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Russian Jets ‘Intercept’ US Predator Drones Over Syria, Officials Say

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Russian fighter jets shadowed U.S. predator drones on at least three separate occasions high above Syria since the start of Russia’s air campaign last week, according to two U.S. officials briefed on this latest intelligence from the region.

Meanwhile, U.S. Navy Captain Jeff Davis told reporters a U.S. aircraft flying over Syria had to be rerouted to avoid a Russian fighter jet at least once . . .

U.S. officials tell Fox News the drone encounters took place over ISIS-controlled Syria, including its de facto headquarters in Raqqa, as well as along the Turkish-Syrian border near Korbani. Another occurred in the northwest, near the highly contested city of Aleppo . . .

The Russians have not attempted to shoot down any of the U.S. drones, but instead have flown “intercept tracks,” a doctrinal term meaning the Russians flew close enough to make their presence felt, according to one official . . .

Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook, traveling with the defense secretary in Europe leading up to a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels Thursday, said the Pentagon is open to more military-to-military talks with the Russians. No immediate date has been established to conduct the next round of talks, according to one defense official. (Read more from “Russian Jets ‘Intercept’ US Predator Drones Over Syria, Officials Say” HERE)

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China: USA Must Take More Syrian Refugees; We’ll Take Zero, Thanks

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ap_ap-photo298-e1441850714519-640x480“The United States should take its responsibility in the disheartening refugee crisis in Europe as its controversial Middle East policies resulted in wars and chaos that displaced large numbers of people,” hectors China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua.

They dwell on the photo of the drowned Syrian toddler — who was not in the process of fleeing from Syria when he died — and the horrid deaths of 70 refugees in a smuggler’s truck in Austria.

China is not generally noted for its genial indulgence of lawbreakers, especially when there are national security implications, but it expects the United States to throw caution to the winds. “Even though it has remained relatively ‘quiet’ on this matter, the United States actually has an inescapable responsibility on what happens today in Europe and the Middle East,” Xinhua pontificates . . .

If you’re waiting for some massive groundswell of public sympathy for refugees to change the Chinese Politburo’s mind about settling some Syrians in their territory, the Hong Kong Free Press notes that the Chinese public is “overwhelmingly against the idea,” because they think “China is not responsible for turbulence in the Middle East, many Chinese people are still living in poverty and that the refugees won’t want to come to China anyway.”

That latter point sounds pretty dismal, and indeed some Chinese spoke poorly of their own nation, with one arguing that “China cannot provide refuge, because we the Chinese look more like refugees”… but others pointed out the refugees were more interested in migrating to the generous welfare states of Europe. (Read more from “China: USA Must Take More Syrian Refugees; We’ll Take Zero, Thanks” HERE)

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Get Ready to Say Hello to Your New Neighbors From Syria

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Turkey syrian refugees kurdsThe war in Syria is generating millions of refugees, who are genuinely to pitied. But as a result of this internecine strife in the Islamic world, Western countries are expected to accept major inflows of un-vetted immigrants, even as Islamic fundamentalists openly proclaim their intention to transform us into Islamic states via infiltration.

There is almost no way to prevent the entry into the United States of dedicated terrorists from ISIS and other Islamic fundamentalist factions if mass numbers of refugees are admitted. President Obama is determined to add more Muslims to our population and will use humanitarian impulses as opportunities arise (and given the track record of Islamic violence, those opportunities are legion).

The Center for Security Policy is sponsoring an online petition demanding local consent for any refugee resettlement. The city of Minneapolis, where I grew up, has been transformed by the mass importation of Somali Muslim refugees, something that was engineered by the State Department to take advantage of generous welfare and social service options available at the expense of native taxpayers. Among other consequences, it has made Minnesota the most prominent home of Americans joining ISIS.

The petition reads:

Governors/State legislators, we urge you to expeditiously attach a proviso such as the following to your state budget:

No state funds shall be expended to assist in the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program unless the community targeted for resettlement approves.

DO YOUR JOB! Allow City and County Councils to decide if their budgets can support refugee resettlement and if their people want it!

You can sign it here.

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Drone Killing of British Citizens in Syria Marks Major Departure for UK

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3000The killing of two British citizens in a targeted drone strike in Syria marks a major departure for the UK. While killing its own citizens by missiles fired from drones is not new for the US, this is the first time such an attack has been carried out by Britain.

The attack raises an immediate issue, just as it has done in the US, over whether the killing of its citizens in such a way is lawful. It also raises a political question of whether David Cameron, in spite of a parliamentary vote against military action in Syria two years ago, is slowly creeping towards taking the UK fully into the conflict.

The prime minister, in his Commons statement, justified the attack as self-defence, to prevent terrorist outrages in the UK planned by Islamic State. He confirmed that a third Briton, Junaid Hussein, also believed to be fighting with Isis, had been killed in a drone attack by the US.

The attack that killed Britons Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin in a vehicle near Raqqa on 21 August was carried out by a Reaper drone flown from a base in the Middle East but controlled by a British crew either operating at RAF Waddington or from the US air base at Creech in Nevada. The Ministry of Defence never confirms the location.

