Russia Defense Report: The Hero of Palmyra

The former US National Security Agency worker said Turkey warned Belgium that some of the men behind the attacks were involved in terrorist activities

Spy whistleblower Edward Snowden claims the terror attacks in Brussels could have been stopped because Turkey shared information about the killers with Belgian security forces.

The former US National Security Agency worker, who is described as a traitor by British and American intelligence services after leaking huge amounts of data relating to mass surveillance, was referring to reports that Turkey warned Belgium that some of the men behind the attacks were involved in terrorist activities.

Snowden, speaking from an undisclosed location in Russia at a video conference hosted in Tucson, Arizona by the University of Arizona College of Behavioral Sciences, also cited news stories that Russia warned the US about the Tsarnaev brothers, who were behind the Boston Marathon bombing, but the authorities did not take any action, reports Sabah.

A total of 31 people died and hundreds more were injured in the terror attacks on the Belgian capital, with ISIS later claiming responsibility.

In 2011, Donald Rumsfeld went on a radio and television tour to promote sales of his revisionist memoir. Of course, most hosts refused to ask him any questions of substance. However, one radio host hailing out of Chicago, Mancow Muller, was unafraid of asking hard-hitting questions.

On the show, Mancow asked Donald Rumsfeld what his thoughts were on World Trade Center Tower 7. His answer was ridiculous.

"What is building 7? ...I've never heard that before." said Donald Rumsfeld

Amazingly, some folks still believe that only two towers fell that fateful day back in September 2011. The fact that Tower 7, a 47-story building, collapsed, was but a small blip in the media. Since 9/11, World Trade Center Tower 7 is rarely, if at all mentioned in the mainstream media.

Insanely enough, when tower 7 is mentioned to some people, they think that it's a conspiracy theory that it fell.

For the second time in 2016, Pakistani Prime Minister, Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, paid an official visit to Riyadh in March. He took part in the closing ceremony of the Northern Thunder military exercise in the Saudi desert. The intensity of the visits is dictated by the importance of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in the foreign policy of Pakistan, as well as the need to maintain a balanced approach to the countries of the region as a whole, given the recent intensification of relations with Iran. It is noteworthy that it is also the second time that the Prime Minister was accompanied by Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif on a foreign trip to the KSA. Much remains yet to be clarified.

Military contacts between Islamabad and Riyadh have been maintained for several decades. The first bilateral agreements were signed back in the 60's; in the 80's, two teams of Pakistani ground troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia. In recent years, the commands of the two capitals hold annual joint military exercises, for example, Al Shihab-1 in 2015.

Despite the significant financial support from the KSA of social, economic, military and other projects in Pakistan, the relationship between the royal dynasty and the military and civil administration of Islamabad were not always smooth. The most recent failure occurred in March 2016. The royal family appealed to the Prime Minister, N. Sharif (and he publicly promised) to post part of the Pakistani army in the zone of military conflict in Yemen against Huthis Shiite in support of the KSA. But after ten days under the pretext of protecting only the holy places, the National Assembly of Pakistan (the lower house of parliament) refused. The Pakistani media wrote about a certain pressure the generals applied to parliamentarians.

The latest of Riyadh's military appeals to Islamabad, announced in December 2015 as part of an alliance of 34 countries to combat the terrorist threat in the region, once again caused a lot of questions from the military leadership of Pakistan, as well as Malaysia and Lebanon about the goals and objectives of the new military campaign, the place and role of each participating country. For a long time, issues remained unclear related to the operational strategy, antiterrorist working methods, management, control and composition of the proposed cooperation. For two months, Islamabad did not comment. Sharif's visit to Riyadh in March lifted the veil. According to the Pakistani media, Rawalpindi (the location of the Army headquarters) plans for its participation to include the exchange of intelligence information, the supply of military equipment and the development of counter-extremist propaganda.

