Puppet MastersS


MIB

Wikileaks: US consulate in Frankfurt is covert hacking base for CIA

Frankfurt
© AFP 2017/ DANIEL ROLAND
The US consulate in the German city of Frankfurt is used as a "covert CIA hacker base," with intelligence operatives receiving diplomatic passports and cover from the government, the whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks said Tuesday, citing the agency's confidential documents.

Earlier on Tuesday, the WikiLeaks began to release what it said was an unprecedentedly large archive of CIA-related classified documents.

"In addition to its operations in Langley, Virginia the CIA also uses the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt as a covert base for its hackers covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa. CIA hackers operating out of the Frankfurt consulate ("Center for Cyber Intelligence Europe" or CCIE) are given diplomatic ("black") passports and State Department cover," the whistleblowing organization said in a press release.

Jet2

Stranded pilot could lead to new ties between Syria and Turkey

MiG-23 fighter jet Syria
© Sputnik/ Dmitriy Vinogradov
On Saturday, militants of the Ahrar al-Sham Islamist coalition shot down a MiG-23 fighter jet of the Syrian Air Force. Debris of the plane was found near the Turkish border with Syria.

The pilot managed to eject and landed on the Turkish side of the border. He was found by a rescue team and admitted to a local state hospital in the province of Hatay.

The news comes amid a nationwide ceasefire in Syria between Damascus and Syrian rebels that came into force on December 30, and has been holding up in general, despite continued reports of violations.

Later, Ankara said that it would announce in the coming days whether it would handover the captured pilot to Syria.

Bad Guys

Just A Friendly Reminder That The US Democratic Establishment Is Trying To Start A War With Russia

Pelosi
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
Hillary Clinton was actively trying to start a hot war with Russia. Anyone who says she wasn't is either delusional or lying. She was promising to set up a no-fly zone in Syria, knowing (as testified by top military officials) that this would necessarily entail shooting down Russian military planes and starting a war with Russia. She also openly pledged "military responses" to the alleged (and still unproven) Russian "cyber attacks", another act of war. This woman, who already had an extensive history of actively pushing for disastrous acts of military intervention seemingly at every opportunity, campaigned on this language. I'm no Trump supporter, but I must admit I breathed a sigh of relief when she failed to win the election, saying, "Ahh, well at least that Russia nonsense is over and done with."

I was horrifyingly wrong. The corporate media and the US intelligence community, both of which are considered major components of the deep state power institution, began working together to keep cranking up the heat on the Russia hysteria higher and higher through "anonymous sources" providing information to deeply pro-establishment outlets like the CIA-funded Washington Post. If anyone in the Trump transition team did anything that looked even remotely friendly toward Russia, the corporate media would squeal and ring alarm bells for days. When they started keeping their acts of Russian diplomacy a secret, the intelligence community leaked it to the corporate media, who then started babbling about treason charges under something called the Logan Act, an obscure piece of legislation that has literally never once been used to prosecute anyone despite having existed for hundreds of years.

Beaker

Iraqi militia claims US assists in providing jihadists with explosive materials

Iraqi special forces
© REUTERS/ Goran Tomasevic
A local source in Iraq's city of Mosul told Sputnik that there are dozens of cases of children being injured as a result of a chemical attack carried out by Daesh terrorists. Similarly, the head of the information center of the People's Mobilization Forces of Iraq, Zu al-Fakkar al Baladawi, spoke to Sputnik about the use of chemical weapons.

In the eastern part of the city, in the district of Rashidiya, the terrorists fired four missiles which were stuffed with the poisonous substance. The missiles were fired from the western part of the city, which is held by Daesh, according to the source.

The source further said that the latest chemical attack was allegedly carried out using the newest technical devices. For the first time ever, the chemicals were placed inside a rocket. Judging by the nature of the damage, the terrorists clearly used a very dangerous substance.


Chess

Former Conservative leader calls for PM snap election to make May 'more legitimate' to EU leaders and Parliament

Theresa May
© Business Insider
Former Conservative leader William Hague has called for snap elections to give Prime Minister Theresa May more "legitimacy" in the eyes of EU leaders and Parliament ahead of Brexit negotiations.

Hague has suggested scrapping the Fixed-Term Parliament Act passed in 2011, under which the PM cannot dissolve Parliament before the five-year term is up, unless there is a Commons vote where two-thirds of MPs back early elections. The act could also be overridden if there is a vote of no confidence in the government.

