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Eye 1

Hollande's reaction to Paris attacks: Amend constitution to allow for State powers similar to US Patriot Act, bomb Syrian infrastructure

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 21:16 UTC
Image
France, still reeling from the carnage that unfolded in the streets of Paris last Friday, conducted dozens upon dozens of police raids on Tuesday, after more than 160 similar operations carried out on Monday led to the discovery of numerous weapons including a rocket launcher, Kalashnikov, and a bulletproof vest.

French authorities are still largely in the dark regarding how many people were ultimately involved in the attack and with suspected "mastermind" Abdelhamid Abaaoud out of reach in Syria, police are focused on locating Salah Abdeslam who allegedly helped with logistics and rented a black Volkswagen Polo used by the gunmen who stormed the Bataclan concert hall.

Of course really, the raids are a frantic attempt to track down and neutralize anything and everything before something else bad happens. As Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on France Inter radio, "we don't know if there are accomplices in Belgium and in France... we still don't know the number of people involved in the attacks."

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says more than 100 people have been placed under house arrest and dozens have been arrested in the sweeping crackdown. "Under a state of emergency - which has been in place since the attacks on Friday - security services, police have extra powers and freedom to make arrests, search houses and confiscate weapons without judicial oversight," The Sydney Morning Herald notes.

Comment: The Russians are well aware that Western countries are avoiding striking ISIS directly As Lavrov so aptly put it:
"The problem around the U.S.-led coalition is that despite the fact that they declared its goal in fighting exclusively the Islamic State and other terrorists and pledged not to take any action against the Syrian army (...), analysis of the strikes delivered by the United States and its coalition at terrorist positions over the past year drives us to a conclusion that these were selective, I would say sparing, strikes and in the majority of cases spared those Islamic State groups that were capable of pressing the Syrian army," he said.

"It looks like a cat that wants to eat a fish but doesn't want to wet its feet. They want the Islamic State to weaken Assad as soon as possible to force him to step down this or that way but they don't want to see Islamic State strong enough to take power."


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Info

Lavrov says U.S. avoided ISIS targets fighting Syrian army - goading U.S. into rational foreign policy?


Moon of Alabama
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 20:34 UTC
lavrov
Throughout the last week the Russian airforce updated its target list in Syria. Plans were prepared, units designated, ammunition was loaded.

Today President Putin announced that the destruction of a Russian airliner with 224 people on board over the Sinai peninsula had indeed been an Islamic State terror attack. Traces of explosives were found on parts of the debris.

The Russian mission in Syria is no longer just to help the Syrian government but is now a matter of Russian national self-defense. The Russian parliament was not shy in assigning guilt:
"The recent tragic developments confirm the topicality of Russia's continuous warnings that permanent destabilization in the Middle East by those who claim global dominance, primarily the United States, could lead to the expansion of the zone of bloody chaos and entail numerous human tragedies," the document says. "France and other European states are, as a matter of fact, reaping the consequences of Washington's nearsighted and selfish policy."
There will now be no backing out for Russia and no time limit.

Comment: Like rats abandoning a sinking ship, more American officials are changing their rhetoric, aligning it with Russia's position. That includes Kissinger, retired ambassador Thomas Picking and CIA Director John Brennan (West should work with Russia against ISIS), ex-CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell (Working with Assad and Russia is mandatory to destroy ISIS), and Virginia Senator Richard Black (War on Syria was unlawful war of aggression). Then there are the French politicians, offering a surprising dose of sanity.

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Sherlock

Best of the Web: Putin: '40 countries finance ISIS, including some G20 members'


RT
Mon, 16 Nov 2015 14:29 UTC
Putin at g20
© Michael Klimentyev / RIA NovostiNovember 16, 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Antalya, Turkey.
President Vladimir Putin says he's shared Russian intelligence data on Islamic State financing with his G20 colleagues: the terrorists appear to be financed from 40 countries, including some G20 member states. During the summit, "I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them," Putin told the journalists.

Putin also spoke of the urgent need to curb the illegal oil trade by IS. "I've shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products," he said. "The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon," Putin added, comparing the convoy to gas and oil pipeline systems.

