While French police are yet to connect the dots in the latest terrorist attack to hit the European country, the truck massacre in Nice demonstrated that encroaching electronic surveillance doesn't protect from lone wolf attacks, a former MI5 agent told RT.

The terrorist attack at a Bastille Day celebration in the sea resort claimed 84 lives and left a hundred people injured when a lone man mowed down a rejoicing crowd with a heavy truck. The massacre was one in a series to hit France in the past two years.

The apparent security failure indicates that dragnet electronic surveillance cannot substitute more traditional forms of intelligence gathering, particularly human sources, Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer, told RT.

After weeks of heavy clashes and destructive air strikes in Manbij, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are taking upper hand in the battle against ISIS terrorist group.

The SDF (the Kurdish YPG and Arab militias) has almost sezied the southwestern part of city and now is advancing towards the city center.

Meanwhile, the groups of ISIS fighters remain besieged at areas near Tetbekat prison and al Basel hospital. If they are taken, the SDF will be able to launch a full-scale advance on the city center.

In the northwestern part of Manbij, Kurdish units surrounded Al Asqa Mosque that is located west of the Manbij City Hall.

On July 15th, at around 23:00, the press reported a military coup d'etat in Turkey. In Ankara, shots rang out, and there were military planes and helicopters over the city. Within minutes, Turkish Prime Minister Yıldırım announced an attempt at a military coup. The main airports of the country were closed and many flights are delayed or canceled. Around midnight, martial law was imposed in the country. Events unfolded rapidly. The world's media, under the control of globalist elites, began to cover events as if the rebels had almost succeeded. Media actively disseminated the rumors that President Erdogan had reportedly fled the country.

In fact, the president was ready to fight to the last minute and urged the Turkish people to take to the streets to defend democracy: "I look forward to all our people on the streets, in the squares. I do not believe that those who attempted the coup have achieved their goal, and they will suffer the most severe punishment," the Turkish President said. Hundreds of thousands of Turkish citizens came out onto the street. At about two o'clock in the morning, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said that the instigators of the coup were arrested. The head of Turkish intelligence Them Yilmaz confirmed this news. At about four o'clock in the morning, Erdogan addressed the nation and directly pointed out the instigators of the coup.

Mutineers managed from the United States

The attempt at a military coup was undertaken by the supporters of the Islamist leader Fethullah Gulen and his movement "Khizmat". Gülen lives in Pennsylvania in the United States and cooperates with US intelligence agencies. He is known as the main opponent of Erdogan, who was formerly his ally. It was Gulen's structures that stood behind the notorious "Ergenekon" case when thousands of high-ranking military men were thrown in jail, including the entire leadership of the Turkish General Staff.

CNN's Dana Bash reported Friday that GOP candidate Donald Trump was uncertain about his selection for vice presidential running mate — so much so that he asked his aides at midnight whether there was any way to avoid it.

Trump took the unprecedented step of suddenly announcing that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence would be his running mate on Twitter — with what seemed like little forewarning to his campaign team. The announcement came after Trump had promised to make it over the weekend, out of respect for victims of the truck attack in Nice, France on Thursday night.

Never has the US-led conspiracy against the sovereign state of Syria been so transparent. When recently a Syrian warplane crashed near the Syrian capital of Damascus and its pilot parachuted to safety, he was captured and promptly executed by US-backed "moderate rebels." In what was clearly an inexcusable war crime, the story began to change almost immediately in order to shift the blame..

Reuters in its article, "Syrian warplane crashes near Damascus, rebels say pilot killed," would report (emphasis added):

The rebel group Jaish al-Islam said the pilot had been killed by a Nusra Front fighter while being held at a joint command centre. Jaish al-Islam had earlier said he would be handed over to them because they had shot down his plane.

Jaish al-Islam, which controls territory on the Syrian capital's eastern and northeastern outskirts, had earlier circulated a photo that it said showed the pilot.

The incident highlights several inconvenient facts. First, it exposes the fact that Jaish al-Islam through its own admission maintains a "joint command center" with Jubhat al Nusra - a US State Department designated foreign terrorist organization - meaning that Jaish al-Islam itself is coordinating with and fighting alongside listed terrorists.

That Jaish al-Islam receives significant material support from US allies including Saudi Arabia and NATO-member Turkey implicates both US allies in supporting Al Nusra as well - as these resources are demonstrably being shared.

It should also be noted that it was - a militant front openly collaborating with Al Qaeda - that was chosen by the so-called "Syrian opposition committee" to represent them at so-called "peace talks" held by the UN earlier this year.

Yes, it was a quiet limited upheaval right here in Turkey, organized by a small group of commanders within the Turkish army forces. The Turkish forces high commanders immediately rejected the coup d'état. So, the Turkish armed forces, in unity, rejected this upheaval from the beginning. The officers, who organized this coup d'état completely belong to the CIA/US-based Gulen's organization. In fact, the upheaval was the answer to a case of inquiry, opened against two thousand officers, who belong to the Gulen's sect (cult). Also the upheaval is the answer to Turkey's fight against the PKK. Officially, the organizers of overturn said that they are for the peace in the country and for peace with the PKK. They also declared that they rejected all the measures against Gulenists. But truly, the upheaval is definitely an answer to changes in Turkish policy, which is getting closer to its neighbors - the rapprochement between Turkey and Russia, the convergence with Syria, and new stage of political relations with Egypt. This upheaval was definitely American sabotage as the reaction of Turkish foreign and domestic policy, which does not match with America's interests. America is very worried about our fight against the PKK, that is why they organized this attempt of a takeover.