The RAF was acting on intelligence that required a quick response, according to security sources. (Read more from “Drone Killing of British Citizens in Syria Marks Major Departure for UK” HERE)

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Terror Threat? Surge of Syrian Refugees Into US Raising Security Concerns

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Syria’s bloody civil war has brought the country’s largest number of refugees and asylum-seekers to the United States in a decade, and thousands more are expected in 2016.

But with the influx comes mounting concerns over whether the Obama administration can properly vet them, and keep out those with terror ties seeking to exploit the system. Lawmakers are worried that not only is Syria the headquarters of the Islamic State, but that the country’s state of chaos makes screening refugees that much harder.

“I agree that the vast majority of Syrian refugees do not have ties to terror groups,” [RINO] Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who chairs the Homeland Security Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee, said at a recent hearing. “However, we have been reviewing the current security vetting procedures for a number of months, and I have a number of concerns, not the least of which is the lack of on-the-ground intelligence necessary to identify terror links.”

According to the State Department, 968 Syrian refugees have been resettled in the United States this year alone — with the goal of bringing upwards of 2,000 in by the end of 2015. Before the start of the civil war, the number of Syrian refugees entering the U.S. each year typically was under 30.

In addition, as of March, more than 1,500 Syrians have been granted asylum in the U.S. since the start of the war, according to the latest figures provided to FoxNews.com by the Department of Homeland Security. By contrast, the number granted asylum in 2009 was 11.

(Read more from “Terror Threat? Surge of Syrian Refugees Into US Raising Security Concerns” HERE)

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US Special Forces Conduct Successful Raid in Syria, Kill High-Value Target [+video]

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Photo Credit: Controversial Times According to a White House press release, United States Special Operations Forces (specifically Delta Force) have killed a senior ISIS official, Abu Sayyaf, during a covert operation inside of Syrian borders.

The team reportedly managed to capture the commander’s wife during the raid while Sayyaf himself was killed. The raid was carried out by United States forces at the authorization of President Obama. The team entered Syria via Blackhawk helicopters and Osprey aircraft. According to statements made by defense officials, US personnel were forced to engage in hand to hand combat after landing at a multi-story building where the raid took place.

According to the White House statement, at least 12 ISIS fighters were killed during the raid. American forces suffered no casualties.

Sayyaf is reportedly in charge of oil and gas operations for the terror group. The sale of oil and gas is one of the reasons ISIS has been able to amass such a large fortune so quickly. With top ISIS leadership in question, it was believed Sayyaf was becoming more and more involved with day to day operations and may have been in line to become one of the top officials in the organization.

(Read more from “BREAKING: US Special Forces Raid in Syria” HERE)

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Report Says Iran May Be Keeping Elements of Nuclear Program in Syria, North Korea

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AlgeAs world powers race to close a nuclear deal with Iran, recent reports have indicated that not all elements of Iran’s nuclear program may be domestic, but that some of it may be located in Syria and as far away as North Korea. In light of the secrecy surrounding the talks going on in Lausanne, Switzerland these reports are receiving some attention, according to The Israel Project, a Washington DC-based advocacy group.

If true, the implications of the reports are far reaching. The Israel Project said that the debate in these reports “involves how Iran has dispersed its nuclear assets to Syria and North Korea, which means that any envisioned deal would only slow a part of the Iranian nuclear program, while flooding the Iranians with cash to bolster what’s left over.”

Last November, as an earlier deadline for the talks approached, the issue came up regarding Iran moving its nuclear program’s assets to Syria, but now the debate is including North Korea. And according to the Israel project, “Even if everything goes right in slowing Iran’s nuclear work on Iranian soil…the deal wouldn’t touch all of the places and ways the Iranians are going nuclear.”

The reports indicate that Germany’s Der Spiegel revealed the existence of an undisclosed nuclear facility in Syria where as much as 50 tons of enriched uranium may have been taken, so that while it remained in Syrian territory, it was nonetheless under Iranian control. The facility is located deep in the Qalamoun region, near the town of Qusayr, territory controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force and Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah. (Read more from “Report Says Iran May Be Keeping Elements of Nuclear Program in Syria, North Korea” HERE)

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The Pentagon Ups the Ante in Syria Fight

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JORDAN-MILITARY-EXERCISEThe Special Forces group that ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001 is preparing to deploy to Jordan to train Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State, but many of the U.S. military’s most elite warriors have a gnawing fear that those efforts may be too little, too late.

Four years after the start of the uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the Army’s 5th Special Forces Group is getting ready to establish a multinational special operations task force in Jordan to train and equip Syrian rebel forces that the United States deems “moderate” — which means allied with neither the Islamic State nor al Qaeda’s local affiliate, al-Nusra Front.

But daunting challenges lie ahead for 5th Group. They include finding and vetting enough moderate rebels to make a difference on the battlefield; potential friction with the CIA, which has its own rebel training program going on in Jordan; the Obama administration’s refusal to let special operations forces fight alongside the rebel forces they have trained; and a confusing chain of command that none of the relevant American military headquarters seem willing or able to explain.

