Kosovo terror training camps re-open for Syrian rebels [video included]
Russia Today
May 4, 2012
A delegation of Syrian rebels has made a deal with Pristina authorities to exchange experience of partisan warfare. Syrian opposition is sending militants to Kosovo for adopting tactics and being trained to oust President Bashar Assad’s regime.
On April 26, a delegation of Syrian opposition members made a stop in Pristina on their way from the US to hold talks on how to make use of the experience of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in Syria, reports Associated Press.
So far, a poorly-organized Syrian opposition has proven unable to self-organize and form a steady front against the forces of President Assad. Terror tactics used by militants allow them to kill military and governmental officials, but do not help to hold positions against a regular army.
“We come here to learn. Kosovo has walked this path and has an experience that would be very useful for us,” says the head of the Syrian delegation Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian-born human rights activist and dissident. “In particular, we’d like to know how scattered armed groups were finally organized into KLA.”
Syrian opposition leaders have promised to immediately recognize Kosovo once they seize power in the country.
“We’re in vital need of joint actions as a coalition opposition,” stressed Ammar Abdulhamid, a long-time opponent of the Syria’s President Bashar Assad. In 2005, he left Syria to settle in the US.
The training camp on the Albanian-Kosovo border that has welcomed Syrian attendees was originally organized by the US to help the KLA train its fighters.
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was considered a terrorist organization by the US, the UK and France for years until, in 1998, it was taken off the list of terrorists with no explanation given. The KLA used to have up to 10 per cent of underage fighters in its ranks.
There were numerous reports of the KLA having contacts with Al-Qaeda, getting arms from that terrorist organization, getting its militants trained in Al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan and even having members of Al-Qaeda in its ranks fighting against Serbs.
In 1998-1999 Kosovo separatists started an armed conflict with Belgrade to split the Kosovo region from Serbia. The war in the region was marked with mass atrocities and executions of the civilian population. Most of the Serbs that used to live in Kosovo became refugees.
In 2008, 10 years after the beginning of armed conflict with Serbia, Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed independence from Belgrade. Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by leading Western countries, most members of NATO and countries associated with the bloc.
The same horrors that were witnessed during the war in Kosovo are now apparently being prepared for the multi-confessional Syrian population by Islamist Syrian Liberation Army trained in Muslim Kosovo in the middle of Europe.
The Syrian Liberation Army group that actually formed the delegation to Kosovo has been fighting with the Syrian government for over a year now. This stand-off has claimed well over 9,000 lives, about half of them Syrian servicemen, law enforcers and officials.
Lately, the militants have been squeezed out of the Syrian cities and their positions along the Syrian-Turkish border. Being unable to turn the tide independently, the Syrian Liberation Army has been addressing to its foreign sponsors to start a military intervention into Syria to topple President Bashar Assad.
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source – http://rt.com/news/syrian-opposition-studies-terror-tactics-in-kosovo-585/
hat tip: Stop NATO
Egypt clashes video: Troops water-cannon protesters as thousands rally [video]
Russia Today
May 4, 2012
Egyptian armed forces and protesters clashed in the capital Cairo on Friday, with troops firing water cannon and tear gas at demonstrators who threw stones as they tried to march on the Defense Ministry in the Abbasiyah district, a flashpoint for a new cycle of violence only weeks ahead of presidential elections. The troops fired water cannon at protesters and hurled stones at them to keep them from advancing. The protesters took shelter behind metal sheets snatched from a nearby construction site and hurled back stones. Others climbed the roof of a nearby university and showered soldiers with rocks from above. The troops then opened up with heavy volleys of tear gas that pushed the demonstrators back. The Health Ministry reported eight protesters were injured. The security forces also appeared to sustain casualties.
F1 Held in Bahrain to Drown the Screams of the Tortured [video]
YouTube – SpotLightchannel1
May 3, 2012
The F1 motor race was held in Bahrain in order that the roar of the cars should drown the screams of those being tortured. But, as result of the continuing enterprise and bravery of the Bahraini democrats, more of the world is coming to know of the crimes of the killer-Khalifas in Bahrain. All the human rights organisations and the (London) Committee Against Torture in Bahrain are collecting the evidence and, one day, members of the Khalifia regime will end up in a criminal court and receive life sentences. This is not fantasy — at some point the Americans and the British, who are at present controlled by Zionism, will wake up to the fact that they are hated throughout the Middle East and a decision will be taken to betray the Khalifas. And if Iran is attacked, the chances of sudden change in the Middle East — including the overthrow of cruel authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain — are much higher.
