Yesterday three high ranking Russian officers were killed in an "ISIS attack" in eastern-Syrian. It is likely that they were killed by U.S. special forces or insurgents under U.S. special forces control. The incident will be understood as a declaration of war.


The U.S. Central Command in the Middle East wants the oil fields in east-Syria under control of its proxy forces to set up and control a U.S. aligned Kurdish mini-state in the area. The Syrian government, allied with Russia, needs the revenues of the oil fields to rebuild the country.

Last week the Russians issued sharply worded statements against U.S. coordination with al-Qaeda terrorists in Idleb province and warned of further escalation.

Yesterday the Russian Ministry of Defense accused the U.S. military in east-Syria of direct collaboration with the Islamic State:

US Army special units provide free passage for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) through the battle formations of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists, the ministry said in a statement.

"Facing no resistance of the ISIS militants, the SDF units are advancing along the left shore of the Euphrates towards Deir ez-Zor," the statement reads.

The newly released images "clearly show that US special ops are stationed at the outposts previously set up by ISIS militants."

"Despite that the US strongholds being located in the ISIS areas, no screening patrol has been organized at them," the Russian Ministry of Defense said.

Trump's war on the press may be spilling over into the Defense Department, journalists fear.

Pentagon reporters are complaining of decreased access to Defense Secretary James Mattis, as well as a reduction in journalists allowed to travel on official trips, at a time when the Trump administration is dealing with national security challenges from the Middle East to North Korea.

Under Mattis, the Defense Department has become less transparent and publicly accountable than it has been in previous administrations, according to interviews with numerous reporters who cover the beat. The reporters requested anonymity, saying they feared that being quoted by name could lead to further loss of access.

"This is the worst relationship I've seen," said one Pentagon reporter who also covered the department under multiple secretaries of defense during President Barack Obama's administration.

Under previous administrations, all three wire services - The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse - had typically been allowed to cover each trip made by the defense secretary. But that hasn't been the case under Mattis. In response to the Pentagon excluding a Reuters correspondent from an upcoming trip, a spokesperson for the wire service declared that the decision "breaks with decades of standing practice."

At the same time, Mattis appears to be becoming increasingly wary of the press, said an administration official close to the situation.

The upgrade of Russia's sovereign credit rating by the Fitch agency has raised questions over the fairness of previous downgrades. The 'Big Three' have repeatedly been accused by Russian authorities of deliberately underestimating the country's economy.

RT talked to investing guru and financial commentator Jim Rogers who said the American rating agencies are incompetent and have "made a lot mistakes in the past decades."

"They've been so wrong so many times in the past. They are totally incompetent; they don't know what they are doing," said Rogers.

According to the investor, Russia's ratings will continue to go higher as it has very low debt compared with most countries in the world and its economy is getting better.

Russia's Gazprom has topped the S&P Global Platts 250 rating of the world's energy companies. The company has ousted US oil and gas giant ExxonMobil which reigned for 12 years.

The Russian company is focused on geological exploration, production, transportation, storage, processing and sales of gas, gas condensate and oil, sales of gas as a vehicle fuel, as well as generation and marketing of heat and electric power.

Gazprom has the largest reserves of natural gas in the world and is among Russia's top four oil producers.

The New World Order. Is it here? Is it on the way? What does the New World Order really mean? Leaving aside the conspiracy theory definition where a secret elite has been planning to replace nations states and install a 'one world government', a few notable 20th century politicians used the term (most of them from Western nations) to describe a new period of history characterized by a dramatic change in world political thought and the balance of power after the 20th century's 2 world wars.

That 'new balance of power' when referred to by Woodrow Wilson, Churchill and George HW Bush, was decidedly weighted towards the USA and its allies. Bush used the term along with Gorbachev to describe a post Cold War era and a spirit of co-operation between the 'Great Powers'. But in 1990, when Bush and Gorbachev made their speech, Russia was no longer a 'great power', and Bush felt comfortable qualifying the idea of 'co-operation' by saying "there is no substitute for American leadership". The post WW2 and post Cold War New World Order was in reality a euphemism for the 'New American Century' where America would reign supreme and unchallenged.