To complicate matters further, the general in charge of the training mission in Jordan is considered one of the special operations community’s most capable senior officers, but as things stand he is scheduled to rotate out of the country just as the training effort gets underway.

The stakes are enormously high for Washington and its allies. The Obama administration has publicly vowed to keep U.S. forces out of the line of fire in the campaign against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, in part to guard against the prospect of more American fatalities in a conflict the U.S. public had overwhelmingly turned against in recent years. The White House is instead hoping that members of some of the military’s most secretive and elite units can rebuild the shattered Iraqi army and stand up a force of tribal militias willing to fight the Islamic State, while simultaneously helping to train and equip a new rebel force in Syria. Failure in either location is likely to embolden the United States’ enemies in the region — Iran, the Assad regime, the Islamic State, and al-Nusra Front — and seriously damage American prestige. (Read more from “The Pentagon Ups the Ante in Syria Fight” HERE)

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U.S. Military Loses Contact with Predator Drone Flying over Syria

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A Pentagon official confirmed the U.S. military lost contact with an unarmed Predator drone Tuesday while it was flying above northwestern Syria, but could not corroborate reports that the aircraft was shot down by President Bashar Assad’s air defenses.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said that U.S. forces lost contact with the drone about 1:40 p.m. Eastern time and that the reason for its disappearance was being investigated.

The incident marks the first time a U.S. aircraft has gone down since President Obama authorized airstrikes against Islamic State militants in the summer. Since then, Predator drones have been flying daily missions above Iraq and Syria.

Predators are flown from bases across the globe, but the military official would not discuss where the U.S. aircraft was being controlled from or where it was based before they lost contact with it.

Earlier Tuesday, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said the country’s air defenses had brought down a U.S. surveillance plane in the coastal province of Latakia. (Read more from “U.S. Military Loses Contact with Predator Drone Flying over Syria” HERE)

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Persecution: ISIS Abducts at Least 150 Christians Throughout Syria; Saudi Arabia Gives Death Penalty to Man Who Renounced Islam

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By Suleiman Al- Khalidi. Islamic State militants have abducted at least 150 people from Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria they had raided, Christian Syrian activists said on Tuesday.

A Syrian Christian group representing several NGO’s inside and outside the country said it had verified at least 150 people missing, including women and elderly, who had been kidnapped by the militants.

“We have verified at least 150 people who have been adducted from sources on the ground,” Bassam Ishak, President of the Syriac National Council of Syria, whose family itself is from Hasaka, told Reuters from Amman.

Earlier the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 90 were abducted when the militants carried out dawn raids on rural villages inhabited by the ancient Christian minority west of Hasaka, a city mainly held by the Kurds.

Syrian Kurdish militia launched two offensives against the militants in northeast Syria on Sunday, helped by U.S.-led air strikes and Iraqi peshmerga. (Read more about the abducted Christians throughout Syria HERE)

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Saudi Arabia Court Gives Man Death Penalty for Renouncing Muslim Faith

By Richard Spencer. A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a man to death for apostasy after he filmed himself tearing up a copy of the Koran, a new test case for the country’s human rights record just as its most powerful rising prince was visiting Downing Street.

Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the country’s security supremo who was recently made deputy Crown Prince – the presumed heir-but-one to the throne – was due to have dinner with Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, on Tuesday night.

He will meet Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, on Wednesday and then the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, Theresa May, on Thursday – a sign of how important Saudi Arabia is held to be across a range of key political issues, from the fight against Islamic State to home-grown radicalisation.

Human rights groups were already calling on the government to raise their concerns with the prince, including the case of the blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes for criticising the country’s religious establishment. (Read more from this story HERE)

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The Massacre of Assyrians Christians on Way

By Walid Shoebat. Shoebat.com reported yesterday before it became news, that ISIS attacked the Assyrian villages in the Hasaka province in northeast Syria where ISIS fighters were met by members of Natorehs, a Christian brigade which is also called The Assyrian Guards where Assyrian fighters were killed running low on ammunition and help from anyone in the West while killing tens of ISIS fighters. And the fighting is still ongoing in Tel Tamar. In the process an estimated 117 Christians, elderly, women and children were kidnapped by ISIS.

There were 12 Christians abducted from Tel Hurmiz, 15 from Tel Goran. They have been brought to Jabal Abdul Aziz. The residents of the villages of Tel Shamiran (approximately 50) and Tel Jazira (about 40) are being held captive in their own villages by ISIS.


There approximate number (117) is concluded by adding kidnapped and held. These are as good as dead. Hani Zaya, whose parents, who live in Tel Goran, were abducted by ISIS. According to Mr. Zaya, local Arabs who are members of ISIS and who knew the Assyrian village residents reportedly brought them to “safe-houses” in nearby villages. None of the captives have answered or made telephone calls. Calls made by relatives of the captives have been answered by ISIS members, who have said there is nothing to be done for the hostages.

On top of all this, a number of churches have been destroyed, including the church in Tel Hurmiz, one of the oldest churches in Syria, the Mar Bisho church in Tel Shamiran, the church in Qabr Shamiy and the church in Tel Baloua. (Read more from this story HERE)

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