Dozens of Turks living in the Netherlands who support exiled preacher Fethullah Gulen have been assaulted and received death threats, while several buildings hosting groups affiliated with the cleric were set on fire in the wake of Turkey's failed coup attempt.

"They have unleashed a witch-hunt that is causing a lot of tension between Dutch Turks," said Saniye Calkin, who chairs a local Hizmet organization. She was referring to the Turkish government's crackdown on supporters of Gulen, which has apparently even reached the Netherlands, which as around a 500,000-strong Turkish community.

The activist says there have been multiple reports of arson, vandalism and attacks against Gulenist supporters in the Netherlands, which has been heightened by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's personal resentment of the cleric.

"These are signs of Erdogan's interference in the Netherlands and it is threatening my freedom and safety," she added, speaking to journalists on Friday.

The Russian military has significantly progressed in recent years to become "a very serious adversary" to the US and NATO, the bloc's top commander has said, noting Russia's army is now more professional, faster-learning, and more agile at thinking.

"Russia is back," General Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and head of US European Command, told the Aspen Security Forum on Friday.

Run by the renowned Aspen Institute to discuss US national security issues, this year's forum featured top military brass, including US Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley, NSA Director Mike Rogers, and Commandant of the US Marine Corps Robert Neller.

"I'm impressed with the fact that they've taken a force that really had some serious problems only a few years ago," General Scaparrotti said, referring to the large-scale military reforms and re-armament program that have been taking place in Russia in recent years.

Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) exposed planting of malicious software designed for cyber espionage in computer networks of about 20 Russian institutions, including government and military bodies, FSB press service said Saturday.

"Instances of planting of malicious software designed for cyber espionage in computer networks of some 20 organizations located on the territory of Russia have been exposed... Information resources of public authorities, scientific and military institutions, enterprises of the military — industrial complex and other objects of country's critical infrastructure were contaminated," the statement read.

The press service stressed that the attack was professionally planned, has similar traits with the previously exposed attacks from all over the world.

A computer network used by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign was hacked as part of a broad cyber attack on Democratic political organizations, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The latest attack, which was disclosed to Reuters on Friday, follows two other hacks on the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, and the party's fundraising committee for candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.

A Clinton campaign spokesman said in a statement late on Friday that an analytics data program maintained by the DNC and used by the campaign and a number of other entities "was accessed as part of the DNC hack."

"Our campaign computer system has been under review by outside cyber security experts. To date, they have found no evidence that our internal systems have been compromised," said Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill.

Later, a campaign official said hackers had access to the analytics program's server for approximately five days. The analytics data program is one of many systems the campaign accesses to conduct voter analysis, and does not include social security numbers or credit card numbers, the official said.

The U.S. Department of Justice national security division is investigating whether cyber attacks on Democratic political organizations threatened U.S. security, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The involvement of the Justice Department's national security division is a sign that the Obama administration has concluded that the hacking was sponsored by a state, people with knowledge of the investigation said.

Up till now, both Russia and China have eschewed the concept of an "alliance". Why? Because of all the historical Western empire baggage that goes with it, including sometimes secret, frequently broken treaties, treachery, double dealing, back stabbing and all the other perfidy that goes with it. Not to mention, potentially unenforceable or unwise commitments to militarily attack an enemy of an ally, regardless of how stupid or absurd it is. Just recall the insanity of World War I, to put things in perspective.

The Chinese and Russians have preferred to talk about their "special relationship", "friendship", "historical ties" and "strategic partnership". Until today, that is. People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the government of China splashed this headline:

China, Russia 'semi-alliance' to launch drills in S. China Sea

Having stolen the narrative away from the Democrats this week, Trump is not done yet, doubling down today on his Putin pandemonium...


As The Hill reports,

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump says Russian leader Vladimir Putin is "doing a better job" than President Obama.

"I said he's a better leader than Obama because Obama's not a leader," Trump said in an interview aired Thursday on Fox News's "Fox & Friends." "He's certainly doing a better job than Obama is, that's all."

Trump stressed improved relations with Russia during the discussion with host Brian Kilmeade.

"Now look, you have to understand, Putin - if we could get along with Russia, I think that would be a good thing, not a bad thing. We don't get along with Russia. We practically don't get along with too many."

Trump blamed much of the current tension on Obama, noting Russian aircraft buzzing U.S. military ships.

"You know why they do that?" he asked. "They have no respect for our leader. They have zero respect for our leader. That's why they do that."

How and why Britain has been spared a major terrorist attack in recent years will be explained by the future pattern of atrocities in Europe, a top security expert has claimed.