Apparently, the West has not been too happy that Damascus and Moscow scored one of the most significant victories against Daesh by pushing the brutal group out of Palmyra, the monumental ruins of a once prosperous ancient city that not so long ago attracted as many as 150,000 tourists annually.

In an interview with Sputnik, foreign policy expert Andranik Migranyan confirmed that liberation of one of the greatest historical monuments in the world should have necessarily attracted major global attention. But it did not.

"There is no way that the West could have truly appreciated and celebrated this event since the city was freed by the Syrian Arab Army assisted by Russia," the political scientist explained. He called Palmyra's liberation "a triumph" both for Damascus and Moscow, but added that the strategically important city was freed by those people, whom the West "would not really want to see as triumphant."

Source - Translated by K.A.

When President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin acknowledged the military personnel, who had particularly distinguished themselves in Syria, in the Kremlin last week, few people knew that Colonel General Aleksandr Dvornikov, who was honoured with the title Hero of Russia, had commanded our troops in that Arab country for almost 6 months.

Previously the name of the military leader, who held the post of first Deputy-Chief of Staff of the Central Military District, was never mentioned in connection with the air - and especially not with the ground - operation against the terrorists. And only a narrow circle of people was even aware that Dvornikov was sent on assignment to Syria, that he was directing our units and coordinating their interaction with the local government forces.

The details of many of the combat operations developed and executed under Dvornikov's command are still classified. Nevertheless, in this exclusive interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the general recounted some of the events of his Syrian campaign for the first time.

The Syrian Army is unearthing a mass grave consisting of at least 40 corpses, many of them women and children. They were butchered by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in the recently liberated ancient city of Palmyra.

The grave was discovered by engineers and "popular defense forces" in the Masakin al-Jahizia neighborhood of the city, which lies only 500 meters from the ancient ruins, SANA reports.

So far the army has recovered 25 corpses. Among those killed by IS were three children and five females. As the excavation proceeded, 15 more corpses were unearthed - all of them women and children.

The great German statesman Otto von Bismarck once said, "Political judgement is the ability to hear the distant hoof-beats of the horse of history." The Kremlin's decision to establish a military base on the disputed Kuril Islands in north-east Asia must be considered a matter of political judgement. Moscow intends to write history with the hope that history will, thereafter, be kind to it.

Nonetheless, it has been a low-key 'announcement', made inter alia by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu during a routine meeting of his ministry's board in Moscow on Friday. Perhaps, it cannot even be regarded as an 'announcement'.

Shoigu simply disclosed that a team from the Russian Pacific Fleet is being dispatched to the disputed islands on a 3-month mission to determine the feasibility of building a naval base at a suitable location somewhere on the Greater Kuril Ridge.

Hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan have reportedly flared up overnight, with reports of gun and mortar fire coming from the border. Moscow has called for an end to hostilities. Both Azeri and Armenian defense ministries accused each other of provoking the escalation. Azerbaijan said Armenian troops opened fire 127 times over 24 hours along the border. They are using mortars and heavy machine guns, the statement released on Saturday said.

Armenia said Azeri troops went on the offensive overnight and are using tanks artillery and military aircraft. Militias in the unrecognized Karabakh republic, the focal point of the conflict, claimed they shot down an Azeri helicopter gunboat. Azerbaijan has denied those reports. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on all sides in the conflict to immediately cease hostilities, the Kremlin spokesman said.

The United States Army in Europe plans to significantly bolster its military presence in Eastern Europe, US European Command officials said on Wednesday.

By February 2017, the US military plans to maintain a "permanent footprint" of three combat brigades stationed on the continent. The deployments will include 250 combat vehicles, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, Bradley and Paladin Fighting Vehicles, howitzers and thousands of troops.

The 4,200-strong rotation, positioned along NATO's border with Russia, including deployments in Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Romania, will come in addition to 62,000 US personnel already stationed in Europe.

"This is a big step in enhancing the Army's rotational presence and increasing their combat equipment in Europe," US General Philip Breedlove said.