"We have a new prime minister and Cabinet facing the most complex challenges of modern times: Brexit negotiations, the Trump administration, the threat from Scottish nationalists, and many other issues," Hague wrote in an opinion piece for the Telegraph.

Heart - Black

UK MoD leaves widows off guest list of ceremony to honor their loved ones

uk flag coffin
© Reuters
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) forgot to invite war widows to the unveiling of its new arms industry-funded war memorial to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

The memorial is due to be unveiled on Thursday to commemorate military and civilian personnel who served in the Gulf War, 2003 Iraq War and Afghanistan War.

Only 2,500 places were available at the opening at Victoria Gardens and the event afterwards at Horse Guards in central London, and a number of wives and families of soldiers killed in the wars say they have been snubbed.

"All the Hooray Henrys and the dignitaries will be there who haven't even lost anybody in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan - and they haven't even got the decency to write a letter to us to inform us of what is going on," Wendy Rayner, whose husband Peter Rayner was killed in Afghanistan, told the Times Tuesday.

Map

US illegally establishes airbase at Lafarge cement factory in Raqqa province

Satellite visuals recently taken of the “Lafarge” cement factory in northern Al-Raqqa province, shows a US military base containing a helipad
The US Army has illegally occupied a cement plant to be used as an airfield in Syria's northeast.

Satellite visuals recently taken of the "Lafarge" cement factory in northern Al-Raqqa province, shows a US military base containing a helipad.

The pad can be used for multiple kinds of war crafts and assault helicopters.

According to deep research in the satellite images, the airbase contains: military transport aircraft "Boeing CH-4 Chinook", in addition to the transfer helicopters of "Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey" and assault aircraft "AH-64 Apache".

Comment: More on the Lafarge cement company:


Red Flag

Iranian official: Over 2,000 fighters have been killed fighting in Syria and Iraq

iranian soldier
More than 2,000 fighters sent by Iran have been killed in conflicts in Syria and Iraq, according to the head of the Iranian veterans' affairs office.

"Currently we have 2,100 martyred shrine defenders," Mohammad Ali Shahidi was quoted as saying on March 6 by the semiofficial Mehr news agency.

Shahidi heads the Foundation of Martyrs and Veteran Affairs, which supports the relatives of those killed fighting for Iran.

He did not provide details on the nationalities of those killed.

Bullseye

Patrick Cockburn: Syrian war almost over, it looks like Assad has won

manbij us troops
© AFP/GettyA convoy of US forces armoured vehicles drives near the village of Yalanli, on the western outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Manbij, on March 5, 2017
Winners and losers are emerging in what may be the final phase of the Syrian civil war as anti-Isis forces prepare for an attack aimed at capturing Raqqa, the de facto Isis capital in Syria. Kurdish-led Syrian fighters say they have seized part of the road south of Raqqa, cutting Isis off from other its territory further east.

Isis is confronting an array of enemies approaching Raqqa, but these are divided, with competing agendas and ambitions. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whose main fighting force is the Syrian Kurdish Popular Mobilisation Units (YPG), backed by the devastating firepower of the US-led air coalition, are now getting close to Raqqa and are likely to receive additional US support. The US currently has 500 Special Operations troops in north-east Syria and may move in American-operated heavy artillery to reinforce the attack on Raqqa.

This is bad news for Turkey, whose military foray into northern Syria called Operation Euphrates Shield began last August, as it is being squeezed from all sides. In particular, an elaborate political and military chess game is being played around the town of Manbij, captured by the SDF last year, with the aim of excluding Turkey, which had declared it to be its next target. The Turkish priority in Syria is to contain and if possible reduce or eliminate the power of Syrian Kurds whom Ankara sees as supporting the Kurdish insurrection in Turkey.

Comment: Further reading on these developments in northern Syria: There's this too, hinting at a very slight advance in U.S./Russian cooperation in Syria:
  • Russian and US military chiefs meet in Turkey to discuss the fight against ISIS



Info

IAEA chief confident of 'very good cooperation' with U.S. on Iran nuclear deal

Yukiya Amano and Rex Tillerson
© AFPU.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (right) and International Atomic Energy Agency Director Yukiya Amano.
The head of the United Nations' atomic watchdog says he is confident after a visit to Washington that there will be "very good cooperation" with the United States on Iran's nuclear deal, despite harsh criticism of the agreement by U.S. President Donald Trump.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Yukiya Amano made the remarks in Vienna on March 6 following a visit to Washington where he met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Neither the IAEA nor the U.S. State Department has commented on the content of Amano's March 2 meeting with Tillerson.