It's not the right time to try and figure out which country is more and which is less effective in the battle with Islamic State, as now a united international effort is needed against the terrorist group, Putin said. Putin reiterated Russia's readiness to support armed opposition in Syria in its efforts to fight Islamic State. "Some armed opposition groups consider it possible to begin active operations against IS with Russia's support. And we are ready to provide such support from the air. If it happens it could become a good basis for the subsequent work on a political settlement," he said. "We really need support from the US, European nations, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran," the president added.


Comment: ISIS receives funds from private investors in the Gulf countries, who want Assad removed, in particular Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Qatar also sends money to ISIS through Islamic charities. Substantial funds are generated via shady transactions in the south of the UK with banking services provided on the phone.

ISIS also gains up to one billion dollars annually from trafficking heroin from Afghanistan to Europe. Until the Russian airstrikes began, it was estimated that the main source of ISIS' income was smuggling oil and oil products from the occupied oil fields and refining capacities through Turkish, Kurdish and Jordanian intermediaries. The ISIS oil "business" was coordinated from Washington to inflict financial loss on Russia.

For more see: Funding terror: The financial sources of ISIS

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Star of David

Netanyahu unfreezes illegal settlement construction in West Bank


Sputnik
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 20:37 UTC
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
© REUTERS/ Tasfrir Abayov/Pool
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given a final approval to the construction of over 400 new housing units in the West Bank, local media reported on Tuesday.

According to the Haaretz newspaper, West Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo neighborhood will see another 436 housing units built, further expanding the Jewish settlement located on Palestinian territory. A similar move in 2010, when the Jerusalem municipality approved the construction of 1,600 apartments in the settlement, invoked condemnation from the United States and the European Union.

The project was approved in 2012 but the construction was later frozen. Netanyahu's latest decision lifted the construction freeze.

Comment: Looks like Netanyahu is slipping this in while the world's attention is focused on ISIL in Syria.

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Handcuffs

Arrest warrant issued for Netanyahu by Spanish judge outrages Israel


RT
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 20:09 UTC
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
© Reuters / Ronen Zvulun
Israel wants to quash an arrest warrant prepared by a Spanish judge for Benjamin Netanyahu over the deadly 2010 IDF attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla that killed ten people. The Israeli PM and six other former ministers would be arrested if they set foot on Spanish soil.
"We consider it to be a provocation," said an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson. "We are working with the Spanish authorities to get it cancelled. We hope it will be over soon."
Judge Jose de la Mata, who drew up the warrants, ordered the police and civil guard to notify them if any of the seven enter Spain. Israeli Defence forces carried out a deadly attack on the Freedom Flotilla aid ship Mavi Marmara, which was attempting to bring supplies to Gaza, in contravention of an Israeli-imposed blockade.

Nine activists were killed during the raid that took place in international waters some 150km from Gaza, one more died of wounds later that month. Autopsies revealed the nine Turkish men were shot with 30 bullets and five were killed with close-range bullets to the head.


Comment: Nice to see a judge with some sense, human decency, and courage. It is not a provocation to seek justice for the murder of those activists on the Freedom Flotilla. Rather the outrage is in how Israel responded to those seeking to aid Palestinians.

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Radar

UK RAF Reaper drone supports French anti-ISIS airstrikes in Raqqa


RT
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 20:17 UTC
General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drone
© Patrick T. Fallon / Reuters
A Royal Air Force (RAF) drone was used to provide surveillance for a wave of French airstrikes on the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, in the wake of the Paris attacks, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) claim.

The Reaper drone collected intelligence ahead of French jets which reportedly hit around a dozen targets on Sunday evening.

An RAF jet was also responsible for bombing 30 Islamic State militants near Sinjar, in northern Iraq, who were amassing to stage an attack on Kurdish fighters in the area. The MoD said the attack was "highly effective" and that most of the fighters had been killed.

Comment: So could this be the reason for France's poor aiming?