The public rejection of this upheaval shows that there is strong support of president Erdogan's policy. Gulen is a sect. Definitely, Kemalists did not support this sect in the overturn. The military, all different parties, including our Patriotic Party, we all supported the legal government.

Turkish police have urgently ramped up their presence in Istanbul, with special forces and military hardware deployed to the streets and orders to down aircraft without warning, following unconfirmed reports of rebel helicopters approaching the city. Meanwhile, F-16 fighter jets have been sent to patrol Turkish airspace.

A state of emergency has been imposed in Istanbul and 1,800 additional special police forces have been deployed, the state Anadolu Agency reported.

Armored vehicles have also been deployed to key locations in Istanbul, Sputnik news agency reported earlier.

Unconfirmed media reports claimed that unidentified helicopters have been spotted over the city, two days after rebel aircraft were used in a military coup attempt to attack police and government buildings in Ankara.

Zbarackniew BrzObamski

One of Barack Obama's dirty little secrets when he first ran for the United States presidency was that he was first and foremost an Empire man. Beneath his illusory and carefully crafted brand as an antiwar candidate and behind the primacy of domestic questions (chiefly the onset of the Great Recession and the color of the mixed-race Obama's skin) in the 2008 election, Obama's main goal was to sit atop the "Great Game" of global empire. All his stump speaking on "hope" and "change" in the homeland was just fluff on the path to wielding power on the world stage, the main place where the U.S. presidents are free to make history.

Obama's special passion for imperialism goes back to his days at Columbia University early in the Reagan era. There he fell under the influence of the legendary Russia-hating U.S. imperial strategist and "international relations" professor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who would become a top foreign policy adviser for candidate Obama. Like the Strangelovian maestro Brzezinski, Obama opposed George W. Bush's clumsy invasion of Iraq not because it was a moral and legal crime but because it was bad for imperialism.

Obama's foreign policy as president has been consistent with Brzezinski's and other top Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) strategists' call for the U.S. to shift the focus of its aggression from the Middle East and on to bigger and more dangerous post-/neo-Cold War targets: China and Russia. As the eminent left Australian author, filmmaker, and political commentator John Pilger recently observed in an essay titled "A World War Has Begun":

Today is the second anniversary of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and we still do not know the explanation.

Washington and its European vassal politicians and media instantly politicized the event: The Russians did it. End of story. After 15 months of heavy anti-Russian propaganda had imprinted the message on peoples' minds, the Dutch Safety Board issued its inconclusive report.

By then, it was irrelevant what the report said. Everyone already knew that "the Russians did it."

I remember when pre-trial media accusations resulted in dismissed cases. Anyone declared guilty prior to presentation of evidence and conviction was considered to have been convicted in advance and unable to receive a fair trail. Such cases were dismissed by judges.

Washington's story never made any sense. Neither Russia nor the separatists in the Donetsk region had any reason to shoot down a Malaysian airliner. In contrast Washington had enormous incentives as Washington's propaganda machine could place the blame on Russia and use the incident to compel European governments to accept Washington's sanctions placed on Russia.

It worked for Washington. Washington successfully used the incident to wreck Europe's political and economic relationships with Russia.

Four months into the anti-Russian propaganda campaign, a website called Bellingcat, claiming to be an open source site for citizen journalists, but which could be a MI-5, MI-6, or CIA front, issued a report that the Buk missile was fired by a Russian unit, the 53rd Buk Brigade, based in the Russian city of Kursk. This allegation exposed the propaganda for what it is.

The Hybrid War In Practice

Connecting The Three Pieces:

Each of the three forces described above have their own specific uses in the US' destabilization template against Zimbabwe, but on their own, they're insufficient to produce the desired result. Therefore, the US has consolidated them together via the Color Revolution coordination mechanism and is indirectly multi-managing their activities for maximum effect. Mawarire is the media-friendly face of the Color Revolution and the 'bait' for attracting faith-based individuals out into the street. His predictable arrest means that he'll become a global "democracy" icon in the coming weeks and be exploited by hostile Western governments as part of their information warfare operations against Mugabe. The more successful that Mawarire's 'martyrdom' and the corresponding Western media aggression around it are, the more probable it is that masses of people will flood into the streets and join his Color Revolution, thus intensifying the economic civil war by grinding the capital's commerce to a halt.

In response to expected provocations on the side of the "opposition", the military and related security forces will probably be ordered to disband the anti-government manifestations, but they might be hesitant to do so if this means that they must clash with the respected ZNLWVA veterans. Even if they faithfully carry out their duties, the Western media-manipulated and decontextualized image of young soldiers/police arresting independence-era veterans or forcible defending themselves from their attacks ("an unprovoked assault on democratic protesters", in Western parlance) could be enough to push segments of society over the edge and into violent insurgency against the government. Some servicemen might join them out of 'solidarity' with their 'fellow soldiers', which could damage the military's unity and significantly increase the capacities of the anti-government guerrillas in any forthcoming Unconventional War, whether waged in the urban areas, the rural ones, or both.