VIDEO — Iran: Total death toll from Hajj stampede could reach 2,000
by PressTV News Videos
Sep 25, 2015
A day after a catastrophic stampede in Saudi Arabia, Iranian officials say the death toll could dramatically rise.
Freudian slip? Obama vows to speed up ‘training ISIL’, WH edit adds confusion — video included
by RT USA
Published time: July 08, 2015 20:07
Edited time: July 09, 2015 11:17
U.S. President Barack Obama (C), (Reuters / Jonathan Ernst)
President Barack Obama’s reference to US training “ISIL forces” has raised eyebrows, no less because of the White House’s odd edit in the transcript of the president’s speech on confronting Islamic State.
After getting briefed on US efforts to fight the self-proclaimed Caliphate occupying large swaths of Syria and Iraq, Obama told reporters Monday at the Pentagon that the US was ramping up the training of local forces to complement airstrikes conducted by the US-led coalition.
What he actually said, however, was “we’re speeding up training of ISIL forces, including volunteers from Sunni tribes in Anbar Province.”
ISIL stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and is the US government’s preferred term for the group, also known as ISIS or, more recently, Islamic State.
The official transcript released by the White House contains the word “Iraqi” in brackets following the acronym ISIL, instead of something much more intuitive, such as prefacing the acronym with “anti-”. The clumsy edit allowed one to read the statement as if the US Commander-in-Chief was not confessing to training jihadist militants all over the region, but only the ISIL forces based in Iraq.
Obama’s omission and the White House’s attempt to explain it away have caused some perplexity on Twitter.
[…CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE]
[related video with a different slip-up by Obama (a.k.a. Barry Soetoro): Was Joan Rivers Right ? Is Obama Gay and Michelle a Man Named Michael???]
Forces Align in Yemen After Renewed Saudi Strikes
via New Eastern Outlook
by Alexander Orlov
May 31, 2015
The Saudi-led coalition resumed air strikes on Yemeni capital Sana’a after a five-day ceasefire. Dozens of families were forced out of their homes. These are the most large-scale bombings since the five-day ceasefire ended on May 17.
The issue at hand is that the Arabian coalition has so far been unable to combat the Houthis. With the help of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, their joint forces mounted a quick military offensive to the south of the country and ensured military domination over most of Yemen. Their advantage is indisputable in Aden and in the country’s northern parts. In other provinces (Hadhramaut, Abyan, Taez), the status of local tribal militias is determined by the renewal of massive funding to the local chefs from Saudi Arabia. However, this has so far been limited to several localities. The attempt to incite a mass revolt in Aden in late April-early May with the help of former Prime Minister of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) Haidar Abu Bakr al-Attas has also failed.
Presently, “the president-in-exile” Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi can only be seen as a “political corpse”. He is neither popular in the north, where he allowed the Houthis to overrun the Hashid tribal militia without coming to their aid, despite numerous appeals from the local tribal leadership; nor is he popular in the south of the country, where he failed to fulfil a promise to redistribute property and grant far-reaching political autonomy to the South. Due to this, Saudi Arabia’s agenda now includes a very important fundamental point: to find a leader capable of consolidating the anti-Houthi forces.
It is clear that Ali Abdullah Saleh will continue to hold onto his former stance: he has nowhere to run and the ultimate goal of his one-and-only strategy is guaranteeing that his tribe remains in the highest echelons of executive and military power. Riyadh does not intend to hand over these guarantees. However, the Houthis currently hold the military upper hand. Moreover, their leadership is currently ripe with stout supporters of “a war to the bitter end”, that is, the recreation of a Zaidi Muslim State. Most of the moderate Houthis leaders were lost during the suicide bombing of a Zaidi mosque in Sana’a in March. The other Houthis who are willing to find a compromise have been excluded from key decisions. Thus, it is still clearly premature to talk about the beginning of any real and effective peace talks. Neither the Houthis, nor Abdullah Saleh nor the members of the Arabian coalition, Saudi Arabia in particular, have any desire to hold such peace talks.
NATO Puppets Plan to Invade Syria … Soon
via Activist Post
May 9, 2015
Reports are now filtering in that preparations for a direct military assault on Syria are being made by Turkey in concert with the Saudis and Qataris. These reports are suggesting that the military offensive will take place within the next few days. Some reports speculate that such action could take place further down the road in late June.
At this moment, Turkish forces are reportedly gathering at the nation’s southern border and Syria’s northern border in a fashion that can signify little except the posturing for military action.
While this article is in no way attempting to make predictions regarding possible military action, to provide dates, or even the hint that these possible attacks will definitively take place, the stage has clearly been set for some time for us to contemplate the possibility of such an attack.
Indeed, in the last few weeks, geopolitical alliances and talks have begun to coalesce so as to indicate that such an attack is not only possible but probable in the near future. After all, the US and NATO have attempted to gin up support for a direct assault on Syria since early on in the crisis when it became apparent that proxy armies of terrorists alone were not going to accomplish regime change.
The plans – at least from Turkey’s side of the fence – appear to be twofold. First, the plan to attack Syria has been part of the NATO agenda from the moment the death squads were routed by Assad’s forces and Turkey has always been a major playing in this regard.