Rodney Shakespeare.
[hat tip: 108morris108]
What Really Happened at the Montréal May Day Protest?
by Andrew Gavin Marshall
TheIntelHub.com
May 3, 2012
On May 1, 2012, thousands of students and other protesters took to the streets for the Anti-Capitalist rally in downtown Montréal.
I attended the protest with a couple friends, and having read the “news” emanating from the “stenographers of power” (the mainstream media), it’s important to set the record straight about what happened here in Montréal.
The Montreal Gazette reported the events with the headline, “Police respond as May Day anti-capitalist protesters turn violent in Montreal.”
This exact story and headline were carried across the English-speaking media fresh for the morning’s papers: with the Vancouver Sun, the Province, the Calgary Herald, the Regina Leader-Post, the Edmonton Journal, and the Ottawa Citizen.
The story, as they tell is, goes like this: it started peacefully just after 5 p.m. (this part is true!), and then it “was declared illegal by police at two minutes after 6 p.m. following violent clashes.”
A police spokesperson (who apparently is the only person the media chose to interview for their article) said that, “injuries to a citizen, police officers and vandalism on cars and property were the reasons for declaring the march illegal.”
The article then blamed “black-clad youth [who] were seen hurling rocks at store windows,” after which the police began to launch flash grenades, and the riot police moved in after 6 p.m. “using batons to disperse the crowd.”
At 7:10 p.m., “a full hour after declaring the demonstration illegal, police announced that anyone who refused to leave would be arrested.”
The CBC went with the headline, “More than 100 arrests in Montreal May Day riot.” CTV reported that of the 100+ arrests that took place, “75 were for unlawful assembly, while the remaining 34 were for criminal acts.”
So, arrested for “unlawful assembly”: what does that mean? It means that when the police unilaterally declare a protest to be “illegal,” everyone who is there is “unlawfully assembling,” and thus, mass and indiscriminate arrests can be made.
In Part 1, Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it is stated that “[e]veryone has the following fundamental freedoms”: conscience, religion, thought, belief, expression, media, communication, association, and “freedom of peaceful assembly.”
Having been at the protest from its beginning, I can say that it was a peaceful march. While there were individual acts of vandalism (the worst I saw was drawing on a bank’s window with a black marker), if police action were to be taken, it should be to arrest the specific vandal. Instead, they implemented collective punishment for exercising our “fundamental freedoms.”
The protest began in the Old Port of the city of Montréal, and made it’s way down rue Notre-Dame, up St-Laurent, and down to the financial district. The mood was good, people were in high spirits, with music, drums, the occasional fire cracker, young and old alike.
The march had been successfully split, and the small factions were then being isolated and surrounded. Suddenly, riot police were everywhere, marching up the street like storm troopers, police cars, vans, horses, motorcycles, and trucks were flying by.
As one faction of the protest continued down another street, the riot police followed behind, while another massive onslaught of riot police went around to block off the protesters from the other side.
When the police first charged, I had lost one of my friends simply by looking away for a moment. After having found each other up the street, we watched as the protest which descended down the street was surrounded by police from nearly every side. It was then that we saw flash grenades and tear gas being launched at the crowd of people. There was a notable smell that filled the air.
As we stood, shocked and disturbed by what had just happened, we made our way toward McGill to see where other protesters were headed when we saw a group of riot police “escort” three young protesters whom they had arrested behind a police barricade at the HSBC (protecting the banks, of course!).
Up the street, and across from McGill, one protester who had run to get on the bus was chased down by several riot police who then threw him face-first onto the pavement, and as a crowd quickly gathered around (of both protesters and pedestrian onlookers), the police formed a circle around the man and told everyone to “get back!” and then they began marching toward us, forcing the crowd of onlookers to scatter as well.
The police then took the young man over to where the other protesters were being “collected” at the HSBC.
There was one young girl, with the notable red square patch on her jacket (the symbol of the Québec student movement) who had to be taken away on a stretcher into an ambulance. We don’t know what happened to her.
