the criticism as “half baked ideas” and “mumbo jumbo.”

As for Clinton’s suggestions, he said there was a difference between running for president and being president.

“The decisions that are being made and the discussions that I’m having with the Joint Chiefs become much more specific and require, I think, a different kind of judgment,” he said.

Lesley Clark contributed from Washington. Special correspondent Zakaria Zakaria contributed from Istanbul. (For more from the author of “Kurds Repel ISIS; Turkey Attacks Kurds; Kurds Welcomes Russia; Russian Bombers Slam ISIS…” please click HERE)

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ISIS Extremists Publish Address of Navy Seal Who Killed Osama Bin Laden and Call for His Death

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A British ISIS supporter has published the name and address of the Navy Seal who killed Osama bin Laden and called on American extremists to execute him.

Mirror Online has been monitoring jihadi chat on social media and has spotted several people linking to a text file containing instructions on how to find Robert O’Neill, who claimed to have killed the al Qaeda chief.

This information was shared by an unnamed British extremist, who dubbed O’Neill a “number one target” and called for his immediate death.

The address is now being shared on social media along with a sinister hashtag.

Dozens of extremists have now republished the Navy Seal’s private information, despite apparent censorship attempts by social media firms and the website which is hosting the information. (Read more from “ISIS Extremists Publish Address of Navy Seal Who Killed Osama Bin Laden and Call for His Death” HERE)

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‘Apocalyptic’ Flash Floods and Massive Mudslides – Just Some of the Horrific Weather Changes Being Endured Internationally

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Photo Credit: Voice of America By The Associated Press. In a matter of minutes, torrential rains transformed the postcard-perfect French Riviera into a terrifying flood zone, leaving at least 16 dead, trapping hundreds of ailing pilgrims and halting car and train traffic Sunday along the mud-drenched Mediterranean coast.

Victims were found dead in a retirement home, campsites, and cars submerged in a tunnel. Residents, stunned by the ferocity of the brief downpour Saturday night, described it as the worst flooding they’d ever seen — so dramatic that President Francois Hollande paid an emergency visit Sunday to promise government aid for victims.

Helicopters patrolled the area and 27,000 homes were without electricity Sunday after rivers and streams overflowed their banks and fierce thunderstorms poured more than 18 centimeters (6.7 inches) of rain in Cannes and some other areas, according to the Interior Ministry. The Cannes region saw the equivalent of two months of rainfall in less than two hours, local radio France Bleu-Azur reported. (Read more from “‘Apocalyptic’ Flash Floods and Massive Mudslides – Just Some of the Horrific Weather Changes Being Endured Internationally” HERE)

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Guatemala Mudslide Death Toll Rises to 86

By VOA News. Hope is all but gone Sunday that any survivors will be found from the massive landslide on the outskirts of Guatemala’s capital.

The death toll has risen to 86 and is expected to continue to rise as emergency crews dig through tons of earth for an estimated 350 missing people.

Distraught relatives of the victims shoveled alongside diggers through the mounds of earth that destroyed homes in Santa Catarina Pinula on the southeastern flank of Guatemala City after Thursday night’s collapse of a hillside.

Every batch of earth turned up by the diggers held more personal belongings, from mattresses and books to toys and Christmas decorations.

Clutching photos of loved ones, family members stood in line outside a makeshift morgue near the excavation site, some of them crying, to see if they recognized any corpses. (Read more from this story HERE)

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South Carolina Flooding: 5 Dead, Curfews Ordered, Hundreds Rescued, Several Interstates Closed

By The Weather Channel. Curfews have been ordered, many are without drinking water, several interstates are closed and five people are dead in some of the worst flooding South Carolina has ever seen.

Emergency managers sent out a statewide alert telling people to remain indoors.

“Stay home. Stay off the roadways,” Thom Berry, South Carolina Emergency Management spokesperson, told The Weather Channel on Sunday. “Don’t get on the roadways because you very likely can become part of the problem.”

Officials are worried life-threatening impacts will only worsen as the 1-in-1,000-year rain event continues. Authorities said hundreds of people were in need of rescue Sunday as the floodwaters kept rising all over the Palmetto State. Columbia, the state capital, was the hardest hit. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Investigation: US Bombed Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan

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U.S. officials have launched an investigation after 12 local staff members of Doctors Without Borders and at least seven patients, three of them children, were killed after an explosion near their hospital in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz that may have been caused by a nearby airstrike.