Secondly, Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan’s own governing party has been suffering under a number of scandals, criticisms, and failures over the last several months and, as is the case in every country, a foreign war is more than helpful in diverting the attention of the local population away from domestic concerns. While certainly not the cause, plunging support from the Turkish public is certainly a stick used to prod Erdoğan into further action.
Emboldened by their illegal war in Yemen and their ability to massacre civilians abroad with little condemnation, the Saudis are apparently feeling more capable of acting against Syria directly and especially in concert with the Turks and Qataris. These attacks on Syria would undoubtedly take place – much like the Yemeni strikes – with US backing and support.
PODCAST — Red Ice Radio – Brandon Martinez – Hour 1 – The Creation of Israel & The ISIS Conspiracy
via Red Ice Radio
Apr 29, 2015
Brandon Martinez is an independent writer and journalist from Canada who specializes in foreign policy issues, international affairs and 20th and 21st century history. For years he has written on Zionism, Israel-Palestine, American and Canadian foreign policy, war, terrorism and deception in media and politics. He is the author of Grand Deceptions, Hidden History and The ISIS Conspiracy. Brandon is with us to give his take on the ISIS conspiracy and the array of terrorism plots that have been used to manipulate the masses and shape foreign policy. We begin with a look at the state of mainstream journalism today and the opinions of popular culture that are defined by reporting that sticks to largely unchallenged official narratives. We consider how the powers that be are able to maintain protected status and convince society to relinquish freedoms via manipulating language and demonizing criticism of authority. Brandon takes us through the history of recent wars that have been predicated on fabricated terrorist attacks, and he outlines the backdrop of lies and guilt on which the state of Israel has been built. Martinez details the fine points in the hidden story behind the World Wars, and explains how Hitler and Germany was pushed and consequently used in order to justify the creation of Israel. In the second segment, we move forward to the history and origins of Al Qaeda, with a ‘terrorist’ agenda contrived by the CIA, backed up by the Saudi Wahhabi regime and brought to fruition through Pentagon propaganda. Brandon expounds how the US has managed to justify continued occupation in Iraq while instigating a major regime change in Libya, leading to conflict in the Muslim world and eventually giving birth to the ISIS movement. Further, he gets into the Globalist-Zionist destabilization agenda that has been exported to the Middle East and northern Africa, designed to divide and conquer countries that refute western imperialism. We chew over the many indications that ISIS is a proxy force acting out a series of fabricated ‘terror events’ staged for the purpose of implementing an Orwellian police state across Western countries. Our discussion ends with some thoughts on the major contradictions in government that are casting light on the illegitimacy of democracy and the psychopathic power elite, setting the stage for a major paradigm shift in the ruling structure of our world.
Authors website: http://nonalignedmedia.com/
CONFIRMED: US “Operation Rooms” Backing Al Qaeda in Syria
via New Eastern Outlook
by Tony Cartalucci
Apr 11, 2015
US policy think-tank Brookings Institution confirms that contrary to propaganda, US-Saudi “moderates” and Turkey-Qatar “Islamists” have been coordinating all along.
The war in Syria continues to drag on, with a recent and renewed vigor demonstrated behind an opposition long portrayed as fractured and reflecting a myriad of competing foreign interests. Chief among these competing interests, the public has been told, were the US and Saudis on one side, backing so-called “moderate rebels,” and Turkey and Qatar on the other openly backing Al Qaeda and its various franchises including the Islamic State (ISIS).
However, for those following the conflict closely, it was clear from the beginning and by the West’s own admissions that success hinged on covertly providing arms, cash, equipment, and both political and military support to Al Qaeda and other sectarian extremists, not opposed by Saudi Arabia, but rather by using Saudi Arabia as the primary medium through which Western material support could be laundered.
And this fact is now confirmed in a recent article published on the Brookings Institution’s website titled, “Why Assad is losing.”
It states unequivocally that (emphasis added):
The involvement of FSA groups, in fact, reveals how the factions’ backers have changed their tune regarding coordination with Islamists. Several commanders involved in leading recent Idlib operations confirmed to this author that the U.S.-led operations room in southern Turkey, which coordinates the provision of lethal and non-lethal support to vetted opposition groups, was instrumental in facilitating their involvement in the operation from early April onwards. That operations room — along with another in Jordan, which covers Syria’s south — also appears to have dramatically increased its level of assistance and provision of intelligence to vetted groups in recent weeks.
Whereas these multinational operations rooms have previously demanded that recipients of military assistance cease direct coordination with groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, recent dynamics in Idlib appear to have demonstrated something different. Not only were weapons shipments increased to the so-called “vetted groups,” but the operations room specifically encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations.
Overall, Brookings is pleased to report that with the infiltration and overrunning of much of Idlib in northern Syria, it appears their long-stated goal of creating a seat of power for their proxies within Syria’s borders and perhaps even extending NATO aircover over it, may finally be at hand. Brookings still attempts to perpetuate an adversarial narrative between the West and Al Qaeda, despite admitting that it was only with Western backing that recent offensives spearheaded by Al Qaeda itself were successful.
In reality, as far back as 2007, it was the admitted policy of the then Bush-led White House to begin arming and funding sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda, through the use of intermediaries including Saudi Arabia. Veteran journalist and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh in his report “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?“would lay bare this conspiracy which has since then unfolded verbatim as described in 2007.
PN 