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USA

More bombs, more killing: US tests new nuclear gravity bomb


RT
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 20:02 UTC
Image
© nnsa.energy.gov
The US launched a third flight test of the newly upgraded B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb, which it says shows the nation's "continued commitment to security." The launch was completed by the US Air Force and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

The launch, which took place at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada on October 20, 2015, "provides additional evidence of the nation's continued commitment to our nation's security and that of our allies and partners," NNSA Deputy Administrator Madelyn Creedon said in a statement Monday.

She added that "this demonstration of effective end-to-end system performance under representative delivery conditions marks another 2015 achievement in the development of the B61-12 Life Extension Program."

Although the B61-12 is a nuclear gravity bomb, the test flight contained "representative non-nuclear components but no highly enriched uranium or plutonium, consistent with test treaty obligations," the statement said.

Comment: If you're wondering where your tax-dollars are going, look no further. More bombs, more guns, and more bullets to kill brown people with.

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Bulb

More countries are recognizing ISIS as a threat rather than Assad


Sputnik
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 18:56 UTC
Assad support
© Sputnik/ Dmitriy Vinogradov
More and more countries seem to be realizing that President Bashar Assad is not the most dangerous threat to the people of the Middle East: ISIL is far more terrifying and the best way to beat the militant jihadist group is to forge an alliance with Russia.

"We must rearrange our priorities," Alain Rodier, director of research at the French Research Centre on Intelligence (CF2R) recently said in an interview with the French newspaper 20 Minutes. "Who are the most dangerous enemies for the United States, Russia, France?" he questioned. And then provided a direct answer.
"Bashar al-Assad, abject as it is, does not represent an immediate risk [like] Daesh (an Arabic name for the Islamic State). "
His view is shared by Yves Boyer, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research: " We must not mistake an enemy. The ISIL is the fundamental threat, a cancer that eats away and starts to spread (Libya, Mali...) and must be treated. "

Comment: ISIS is a U.S.-borne cancer spreading across the world, and analysts like Rodier and Boyer understand the need to cooperate with Russia because they are the only force genuinely fighting this plague.

Also see:

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Attention

Really?! CIA officials cast blame on Edward Snowden over Paris attack


RT
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 04:34 UTC
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© Andrew Kelly / Reuters
The violence in Paris has prompted former and current CIA directors, and even a presidential candidate, to blame the inability to thwart attacks on "unauthorized disclosures" by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, despite admitting intelligence failures.

"In the past several years, because of a number of unauthorized disclosures and a lot of handwringing over the government's role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists, there have been some policy and legal and other actions that are taken to make our ability collectively internationally to find these terrorists much more challenging..." CIA Director John Brennan told a reporter who asked how the Paris attack had happened when the world's leading intelligence agencies "didn't even catch a whiff of it as far as we're to understand."

Comment: Jesus, how obvious! You'd think by now that all these ninnies for Empire would just shut up in the face of the fact that they never prevent terrorism for all the "intelligence" they have. But now, in their stupidity, they think they can just kill two birds with one stone: demonize Snowden and what he stands for, and excuse themselves for, yet again, not catching the terrorists because of Snowden and all his jibber jabber about civil liberties.

See: Federal Judge calls bulls**t on NSA bulk spying program

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Megaphone

US researcher: Paris attacks carried out by professional commandos


PressTV
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 18:32 UTC
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The deadly Paris attacks were likely carried out by professional commandos, not by a group of ragtag Takfiri fighters, American researcher and historian Dr. Randy Short says.

Dr. Short made the remarks in phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday after bombers and gunmen launched coordinated attacks in and around the French capital on Friday night, killing at least 129 people and injuring more than 350 others.

Daesh (ISIL) terrorists, who control parts of Syria and Iraq, have claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks, but independent analysts have questioned the credibility of their assertion.

"This looks like a commando operation from professionals," Dr. Short said. "Who knows more about the assassination teams and commando squads than the French, British and the Americans and the Israelis?"


Comment: How can ISIS/ISIL/Deash be professionally-trained commandos? As the analyst points out, the main way for such groups to get that kind of training is for foreign intelligence agencies to provide it. So you have US and other Western intelligence agencies training these groups to destabilize countries like Syria, but then those groups attack the very countries that birthed them. Whether accidental or intentional, that is a situation that every Westerner should be angry about.

See also:

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