In a statement, the international charity said the “sustained bombing” took place Saturday at 2:10 a.m local time. Afghan forces backed by U.S. airstrikes have been fighting to dislodge Taliban insurgents who overran Kunduz on Monday.

At least 37 other people were seriously injured–19 staff members and 18 patients and caretakers, the organization said. Dozens were missing, raising concerns the death toll could rise.

A senior defense official told Fox News on Saturday that the Taliban have been in control of the area around the hospital since Monday, guarding the building and drawing U.S. special operations forces into a firefight in the area. U.S. forces called in the airstrike because they were under fire and needed cover, the official said . . .

While defense officials told Fox News they “regret the loss” of innocent life, they say the incident could have been avoided if the Taliban had not used the hospital as a base, and the civilians there as human shields. (Read more from “Investigation: US Bombed Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan” HERE)

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The Band of Brothers Who Voluntarily Patrol the US-Mexico Border

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Dressed in camouflage gear and wielding heavy machine guns, these men look like they are off to war.

But while the pictures appear to show this band of brothers patrolling a conflict zone, they are actually guarding the border between the US and Mexico.

The ‘watchmen’ of The Arizona Border Recon – led by the group’s chief ‘Nailer’ – protect the border near the Mexican town of Nogales, with three goals; stop illegal immigration, stop drug smuggling, and stop human trafficking . . .

They look like soldiers – and some of them are veterans – but many are or were private security experts, Mr Milano told Feature Shoot . . .

Mr Milano said: ‘To them this is most certainly an invasion. In some respects I believe the US/Mexico border is the nearest domestic geographic place where many of the vets can compare to their tours in Afghanistan or Iraq, or elsewhere, so in some way it is the easiest way to get back into “protecting the country” from what they believe is the most imminent threat and performing their civic duty.’ (Read more from “The Band of Brothers Who Voluntarily Patrol the US-Mexico Border” HERE)

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Watchdog Blasts BBC Coverage of Jerusalem Stabbing Spree, Forces Corrections

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A media watchdog group slammed the BBC for its reportage of Saturday night’s bloody terror attack in Jerusalem, in which a knife-wielding Palestinian killed two Israelis and left the wife and baby of one of them seriously wounded, and the British outlet was forced to change its headline – three times.

BBC Watch, an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, exposed the headline – “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two” – for failing to reflect what actually happened during the murderous rampage, making it sound as though the perpetrator had been a victim of Israeli security forces.

“[This] is not only a prime example of the ‘last-first reporting’ regularly employed by the BBC, but of course fails to clarify to audiences that the dead Palestinian was the terrorist who killed two people (later named as father of seven Rabbi Nechemia Lavi and father of two Rabbi Aharon Benita) and wounded a mother and her two-year-old son,” wrote BBC Watch in a dispatch on the coverage.

“Predictably, that headline prompted considerable protest on social media,” the dispatch went on. “And shortly after its publication, the title was changed to one displaying yet another regular feature of BBC reporting; the use of superfluous punctuation.”

The changed headline read as follows: “Jerusalem attack: Israelis killed in Old City ‘by Palestinian.’” (Read more from “Watchdog Blasts BBC Coverage of Jerusalem Stabbing Spree, Forces Corrections” HERE)

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Out of Africa Comes a Cry for Help Against the Culture of Death

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Arriving in the Philippines last January, Pope Francis warned his millions of listeners to resist “ideological colonization.” This destructive assault on families, the Pope continued, included efforts to “redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.”

Africans, above all, know what he is talking about. After all, their continent has been the playground of Western imperialists for the past two centuries. Their bodies were enslaved, and their countries were colonized. Now the target is their very minds.

The assembled African bishops—all 40 or so of them—recently denounced this new kind of colonialism. Their joint Declaration, drafted in June but only released this month, begs wealthy Western nations “… to end the filthy campaigns that promote a civilization of death on our continent.”

The Declaration continues:

[There is] a terrifying resurgence of a colonialist spirit under the guise of the appealing names of liberty, equality, rights, autonomy, democratization and development. Condoms, contraceptives, sex education programs fabricated elsewhere, purely technical and deprived of moral content, so-called “safe abortions”, have become commodities that are more accessible to Africans than the way of delivering integral development, of which we have such a vital need.

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You Won’t Believe How Many Syrian Refugees Have Been Approved in the U.S.

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During a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest this afternoon, an Obama administration official made a statement that should concern anyone who is apprehensive about the national security problems presented by the influx of “Syrian refugees.”