As more and more police gathered, we decided it was time to leave, walking down the street through which the police had chased the protesters, remnants of signs, red patches, and other debris spilled across the streets; the remains of a peaceful protest ended with police violence.
This has become all too common in Montréal and across Québec, as the student protest enters its twelfth week, having had over 160 protests, an average of 2-3 per day.
As the demonstrations take place, the police have used obscure and unconstitutional city by-laws in both Montréal and Québec City which are so vague in their descriptions that any peaceful assembly or march can be declared illegal. Those who are indiscriminately arrested are fined $500, and if arrested again, are charged between $3,500 and $10,500.
It is clear that the State has decided – unilaterally – that freedom of speech and freedom of assembly do not confirm to their specific “by-laws,” and are clamping down on students and protesters in order to quiet and crush the student strike and the emerging social movement which is being referred to as the ‘Maple Spring’.
The national media, for its part, has decided to demonize the students, the protesters, and the people; taking the word of a “police spokesperson” over everyone else. Having been at the protest, however, I must question whether these so-called “journalists” were at the same event, because we witnessed two entirely different scenarios.
We entered the march in good spirits, and the police ended it in violence and repression, leaving us standing still, scattered, and disturbed; but our spirits are not crushed, our resolve is only growing stronger, and for each act of violence the police and State impose upon the people, we begin to see them for what they truly are, and thus, what is truly at stake: our very freedom, itself!
Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People’s Book Project. He also hosts a weekly podcast show, “Empire, Power, and People,” onBoilingFrogsPost.com.
Chaos, clashes & religious tension: Fruits of Egypt revolution [video]
Russia Today
May 3, 2012
The worst violence Egypt has seen in months is stoking political tensions in the country, ahead of the Presidential election. At least 11 people were killed and around 100 injured, when a group of unknown assailants attacked protesters early on Wednesday, sparking further fierce clashes. The protesters were staging a sit-in near the country’s Ministry of Defense, voicing their anger at the banning of an Islamist candidate from the election. Various political forces have rushed to blame the ruling military for the bloodshed. While the generals say they’ll hand over power to civilians if the outcome of the Presidential vote is decided in the first round, many fear that it will do little to quell the chaos, or lead to prompt democratic reforms. RT’s Sara Firth reports.
UN Mute Over NATO’s Syrian Death Squads [video included]
UN’s silence over Syrian opposition terrorism lays bare “international law’s” illegitimacy.
by Tony Cartalucci
May 2, 2012 – Since 2011, reports of arsonists and gunmen amongst Syria’s opposition have been included in reports regarding the unrest in Syria, albeit buried under sensational headlines of the Syrian government’s “brutality.” More recently, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has conceded that indeed the Syrian opposition “Free Syrian Army” is conducting widespread, systematic abuses including the kidnapping, torture, and murder of both security forces and civilians.
The HRW report titled, “Syria: Armed Opposition Groups Committing Abuses,” is broken into three parts; kidnapping, torture, and executions. And while the report attempts to focus mainly on atrocities carried out against security forces and government supporters, the mention of civilian victims is made as well. The report states:
“Abuses include kidnapping, detention, and torture of security force members, government supporters, and people identified as members of pro-government militias, called shabeeha. Human Rights Watch has also received reports of executions by armed opposition groups of security force members and civilians.”
Now, almost daily, the Syrian opposition is carrying out vicious attacks not only on security forces, but a terrorist bombing campaign across Syria that has already killed and maimed scores of civilians. While the Syrian opposition claims it lacks the ability to carry out such attacks, the opposition is exposed as very well armed, their fighters sheltered in NATO member Turkey, its leadership sheltered in Washington and London, and their fighters wielding not only an endless supply of small arms, but rocket propelled grenades, mortars, missiles, and even tanks.
Video: Hardly unarmed civilians, or “lightly armed freedom fighters,” meet Syria’s tank-driving, rocket-firing, Kalashnikov-waving foreign-funded rebels, many of whom are not even Syrian.
Additionally, listed terror organizations such as Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), recently armed, supported, and literally handed control of Libya by NATO, has publicly met with leaders of the “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) and pledged arms, cash, and fighters. Just last week, a ship originating from Libya carrying weapons was interdicted by the Lebanese, en route to deliver its cargo to Syria’s rebels.
