WAR 10-22-2016-to-10-28-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

Housecarl

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Sorry folks, the "meat world" and its demands get first crack at me....

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(238) 10-01-2016-to-10-07-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...07-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(239) 10-08-2016-to-10-14-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...14-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(240) 10-15-2016-to-10-21-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...21-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/sinai-general-killed-near-cairo-101740230.html

Senior Egyptian general shot dead outside home

Reuters
October 22, 2016

CAIRO (Reuters) - A senior Egyptian military official was shot dead on Saturday outside his home on the outskirts of Cairo, security sources and his wife said

Gunmen opened fire on Brigadier General Adel Rajaaie, an armored division commander who had served in troubled northern Sinai, as he left his home in Obour city to go to work, his wife told Reuters.

"Minutes after he left the house I heard gunfire, I went out to find him covered in blood ... he received a lot of bullets .. He died instantly," said Samia Zain El Abedeen.

She said neighbors told her the assailants had automatic weapons and fled in a car.

A newly-emerged militant group calling itself Louwaa el Thawra, or the Revolution Brigade, claimed responsibility for the attack on a Twitter account that was suspended shortly after the claim.

Rajaaie, 52, is the most senior military official to be assassinated since the toppling of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in mid-2013 by general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

A military funeral will be held at Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi Mosque, in Cairo, the same mosque where Egypt's top public prosecutor, Hisham Barakat, was given a military funeral after being killed by a car bomb in June 2015.

He was the most senior state official to die at the hands of militants in recent years.

Egypt faces an Islamist insurgency led by Islamic State's branch in North Sinai, where hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed. There have also been attacks in Cairo and other cities.

Judges and other senior officials have increasingly been targeted by radical Islamists angered by hefty prison sentences imposed on members of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood, which says it is a peaceful organization, won Egypt's first free elections after the 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.

Since the Brotherhood's candidate, Mursi, was deposed after mass protests against his rule, Sisi has overseen a crackdown in which hundreds of Brotherhood supporters have been killed and thousands jailed or sentenced to death.

An Egyptian court confirmed a 20-year prison sentence on Mursi on Saturday on charges arising from the killing of protesters during demonstrations in 2012, judicial sources told Reuters.

Another recently emerged militant group called Hasm Movement, the Arabic word for decisiveness, has claimed responsibility for five attacks since July, including an assassination attempt on Zakaria Abdel Aziza, a senior Egyptian prosecutor. The group said the attack was in revenge for death sentences handed to thousands of convicts.

(Reporting Yusry Mohamed and Omar Fahmy; Writing by Amina Ismail, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Adrian Croft)
 

Housecarl

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/british-...-second-suspicious-item-london-164233256.html

British anti-terrorist police find second 'suspicious item' after London arrest

Reuters
October 22, 2016
4 Comments

LONDON (Reuters) - Counter-terrorism police investigating the discovery of a "suspicious item" on a London train this week said they found another such device on Saturday when they searched a house in Devon, western England.

The house and neighboring properties were evacuated and a 200-metre cordon thrown around the area while specialist officers investigated.

On Thursday morning, the first device was found on a train at North Greenwich station, near the Canary Wharf financial district and close to the O2 music venue.

Officers used a stun gun during the subsequent arrest in north London of a 19-year-old who was detained on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts and remains in custody.

London's Metropolitan Police said on Saturday they had gone to a house in Newton Abbot, Devon, as part of their inquiries into the Greenwich incident.

"Whilst there, officers found an item they deemed suspicious," they added in a statement. "Officers evacuated the address and alerted Devon and Cornwall Police."

They later confirmed the Devon device was "not viable."

Police have not released details about the two items nor have they said whether the first, which was made safe by a controlled explosion, was a viable explosive device.