Barbara Strack, the chief of the Refugee Affairs Division of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), admitted that a whopping 80% of refugee applications are approved worldwide. But as it relates to the Syrian refugees that have been processed so far in the U.S., that number is a dangerous 90%.

Throughout the hearing Republican members noted that unlike in most other countries we have no access to any database or background check system. “The things you normally check just don’t exist,” observed Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). None of the administration officials on the panel could answer how Syrian refugees enjoy a higher approval rating than even the already high rate of approval worldwide when they have a nonexistent system to vet them.

As Sessions noted during the hearing, there have been many reports of Iranians pretending to be Syrian refugees in order to be admitted into western countries. Clearly, the alacrity to admit as many refugees from Syria as possible has allowed politics to trump the security of the nation.

On Tuesday, Obama finalized his refugee admission goals for this year in a memo. He plans to increase the refugee cap from 70,000 to 85,000 without the consent of the people through their elected representatives. In addition to the large increase from Syria, Obama has raised the sub cap from Africa to 25,000 and plans to bring in many more Somali refugees.

When asked by Senator Sessions whether refugees become self-sufficient, the administration officials said that 80% become self-sufficient within 18 months. When pressed whether the definition of “self-sufficient” includes those on welfare, the administration officials demurred. In reality, the welfare use on the part of refugees is astronomical, topping 93% among those from the Middle East.

Also, as Senator Sessions noted, we’ve already spent $4.5 billion through our foreign policy program to deal with the refugee situation. It’s not as if we have not been “generous.” What’s more disconcerting is that the increase in refugees will now be funded from USCIS fees paid for by other categories of legal immigrants, essentially forcing vetted immigrants to subsidize the importation of predominantly Sharia adherents to our shores.

Much like with the 1965 immigration bill, the promises of the politicians with regards to the refugee program have been completely divorced from reality. (For more from the author of “You Won’t Believe How Many Syrian Refugees Have Been Approved in the U.S.” please click HERE)

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Investigation: Cuban Refugees Abusing, Funneling US Welfare to Cuba

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Many Cuban refugees are abusing the American welfare system, with some even living off the generosity of the U.S. taxpayer in their native Cuba, according to an investigation by the Florida Sun Sentinel.

According to the Sentinel, Cuban refugees to the U.S. have largely been presumed to be fleeing persecution and, like all refugees, have thus been granted immediate access to public assistance. Instead of using those benefits as intended — in order to help them get a foothold in the U.S. — many have using American welfare dollars to finance their lives in Cuba, despite explicit prohibitions on using U.S. welfare abroad, the report finds.

Since 2003 more than 329,000 Cubans, eligible for the entire menu of welfare programs in the U.S., have arrived in Florida. The Sentinel’s report reveals Cubans represent 9 out of 10 foreign-born people receiving refugee services in the Sunshine State.

Florida residents, immigrants and officials had similar stories of rampant welfare abuse among Cuban refugees for the the Sentinel.

Miguel Veloso, a barber living Hialeah, Florida who has been in the U.S. for three years, described how recent Cuban refugees on welfare will spend months at a time in Cuba, returning before their welfare benefits expire. (Read more from “Investigation: Cuban Refugees Abusing, Funneling US Welfare to Cuba” HERE)

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This Country Says It Must Look After Its Own Before Allowing in Syrian Refugees

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Japan must improve the living standards of its own people before it can consider accepting Syrian refugees, the prime minister, Shinzo Abe said, as he announced $1.6b in new assistance for Syrians and Iraqis caught up in conflicts in the Middle East.

Abe’s consistent refusal to consider allowing even a modest number of refugees to relocate to Japan has prompted criticism of the country’s strict policy on asylum: last year, it received a record 5,000 applications but accepted just 11 people.

Speaking at the UN general assembly in New York, Abe insisted Japan must first tackle crises posed by its falling birth rate and an ageing population, and continue its push to boost the number of women in the labour market.

“It is an issue of demography,” Abe told reporters after his speech to the UN general assembly. “I would say that before accepting immigrants or refugees, we need to have more activities by women, elderly people and we must raise our birth rate. There are many things that we should do before accepting immigrants” . . .

“Japan would like to contribute by changing the conditions that give rise to refugees. The cause of this tragedy is the fear of violence and terrorism, and terror of poverty. The world must cooperate in order for them to find a way to escape poverty.” (Read more from “This Country Says It Must Look After Its Own Before Allowing in Syrian Refugees” HERE)

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