"Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price..."We are expected to believe that the Assad regime committed a horrific atrocity against mostly women and children at the very moment when Syrian forces have decisively defeated the Islamist rebels and Trump declared he wanted US troops out of Syria. Days before this fake attack, the Russian Defense Ministry warned that a false flag provocation was in the making.
The head of the Duma defense committee and former commander of Russian airborne troops has said Moscow would take all measures, including military ones, in response to a possible US strike on government forces in Syria.
"The double standard policy has overstepped all possible boundaries. At this point, the [pro-Putin parliamentary majority] United Russia party must responsibly state that we are going to take all political and diplomatic measures, and also military measures if such need arises," Vladimir Shamanov said on Tuesday before the State Duma plenary session. "Not a single unlawful action will be left without response," he added.
The Russian general noted that Americans "should not pin hope on their Navy groups and on their fakes." "We are a sovereign country, we have allies and guarantors of the events that are taking place in Syria," he said.
There are 61 Russian criminals living in London who have stolen around $10 billion from their home country, according to Russia's prosecutor general, who is demanding that the money should be returned.
"Since 2002, we have made requests to the UK for 61 extraditions. These people are accused or already convicted in Russia for committing economic crimes, the amount of damage is more than half a trillion rubles ($10 billion). This is only direct damage, the amount of money they siphoned off is much higher," Yuri Chaika told Russia's NTV channel.
In February, the UK government issued a warning to rich Russians living in Britain that it could seize assets worth more than £50,000 ($70,565) if the origin of the wealth can't be explained.
"And I assure you, it will be very difficult for many of them to explain their wealth. We very much hope the British authorities will stick to the laws of a civilized state, and not by the principle of stealing the stolen money," the prosecutor general added.
According to Chaika, Russia is concerned that Britain will pocket the stolen money. "You can keep the criminals, but return the money. This is our money," Chaika said.
London and other British cities have long been a safe haven for Russian runaway criminals. Until the relations between Russia and the UK deteriorated in the recent years, British officials never cared about Russian tycoons hiding in the country since the 1990s.
"They were not concerned before because they approved of the wholesale theft of Russia's wealth back then, and the Yeltsin regime which facilitated it," former MP George Galloway told RT in February.
"The British government is acting now for hypocritical reasons entirely based on its conflict with today's Russian government and President Putin in particular," he added.
"It frees up our resources and allows us to put more agents at the border instead of in support," said Judd, who has served as a Border Patrol agent for 20 years. "The National Guard is going to be a huge boon especially considering how understaffed we are."
The Border Patrol is currently operating about 2,000 agents short of its congressionally mandated floor, and efforts to fill vacancies and add to its rolls on top of that level are not going well. In fiscal 2017, the agency actually lost more agents than it brought on. CBP has for the last two years gone to Congress and conceded it required $200 million less in its appropriation for hiring because it could not keep pace with what it had anticipated. This occurred in spite of President Trump's demands that the agency hire 5,000 new agents.
"It's absolutely a contributing factor" to the deployment of the guard, Judd said of the hiring woes.
"Could this [chemical weapons attack] be a play by them [Assad, Putin and Iran] to provoke or test President Trump?"Assad is using chemical weapons, in a war he is clearly winning, in order to test Trump's resolve...makes a lot of strategic and geopolitical sense.
Comment: See also: Fake Chemical Weapons Attacks Are West's Strategy For Undermining Russia in Syria