Now in the midst of an alleged “peace deal” being brokered by the UN’s Kofi Annan – a deal that is admittedly designed to buy time for rebels to regroup, rearm, and redeploy according to US corporate-financier policy think-tank the Brookings Institution, the rebels have openly rejected the plan and demonstratively continue on with a campaign of terroristic violence.
Image: Brookings Institution’s Middle East Memo #21 “Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf),” makes no secret that the humanitarian “responsibility to protect” is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.
The Syrian government has claimed it has documented a long list of ceasefire violations by the rebels – a list that is confirmed daily in headlines from across the biased Western media, still attempting to depict the violence as one-sided. There are sea-raids carried out at night with the precision of Western special forces, terror bombings against civilian targets admittedly carried out by rebels, and now a daily campaign of bombs so overt and atrocious, even the Western corporate media must now acknowledge a “shift” in tactics.
A recent Reuters article titled “Outgunned Syria rebels make shift to bombs,” includes admissions from the rebels themselves that they are behind the spat of bombings ravaging Syria – bombs the Western press and opposition leaders had previously tried to blame on “false flag” attacks carried out by the Syrian government to undermine the rebels’ legitimacy.The Reuters article concedes that while the FSA officially is “upholding” the UN truce, its fighters have outright rejected it and are indeed openly in violation of the ceasefire.
The Reuters report also confirms Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s statement that his security forces were fighting armed militants – not protesters and civilians – in security operations across Syria before the UN ceasefire came into effect. The reports states:
“Since the army routed them from their strongholds in cities, some rebels said they realized that even in guerrilla street battles they could not beat Assad’s tanks or artillery. The Syrian Liberation Army’s spokesman Qdemati said his group’s fighters were now focusing most of their attention on “manufacturing facilities” for bombs. “You are going to start seeing an escalation as we improve our techniques of bomb-making and delivery.””
Not only does this confirm that the Syrian rebels have resorted to indiscriminate terrorist tactics, but reveals again that government claims that an explosion in the city of Hama that killed 70, devastating much of a city block, was in fact a mishap at a rebel bomb-making facility. BBC amazingly attempted to peddle the opposition’s explanation, claiming the Syrian government possibly fired a “SCUD missile” at the city.
Now however, all pretenses have been dropped and it is admitted that the Syrian rebels are manufacturing and deploying indiscriminate bomb devices nationwide. The Syrian rebels have been noted as terrorists, both foreign and domestic since nearly the beginning of the fighting last year by the alternative media. The Western press has attempted to obfuscate this fact for as long as possible, already irreparably undermining their own legitimacy in the process.
The UN, NATO, and complicit media outlets across the West, by contradicting a growing awareness of the reality of both the terroristic nature of the Syrian rebels, and the depth of deceit directed against the global public in regards to the conflict in Syria since the beginning, undermines entirely the legitimacy they and the “international law” they claim to uphold, have. In regards to Libya, US think-tank the Brookings Institution openly stated that it was about asserting the “primacy of international law” over the nation-state.
When such gross injustices, deceit, and hypocrisy exist under “international law” in both Libya and now Syria, it is clear that such “international law” is but a system of control exercised by a minority against others on a global scale. “International law” is revealed as merely the neo-imperial edicts of the global corporate-financier oligarchs, dressed up as “humanitarian concerns” even as they prop up terrorists from Libya to Syria, and beyond. Even as the UN begins to admit that indeed the Syrian rebels are in violation of the ceasefire, they only do so as the violence runs demonstratively rampant and out of control.
Photo: It must be remembered, that not only are Syria’s rebels committing horrific atrocities amidst an admittedly terroristic campaign against the Syrian people, they do so with arms, funding, equipment, training, and political support from the “Friends of Syria” cadre including the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
Surely the UN doesn’t expect the world to believe rebels are picking their bomb-making materials and Kalashnikovs from Syria’s cypress trees – and knows full well such weapons, training, and cash are flowing over the borders, admittedly from the US-led “Friends of Syria” cadre to support what is now clearly a terrorist campaign in direct violation of the UN’s own “peace deal.”