As we sit here in the year 2017 and look at the world around us, we see that America's vision for a NWO and New American Century is in shambles, with the architects of the American Empire reduced to setting fire (literally and figuratively) to countries in a futile attempt to stave off the moment of its complete collapse.

This week on BTH we'll be taking a look at the real new world order that is taking shape and how it radically diverges from the supposedly well laid plans of the Western political elite. We'll also be gazing into our crystal balls to predict what moves on the grand chessboard can be expected as the anglo-American empire builders grow increasingly desperate.

6-8pm CET (4-6pm UTC / 12-2pm EST), only on SOTT!

Running Time: 01:56:48

Download: MP3

It's all too easy for Western governments, their media and 'NGOs' to jerk the emotional chains of Western populations. A humanitarian crisis can be ongoing for years, but if Western governments have nothing to gain from it (or are partly responsible for it), the Western media says little about it and the populations of Western nations remain oblivious. If, on the other hand, Western governments decide that some beleaguered group of people should become the next humanitarian cause célèbre in service to some geopolitical intrigue, the Western press is activated and suddenly everyone is 'up in arms' with calls to 'do something' to help the poor [insert name of ethnic or religious group in specific geopolitical hotspot]. You could call it 'humanitarian imperialism'.

The whole world has had several masterclasses in this kind of manipulation, from babies in incubators in Kuwait in 1991 to helping the poor Bosnian and Kosovar Muslims in Yugoslavia in 1999 to '45 minutes to Iraqi WMD destruction' in 2003, to the more recent and unsophisticated ploy of claiming that a given leader of a given nation is a 'dictator killing his own people'. Despite these opportunities to inform themselves about how the world really works, like Pavlov's dogs, the global population can still be relied on to react in the wrong way at the sounding of the 'humanitarian' bell.

A serviceman of the Russian Military Police platoon in north Hama countryside was filmed rescuing a Syrian soldier wounded by a massive jihadi attack that was launched on Tuesday and targeted a platoon of the Russian Military Police monitoring the de-escalation zone, Muraselon reported.

The Russian soldiers fought off the attack for several hours before a battalion of the Syrian Army's Special Operations arrived to help secure the Russian allies, the Muraselon report continued.

On September 19, terrorists launched a large-scale offensive on military positions. Once surrounded, Russian servicemen fought off attacks from the terrorists for several hours. At first, the militants covered the battlefield with powerful mortar and artillery fire, and then went on the attack with pickup trucks equipped that had large-caliber machine guns.

A new extended travel ban announced by Donald Trump's administration will restrict travel to the US from North Korea and Venezuela, as well as from Iran, Chad, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia - countries included in previous bans - based on "security or safety threat."

The new restrictions, which come as a result of a review of previous travel bans challenged in American courts, are set to take effect on October 18.

"North Korea does not cooperate with the United States government in any respect and fails to satisfy all information-sharing requirements," the Sunday proclamation said, explaining the addition.

The document, titled "Presidential Proclamation Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry Into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats," was published on the White House's website.

The army soldiers engaged in fierce clashes with ISIL in Eastern Deir Ezzur and the Southern part of Raqqa province, imposing control over the regions of al-Jaber, Qisiyeh, Tishrin 6, Maqlat Saqireh, Qanem Ali, Hardaneh, al-Naserah, Namisiyeh, al-Ramah, Jabileh, Tal Qanem and Wadi Abu Souseh.

The ISIL suffered heavy casualties and its military hardware sustained major damage in the attacks.

Local sources confirmed on Saturday that the ISIL executed one of its own senior commanders on unknown charges in Deir Ezzur province as the Syrian Army troops continue advancing in the province, adding that a number of terrorist commanders have also escaped the battlefield.

Raging Kim Jong-un spat a stream of insults at Donald trump last night - calling him a "mentally deranged dotard" and a "rogue and a gangster".

But the North Korean dictator's colourful insults are just the latest in a long line of outright bizarre political put-downs thrown out by the brutal regime.

State mouthpiece KCNA has been dealing out hits against US and international politicians for years, perfecting a style that's veered from jaw-dropping to shockingly racist.