Britain is on its second-highest alert level of "severe", meaning an attack is considered highly likely.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison; editing by Andrew Roche and Adrian Croft)
 

Housecarl

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10-20-16 Syria thread: Syrian military announces No-Fly Zone for Turkish planes
Started by Possible Impact‎, 10-20-2016 12:58 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...tary-announces-No-Fly-Zone-for-Turkish-planes

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Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/clashes-artillery-fire-aleppo-truce-expires-monitor-181626213.html

Clashes, artillery fire hit Aleppo after truce expires

Gallery
AFP
Karam al-Masri
October 22, 2016
2 Comments

Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) - Heavy clashes erupted between regime and rebel forces in Syria's divided city of Aleppo late Saturday after a unilateral ceasefire announced by government ally Russia expired.

Moscow had extended the unilateral "humanitarian pause" into a third day until 1600 GMT Saturday, but announced no further renewal of the truce despite a UN request for longer to evacuate wounded civilians.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce fighting in several areas along the front line dividing the city, with three people wounded by shelling of the rebel-held Salaheddin and Al-Mashhad districts.

And the first air strikes since the end of the truce hit the opposition-controlled district of Sheikh Saeed where there was also heavy fighting, the monitor said.

An AFP correspondent in rebel-held eastern districts also reported sounds of fighting and artillery fire.

Neither residents nor rebels of opposition-held districts heeded calls from Syria's army and Moscow to leave during the ceasefire, after weeks of devastating bombardment and a three-month government siege.

The pause began on Thursday, and came after Moscow announced a temporary halt to the Syrian army's campaign to recapture the divided city.

The army opened eight corridors for evacuations, but just a handful of people crossed through a single passage, with the others remaining deserted.

"Members of popular civil committees from regime districts entered the eastern neighbourhoods to try to evacuate the injured but failed," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said earlier Saturday.

Syrian state media and Russian authorities have accused rebels in the east of preventing civilians from leaving and using them as "human shields".

- Guarantees not received -

More than 2,000 civilians have been wounded since the army launched its offensive to drive the rebels out of the eastern districts they have held since 2012. Nearly 500 people have been killed.

The United Nations had hoped to use the ceasefire to evacuate seriously wounded people, and possibly deliver aid.

But a UN official said Saturday the requisite security guarantees had not been received.

"You have various parties to the conflict and those with influence and they all have to be on the same page on this and they are not," said David Swanson, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian office.

The UN had drawn up a four-day plan that was to start with two days of medical evacuations to west Aleppo, rebel-held Idlib province, and Turkey, and continue with more evacuations as well as aid deliveries.

No aid has entered Aleppo since July 7 and food rations will run out by the end of the month, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned Thursday.

The UN had asked Moscow to consider extending the pause until Monday evening, but there was no word of any extension as the 1600 GMT deadline passed.

- 'No third option' -

Moscow accuses rebels of preventing civilians from leaving, with senior Russian military official Sergei Rudskoi accusing them of "using the ceasefire in their interests".

"We are seeing them massing around Aleppo and preparing for another breakthrough into the city's western neighbourhoods."

Russia is a key ally of Syria's government and began a military intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad last September.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview set to air Saturday that the intervention was meant to "liberate" Syria and keep Assad in power.

"Either Assad is in Damascus, or Al-Nusra is," he said, referring to former Al-Qaeda affiliate the Fateh al-Sham Front. "There is no third option here."

The Observatory said earlier both rebels and regime forces appeared to be reinforcing their positions.

"The regime and the rebels are both bolstering their forces, which raises fears of a massive military operation if the ceasefire fails," Abdel Rahman said.

Elsewhere in Aleppo province, Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels were shelling the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces coalition in several villages.

Turkey considers the Kurdish militia that leads the SDF to be a "terrorist" organisation, and began an operation in Syria in August targeting both it and the Islamic State group.

On Friday, a UN human rights council resolution called for "a comprehensive, independent special inquiry into the events in Aleppo".

It also demanded that warring parties provide unrestricted humanitarian access to desperate civilians and "end immediately all bombardments and military flights over Aleppo city".

Also Friday, UN experts said the Syrian army was responsible for a March 2015 chemical weapons attack on the village of Qmenas.

