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Jet4

Syria: Regular Israeli attacks only possible due to US backing claims Damascus


Sputnik
Sat, 12 Jan 2019 17:16 UTC
Frame grab Israeli missiles
© AP/SANAFrame grab shows Israeli missiles flying into the sky near Damascus, Syria.
Syrian air defences reportedly repulsed a night-time strike against multiple targets in Damascus on Friday night, with military sources telling national media that most of the missiles were destroyed before reaching their destinations.

Israel is able to continue to get away with attacks against Syria only because it is protected by the US, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said following the IAF's latest attack on its soil.

In a statement published on Saturday, the ministry said it had dispatched letters to the secretary general of the United Nations and the head of the UN Security Council (UNSC) in connection with Friday night's unprovoked attack on Damascus.

Comment: See also:

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Airplane

Russia to update law allowing shoot-down of passenger aircraft if it poses disaster-level threat


RT
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 14:33 UTC
jet missile russia miG -31
© Sputnik / Vitaly AnkovFILE PHOTO. Air-to-air missiles prepared for mounting on a MiG-31 fighter jet before a training exercise.
The Russian defense ministry wants to confirm its authority to shoot down planes that violate the country's airspace and threaten a major disaster or loss of life, including hijacked airliners.

A draft government decree prepared by the Russian military would change the rules of engagement for aircraft violating the border, which were last reviewed in 1994. The old document explicitly bans an attack on a plane, if it's known to have passengers or hostages on board.

The new document, which passed the stage of public feedback this week, would eliminate the ban and allow taking down aircraft that pose a credible threat to lives or a major environmental disaster and streamlines the procedure for how such use of lethal force can be obtained and implemented.

Comment: Russia has proven that it likes to do things by the book, and, in this instance, the book needed updating to reflect our dire times. This makes sense considering how nefarious groups have used passenger aircraft on a number of occasions: Also check out SOTT radio's:

Behind the Headlines: No Ordinary Inside Job - The 9/11 Psy-Ops

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Newspaper

Witch hunt or mole hunt? Times bombshell blows up all theories

Jonathan Turley
The Hill
Sat, 12 Jan 2019 18:14 UTC
Trump
The New York Times has published another bombshell with a story that President Trump was named as a possible national security threat in a counterintelligence operation that was launched after his inauguration.

If true, this is likely the only time in history that the FBI has investigated whether a sitting president was either a knowing or unknowing agent of a foreign power. However, the real benefit of the investigative story may not be the original suspicion, but rather how it could explain the course that both sides have taken into our current quagmire. What if there were no collusion or conspiracy but simple cognitive bias on both sides, where the actions of one seemed to confirm precisely the suspicions of the other?

There are now two possibilities. The first of those is that Trump really was some "manchurian candidate" placed in the Oval Office by Russia and controlled from afar by Vladimir Putin. Many are unlikely to ever accept any other possibility, though the New York Times story does not suggest that this counterintelligence operation found any basis for the original allegation. Indeed, the problem arose when part of the operation was made public. Such inquiries are usually completed and never disclosed. In this case, various forces led to a partial disclosure that Trump associates were investigated and that Trump himself might have been compromised.

Comment: This theory actually goes a long way to accounting for the actions and reactions of most of the actors involved on both sides of this conflict. However, we would add that it doesn't exclude elements of truth from both sides: there is always collusion between governments of different countries (just not necessarily to the extent or of the type alleged in this case against Trump and Russia). And there are certainly elements within the so-called deep state who actively push anti-Russian narratives (witness the Integrity Initiative in the UK and worldwide). But it's unlikely that the extent of those actions aligns with the actual accusations of either side. (That said, there is more to the conspiracy narrative than the collusion one!)

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Propaganda

SOTT Focus: 'Integrity' Initiative: By all means smear & attack, but at least be honest about it

Simon Rite
RT
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 18:05 UTC
protest loudspeaker bullhorn
© AFP / GERARD JULIEN
We've all met those people who describe themselves as laid back, when in reality they're just one loud noise from a mouth frothing breakdown. So when something describes itself as having integrity, be wary.

Enter the Integrity Initiative (II), Britain's very own government-funded influence network, which is currently in the process of having its underpants revealed to the world. There's no doubting it's an initiative; the jury's out on the other bit. Some of the people behind it are alleged former spies (can you be a 'former' spy?), a calling not often linked to integrity.

There's a good chance you may not know much about the Integrity Initiative - the mainstream media is not exactly straining to tell you about it. Labour MP Chris Williamson suggests that's because a number of mainstream journalists have signed up to work with it.

The only time II briefly attracted the attention of the mainstream world was when it became clear it had been pushing conspiracies about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's links to the Kremlin. That's not a good look for an organization which receives cash from the Foreign Office.

Comment: What's really interesting about witnessing the 'Anti-Communist witch-hunt' of our time is that it lends strong corroborating evidence to the so-called revisionist historical research suggesting most if not all previous

See also:

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Ambulance

Hezbollah leader Nasrallah reportedly hospitalized after heart attack


Sputnik
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 17:57 UTC
Nasrallah
© Reuters/Khalil HassanLebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
The news comes amid the conclusion of the Israel Defence Forces' (IDF) Operation Northern Shield, aimed at demolishing secret tunnels, allegedly dug by Hezbollah from Lebanon to Israel.

Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has been hospitalised after suffering a heart attack, the newspaper Israel Hayom reported, citing Lebanese journalist Jerry Mahar.

According to Mahar's source, "a senior figure in the Hezbollah organisation was hospitalised" on Saturday in Beirut, while other sources confirmed that it was Nasrallah, adding that he "has been fighting cancer for years".

Hezbollah has not commented on the reports and has not provided information on its secretary-general or his condition. Nasrallah has not been seen in public since November, when he criticised a possible ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
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Dig

IDF destroys 6th Hezbollah tunnel, declares end of Operation Northern Shield

Judah Ari Gross
Times of Israel
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 17:40 UTC
idf tunnels
© Israel Defense ForcesIsraeli troops search for attack tunnels dug into Israel from southern Lebanon that the Israeli military believes Hezbollah planned to use in future wars, in January 2019.
The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday declared that its effort to find and destroy Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnels was coming to an end, following the discovery of another such underground passage over the weekend.

"With the discover of this terror tunnel, the effort to locate the passages dug by Hezbollah that crossed the border into Israeli territory has been completed. The neutralization of this passage will be completed in the coming days," the army said in a statement.

"According to our intelligence and our assessment of the situation there are no longer any cross-border attack tunnels from Lebanon into Israel," army spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters.

On December 4, the IDF launched Operation Northern Shield to find tunnels that it says the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group had dug into northern Israel from towns in southern Lebanon.

The military confirmed discovering at least six tunnels during the month-long operation.

"In addition, the IDF is monitoring and is in possession of a number of sites where Hezbollah is digging underground infrastructure that has yet to cross into Israeli territory," the army said.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Down

How noble: Retiring Israeli chief of staff tells NYT: "We struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit"

Bret Stephens
New York Times
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 17:03 UTC
Gadi Eisenkot
© Gili Yaari/NurPhoto, via Getty ImagesGadi Eisenkot in 2014.
"We struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit."

So says Gadi Eisenkot about the Jewish state's undeclared and unfinished military campaign against Iran and its proxies in Syria and Lebanon. For his final interview as chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces before he retires next week, the general has decided to claim responsibility and take at least some of the credit.

Eisenkot's central intellectual contribution in fighting that campaign is the concept of "the campaign between wars" - the idea that continuous, kinetic efforts to degrade the enemy's capabilities both lengthens the time between wars and improves the chances of winning them when they come. He also believes that Israel needed to focus its efforts on its deadliest enemy, Iran, as opposed to secondary foes such as Hamas in Gaza.

"When you fight for many years against a weak enemy," he says, "it also weakens you."

This thinking is what led Eisenkot to become the first Israeli general to take Iran head on, in addition to fighting its proxies in Lebanon and elsewhere. And it's how he succeeded in humbling, at least for the now, Qassim Suleimani, the wily commander of Iran's elite Quds Force, which has spearheaded Tehran's ambitions to make itself a regional hegemon.
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Jet5

'China's nightmare': three B-2 stealth bombers deployed to Hawaii 'on watch' 24/7

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 16:40 UTC
B-2 Stealth Bomber
The US Air Force is putting China on notice as it announced Friday a new deployment of three B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to Hawaii for training in the Pacific. The nuclear-capable aircraft departed Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, and touched down at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, along with 200 support personnel airmen, as part of a U.S Strategic Command-led Bomber Task Force mission.

One defense analyst recently called the increase in B-2 bomber deployments to Hawaii "China's nightmare, and something Beijing should get use to."

"Deploying to Hawaii enables us to showcase to a large American and international audience that the B-2 is on watch 24 hours a day, seven days a week ready to protect our country and its allies," military spokesman Lt. Col. Joshua Dorr said in a statement. Though a Pacific Air Forces Public Affairs press release did not expressly mention China, Beijing has reacted aggressively to a number of routine US long-range flyovers in the Pacific and South China Sea regions over the past year, including "close call" incidents involving Chinese intercept attempts of US vessels passing through what China claims as its own territorial waters. "Its presence in the Hawaiian Islands stands as a testament to enhanced regional security," the US military statement continued.
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Newspaper

Trump 'couldn't care less if Putin conversation becomes public, slams 'most insulting article' by NYT

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 16:28 UTC
Donald Trump
President Trump brushed off a report by the Washington Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private conversation in Helsinki last summer.

"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn't care less."

"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.
The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki - at which only the leaders and their translators were present - as "a great conversation" that included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."

"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the president of various countries. I do it with all countries." -Politico
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Info

Greek defense minister resigns over 'Macedonia name issue', PM Tsipras calls vote of confidence in govt


RT
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 16:03 UTC
Panos Kammenos
© Reuters / Alkis KonstantinidisGreek Defense Minister and coalition partner Kammenos exits the Maximos Mansion following a meeting with Greek Tsipras in Athens, Greece, January 13, 2019.
Greece's defense minister has resigned in protest against a deal that would end a years-old dispute with Macedonia over its name. Panos Kammenos' exit could endanger the ruling coalition government ahead of national elections.

Kammenos submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday. Speaking after the meeting, he said that "The Macedonia name issue... doesn't allow me not to sacrifice the minister's chair."

Following the news, Tsipras announced that he will call a confidence vote in his government next week.

Comment: More on the Macedonia issue:

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