Unfortunately, the UN will not demand an end to, or even mention the West’s support of the Syrian rebels, and instead use the violence to continue with their original plan – the establishment of “humanitarian corridors” and “safe zones” by armed NATO troops. From these established zones, the rebels can continue their campaign of violence against the Syrian people in pursuit of dividing and destroying Syria as a sovereign nation-state, in line not with “international law,” but in the interests of Western imperial ambitions.
Wall Street Fills Malaysian Streets With Unrest
“Bersih” movement run by Soros-funded frauds seek to restore IMF functionary Anwar Ibrahim to power.
by Tony Cartalucci
April 29, 2012 – In a repeat of last summer’s protests, yellow-shirted mobs calling themselves “Bersih” have taken once again to the streets in Malaysia demanding “clean elections.” Their tactics and demands mirror similar movements that have come out into the streets in Russia and across the Middle East, and just like in Russia and across the Middle East, they are entirely funded, directed by, and working for the interests of Wall Street and London.
Bersih’s rank and file are responding to legitimate concerns regarding inequities that exist across Malaysia’s diverse population. Ethnic Malaysians are perceived to be receiving more benefits and upward social mobility than Malaysia’s large groups of ethnic minorities. Likewise it is perceived that Malaysia’s ruling government has an unfair advantage come election time. However, the movement’s demands and tactics seek simply to destabilize Malaysia politically and return known Western collaborators, and in particular Wall Street proxy and International Monetary Fund (IMF) functionary Anwar Ibrahim, back into power.
Video/Image: NED and Soros organized mobs clamor around Malaysia’s embassy in Bangkok, Thailand – with SEAPA executive director Gayathry Venkiteswaran explaining to a crowd why Western proxy Anwar Ibrahim and his opposition’s involvement in Bersih should not be condemned and for Bersih supporters to vigorously deny that the movement is “opposition run.” SEAPA is funded by convicted criminal George Soros, and the US State Department’s warmongering, corporate financier-lined National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House. Both within Malaysia and beyond, the Bersih mobs are demonstratively led by Western proxies insidiously manipulating impressionable, youthful crowds.
To understand why, it helps to understand just who is financially and politically supporting Bersih’s leadership in the first place. The Malaysian Insider reported on June 27, 2011 that Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevassan “admitted to Bersih receiving some money from two US organisations — the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Open Society Institute (OSI) — for other projects, which she stressed were unrelated to the July 9 [2011] march.”
A visit to the NDI website revealed indeed that funding and training had been provided by the US organization – before NDI took down the information and replaced it with a more benign version purged entirely of any mention of Bersih. For funding Ambiga claims is innocuous, the NDI’s rushed obfuscation of any ties to her organization suggests something more sinister at play.
Image: NDI’s website in 2011 before taking down any mention to Malaysia’s Bersih movement. (click image to enlarge)
Bersih is indisputably serving as a political vehicle for Anwar Ibrahim and Malaysia’s opposition front “Pakatan Rakyat,” to return to power. That Anwar Ibrahim himself was Chairman of the Development Committee of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1998, held lecturing positions at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, was a consultant to the World Bank, and a panelist at the Neo-Con lined National Endowment for Democracy’s “Democracy Award” and a panelist at a NED donation ceremony – the very same US organization whose subsidiaries are funding and supporting Bersih – casts irrefutable doubt on their official agenda for “clean and fair elections.” Claims by Bersih members that Anwar Ibrahim is “hijacking” their movement ring especially hollow when looking at both his and Bersih’s entwined foreign financial and political backers.
Image: Taken from the US National Endowment for Democracy’s 2007 Democracy Award event held in Washington D.C., Anwar Ibrahim can be seen to the far left and participated as a “panelist.” It is no surprise that NED is now subsidizing his bid to worm his way back into power in Malaysia. (click image to enlarge)
Photo: Tunisia’s new “president,” Moncef Marzouki, a veteran Western collaborator whose last two decades of political activity, much like Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia, have been supported and subsidized by the US government and US corporate-financier funded foundations.
Images: Screenshots from the Petroleum Institute’s “Partners and Sponsors” page, as well as el-Keib’s profile page (inset). Western-backed unrest in Libya has not yielded a democratic utopia as promised, but rather a ravaged nation now run by el-Keib, a long-time Western collaborator whose only activities have been selling out his nation’s natural resources and supporting the West’s wars of aggression worldwide. (click image to enlarge)
