The U.S. government contractors caught in a blast at a firing range in Bulgaria last week were working on a U.S. military program to train and equip moderate rebels in Syria, the U.S. embassy in Sofia said on Wednesday.

One American contractor was killed and two more were injured when a rocket-propelled grenade malfunctioned at a military range near the village of Anevo on Saturday. Two Bulgarians were also injured in the explosion.

The embassy, in a statement sent to Reuters, said the contractors are employees a U.S.-based firm called Purple Shovel, which was awarded a contract by the U.S. military's Special Operations Command.

Sputnik's Arabic bureau has obtained photos of a decree by Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) leaders instructing its fighters not to attack US-led coalition aircraft operating over Mosul and the surrounding area.

The document, discovered in the recently-liberated Iraqi city of Bakhdida, about 32 km southeast of the Daesh-held stronghold of Mosul, explicitly tells jihadis not to attack any coalition aircraft over Mosul or its suburbs.

Just days before a crucial French presidential primary, former President Nicolas Sarkozy is facing fresh allegations that he received millions of euros in illegal campaign financing from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

An investigation into the case, involving funding for Sarkozy's successful 2007 presidential campaign, has been underway since 2013.

In a video interview with the investigative website Mediapart released Tuesday, a French-Lebanese businessman, Ziad Takieddine, said he delivered three suitcases from Libya, containing 5 million euros in cash, to Sarkozy and his former chief of staff and campaign director, Claude Guéant.

Takieddine said he had given a written deposition to judges on November 12 detailing three cash handovers between 2006 and 2007 and his meetings with Guéant and Sarkozy.

At no point, he says, did he see the two men look inside the cases after he dropped them off at the Interior Ministry, where Sarkozy was minister at the time.

President-elect Donald Trump's talk of direct U.S.-Russian military coordination in the war against the Islamic State in Syria is already drawing criticism on Capitol Hill and has Pentagon and State Department officials scrambling over how to implement the sharp shift in policy in the months ahead.

As a candidate, Mr. Trump — who spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday night — repeatedly criticized the Obama administration for failing to coordinate better with Russia in the fight against the Islamic State, saying Moscow and Washington had a common goal in destroying the jihadi movement.

Career military officials and diplomats say they will implement whatever policy the coming administration orders, but sources behind the scenes say the most immediate collaboration with Moscow is likely to center on reviving a stalled Obama administration plan that calls for joint U.S.-Russian airstrikes in Syria.

When the liberal left media demonizes someone, it usually mean they are a patriot.

The liberal left, progressive media is demonizing Donald Trump's newly appointed White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon.

He is being called an anti-semite, misogynist, racist, bigot, neo-nazi, and just about everything else you would expect the Hillary Clinton left of accusing anyone who is #NotWithHer.

The truth about Steve Bannon is very far from what the media is describing, and that is why we urge you to view the video from TheRebel.media to get a clearer picture about the man who helped Trump win the US Presidency, and will be by his side as he enters the White House.

Trump has chosen Breitbart's Steve Bannon as White House counsel. Ezra Levant of TheRebel.media addresses accusations that Bannon is anti-Semitic.

Here are 5 stunning facts about the 2016 election ...

(1) The Clinton Campaign Promoted Trump as a Republican Candidate

Team Clinton promoted Donald Trump as a Republican candidate ... because they thought he'd be easy to beat:


(2) Sanders Had a Better Chance of Beating Trump ... But the Democratic Establishment Sabotaged Him

Polls showed that Bernie Sanders might well have beaten Trump. Not only did Sanders score much higher in likeability than Clinton, but many moderate voters actually preferred Sanders.

Remember, Sanders (like Trump) created a tremendous amount of excitement, with massive turnout at his rallies. Clinton didn't.

Clinton lost because Democrats stayed home ... because they weren't excited about her.

In October this year, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released the results of a nationwide survey of Muslim voters on the Presidential election. The survey took place after the first Presidential debate, and more than 800 Muslim voters were interviewed. Their results indicated that 72 percent of registered Muslim voters would vote to elect Hillary Clinton, with only 4 percent voting for Donald Trump.

An earlier survey of 2000 registered Muslim voters in California, New York, Illinois, Florida, Texas, and Virginia - the states with the highest Muslim populations - conducted in late January this year by CAIR, suggests that 52% of registered Muslim voters intended to vote for Hillary and 7% for Trump.

While it is difficult to say how many American Muslims voted for which candidate, the above results indicate that the majority (about 1 million) might have preferred Hillary to be their new President. Many among those surveyed by CAIR disapproved of Trump's proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, and many others have shown concern regarding the increase in anti-Muslim sentiment, blaming it on Trump's "anti-Islam comments" and proposed policy. Now with Trump as President-elect, fear among several Muslims increased:

"There are lots and lots of people who aren't going out of the house," said Eboo Patel, a Muslim who heads the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based organization that works with colleges and government officials to build interreligious relationships. [...]