Writing in Newsweek, Raffaello Pantucci, director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the UK must watch out for "slip ups" which could lead to devastating incidents like those recently seen in France.

"The biggest lesson to be drawn from the current spate of attacks is the contagious nature of this phenomenon," Pantucci argues.

"This is not a new phenomenon—when dramatic extremist incidents take place, they tend to generate copycat attacks—success breeds emulation."

He said the UK response should "be to try to understand better how these events are triggered and to identify those plotting similar attacks in the UK."

Focusing on domestic issues, Hillary Clinton's acceptance speech sidestepped the deep concerns anti-war Democrats have about her hawkish foreign policy, which is already taking shape in the shadows.

As Hillary Clinton begins her final charge for the White House, her advisers are already recommending air strikes and other new military measures against the Assad regime in Syria.

The clear signals of Clinton's readiness to go to war appears to be aimed at influencing the course of the war in Syria as well as U.S. policy over the remaining six months of the Obama administration. (She also may be hoping to corral the votes of Republican neoconservatives concerned about Donald Trump's "America First" foreign policy.)

Last month, the think tank run by Michele Flournoy, the former Defense Department official considered to be most likely to be Clinton's choice to be Secretary of Defense, explicitly called for "limited military strikes" against the Assad regime.

And earlier this month Leon Panetta, former Defense Secretary and CIA Director, who has been advising candidate Clinton, declared in an interview that the next president would have to increase the number of Special Forces and carry out air strikes to help "moderate" groups against President Bashal al-Assad. (When Panetta gave a belligerent speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night, he was interrupted by chants from the delegates on the floor of "no more war!"

In my last article for Fort Russ, I suggested that the IOC's decision to allow the Russian team to participate in the Olympics would be followed by nasty surprises. And this is exactly what has happened.

Such unpleasantries have struck a number of federations and individual athletes who have been barred from competing. The most egregious example is the rejection of the two-time Olympic champion and record holder for pole vaulting, Elena Isinbayeva. She was not convicted of doping, but is not going to the Olympics. Such troubles are also touching even those athletes who have already arrived in Rio de Janeiro. All of the members of the Russian national team are being required to take a doping test, a humiliating rule applied only to the Russian team. And still, no guarantees have been made that the victories of "clean" athletes will not be annulled over false accusations of doping.

Serious troubles have even arisen for the head of the IOC, Thomas Bach. By making the objective decision to admit the Russian team to the Olympics, he apparently broke someone else's rule (which we'll touch on a bit later). Bach has become the main target of tabloid, yellow-journalist-style attacks. Offensive and baseless accusations against this honored and respected organizer have captivated the pages of even quite respectable publications in Germany, the UK, and the US. Sometimes, it's hard to believe that all these tabloid headlines, which I don't even want to repeat, saw first light in European or American media before Ukrainian media. Thomas Bach has paid dearly for his desire to be objective and professional. He has become the victim of a planned psychological attack. I would like to express my moral support for him. I think that not only Russians, but also all admirers of sports and sportsmanship will join me in this.

Donald Trump is erratic. We all know that. It is insulting to assert, in the words of Britain's new Foreign Secretary, the erratic Boris Johnson, that he is "frankly unfit to hold the office of President of the United States", but he's certainly unpredictable and says some things that are, to put it mildly, intriguing. The fact remains that he could be next president of the United States, which makes it important to look at what he might do if that comes about, especially in the light of America's military catastrophes so far this century.

Obama followed his predecessors in expanding America's iron fist as self-appointed global policeman. He vastly increased the US military presence around the world and intensified the Pentagon's aggressive confrontations with China and Russia.

In China's case this was effected by sending US Naval E-P3 electronic surveillance aircraft on missions close to the mainland, deploying EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, ordering B-52 nuclear bombers to overfly the South China Sea where the US Navy also carried out extended manoeuvres by massive strike groups of nuclear-armed aircraft carriers and guided missile cruisers. All this in a region where the US has not the slightest territorial interest or claim. China's Sea is 12,000 kilometres, 7,000 miles, from the American mainland, yet Washington considers it the sacred right and duty of the United States to act as a global gendarme and give orders to China about its posture in its own back yard, where there has not been one instance of interference with commercial shipping passing through that region.

As to confrontation with Russia, the US has ensured that its Brussels sub-office, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, will go on playing its toy-soldier games right up to Russia's borders. The official statement after NATO's war drum-thumping conclave in Warsaw on July 8-9 is indicative of its determination to continue its attempts to menace Russia, which has not made the slightest move to threaten a single NATO member. It is absurd to claim that 'the security situation has deteriorated' in the Black Sea and the Baltic because of Russian action.