"There is an intense state of anxiety about the future," said Rami Nashashibi, a parent of three and executive director of Chicago's Inner-City Muslim Action Network, which has been inundated with calls seeking support since Election Day.

Is this fear justified, or is it a result of the pro-Hillary fear-mongering mainstream media where anything racist or Islamophobic Trump has said or did was amplified a thousand-fold? Unfortunately many seem to forget that it was exactly those media channels, which suddenly appeared to care about anti-Muslim comments, that encouraged Islamophobia in the first place.

As Middle East Eye writer Mohamed Ghilan wrote in his 2015 article 'How the US media is promoting Islamophobia': "The primary culprit in the rise of Islamophobia in the US is the media, and it starts with the insane amount of time dedicated to covering the unfortunate, yet isolated events of violence perpetuated by Muslims. To produce content, they fill their airtime with speculation devoid from facts."

President-elect Donald Trump has taken to Twitter again, blasting the media for speculating about his transition team and cabinet appointments. While the press has described the transition as chaotic and confused, Trump called it a "very organized process."


Trump's team needs to find and hire 4,000 political appointees to fill federal government offices, from cabinet-level positions to White House and agency staff, Reuters reported. Last week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was replaced at the helm of the team by Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

Pence has reportedly eliminated all lobbyists from the transition team, according to the Wall Street Journal. Among those ousted were former Michigan congressman Mike Rogers, who handled national security business, and Matthew Freedman, who worked on defense and foreign policy.

Is a color revolution underway in the U.S? Well a number of articles argue that this is the case. Most in the U.S. might not have heard much about color revolutions as they have tended to occur outside of the borders of the U.S. and most thus are unprepared for the telltale signs of when such a revolution is underway. A lot of countries around the world have been on the receiving end of such revolutions, many of which have had the psychopath's psychopath George Soros as the master mind.

"Forewarned is forearmed", so it might be a good idea to have the knowledge to avoid being drawn into supporting such a 'revolution', which contrary to what it proclaims, never is about democracy and justice. The Chinese pastor Leung has outlined the 12 steps of regime change.

The key difference is that this time it is not the U.S. making regime change overseas, but in America itself to serve the powers that be.The 12 steps are:

1. Dispatch CIA, MI6 and other intelligence officers as students, tourists, volunteers, businessmen, reporters to the target country
2. Set up Non Governmental Organizations (NGO's) under the guise of humanitarianism to fight for "democracy" and "human rights" in order to attract advocates of freedom and ideals
3. Attract local traitors, especially academics, politicians, reporters, soldiers etc. through bribery or threaten those who have some stain in their life
4. If the target country has unions, bribe them
5. Pick a catchy theme or color for the revolution. Examples include the Praque spring (1968), Velvet Revolution (Eastern Europe, 1989), Rose Revolution (Georgia, 2003), Cedar Revolution (Lebanon, 2005), Orange Revolution (Ukraine 2004), Green Revolution (Iran), Jasmine Revolution, Arab Spring and even Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution
6. Start protests for whatever reasons to kick off the revolution. It could be human rights, democracy, government corruption or electoral fraud. Evidence isn't necessary; an excuse will do.
7. Write protest signs and banners in English to let Americans see and get Americans politicians and civilians involved
8. Let those corrupted politicians, intellectuals and union leaders join the protests and call upon all people with grievances to join
9. The US and European mainstream media help by continuously emphasizing that the revolution is caused by injustice and thereby gaining the support of the majority
10. When the whole world is watching stage a false-flag action. The target government will soon be destabilized and lose support among its people
11. Add in violent agent provocateurs to provoke the police to use force. This will cause the target government to lose the support of other countries and become "delegitimized" by the international community
12. Send politicians to the US, EU, the UN to petition so that the target government will face the threat of economic sanctions, no-fly zones and even airstrikes and an armed rebel uprising

Post-election comments on Middle East policy last week, by President-elect Donald Trump and one his campaign advisers have, provoked speculation about whether Trump will upend two main foreign policy lines of the Obama administration in the Middle East.

But the more decisive question about the future of US policy toward the region is whom Trump will pick for his national security team - and especially whether he will nominate John Bolton to become secretary of state.

Bolton, one of the most notorious members of Dick Cheney's team plotting wars in the George W Bush administration, would certainly push for the effective nullification of the main political barrier to US confrontation with Iran: the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal.

Personnel is policy

Trump created a minor stir by giving an interview to the Wall Street Journal last Thursday in which he reiterated his criticism of the Obama administration's involvement in the war against Syria's Assad and supported cooperation with Russia against the Islamic State group.