But they said they were unable to determine who was responsible for two other chemical weapons attacks, one in the same month and the other in April 2014.
 

Housecarl

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.stratfor.com/situation-report/yemen-truce-deadline-approaches-violations-continue

Yemen: As Truce Deadline Approaches, Violations Continue

Situation Reports OCTOBER 22, 2016 | 19:37 GMT

Houthi rebels and forces loyal President Abd Rabboh Mansour Hadi both accused one another of mounting attacks in violation of a three-day cease-fire set to end midnight Oct. 22, Reuters reported. Although the truce has largely failed, airstrikes on Sanaa have halted and there have been fewer rebel missile strikes over the Saudi border. The attempt to pause the fighting was brokered by the United Nations and intended to make room for negotiations on ending the conflict. U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has requested that the cease-fire be extended another three days, although neither side has agreed to this. When it comes to Yemen, the United States is in a tough spot politically. It supports the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels and forces loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh but has recently distanced itself from the coalition because of intense international scrutiny on its tactics and high civilian casualties.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKCN12M0BZ

WORLD NEWS | Sat Oct 22, 2016 | 9:58am EDT

Fighting rages in Yemen as U.N. seeks to extend 72-hour ceasefire

By Mohammed Ghobari and Katie Paul | SANAA/NAJRAN, SAUDI ARABIA
Saudi-backed government forces and Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen accused each other of violating a ceasefire on Saturday as the United Nations tried to extend the three-day truce.

The ceasefire, due to end at midnight local time on Saturday, is aimed at paving the way for talks to end a 19-month war in the Arab world's poorest country and allowing badly needed aid to be delivered.

Ground fighting has raged largely unabated despite the truce, but air attacks on the capital, Sanaa, have stopped and there were fewer Houthi missile strikes on Saudi Arabia, residents and local officials said.

A Saudi-led coalition backing the exiled government accused the Houthis of violating the ceasefire almost 1,000 times in the last 24 hours by launching mortar and armed attacks along Yemen's border with the kingdom and in several Yemeni provinces.

General Ahmed al-Asseri, commander of the Saudi 4th Brigade on the border in Najran, told Reuters his forces were repelling a sustained Houthi ground attack.

"The violation of the truce was not from our side. It was from the other side. We are continuing to thwart them," Asseri said.

"In the last 48 hours there was an enormous push by the enemy against our territory."

Houthi-run channel al-Masira said its forces had attacked Saudi positions in Najran on Friday and launched rockets into the neighboring Saudi province of Jizan.

The network said Houthi fighters had repelled government advances backed up by Saudi-led air strikes toward the capital Sanaa from several directions.

Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the exiled vice president and a powerful military leader, said after a meeting with the U.N. special envoy to Yemen in Riyadh late on Friday that his government sought peace but would respond to Houthi attacks.

"The legitimate government remains committed to restraint in recognition of the efforts of U.N. and for the sake of achieving the peace which has been rejected by the coup militias," Ahmar said in a statement on his official Facebook page.

Ahmar said U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed had asked for the truce to be extended for another 72 hours, and government sources told Reuters foreign diplomats were lobbying both sides to prolong the ceasefire.

The Houthis have also called for a negotiated solution to the conflict but were yet to agree on a truce extension.

(Writing by Noah Browning; editing by Andrew Roche)
 

Housecarl

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-mosul-idUSKCN12M032

WORLD NEWS | Sat Oct 22, 2016 | 5:20pm EDT

Iraqi army drives Islamic State from Christian region near Mosul

By Babak Dehghanpisheh and Stephen Kalin | QAYYARA, IRAQ
Iraqi army troops on Saturday stormed into a Christian region that has been under Islamic State control since 2014 as part of U.S.-backed operations to clear the entrances to Mosul, the militants' last major city stronghold in Iraq.

The advance took place as U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter met Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad to evaluate the campaign that began on Monday with air and ground support from the U.S-led coalition.

A military statement said Iraqi units entered the center of Qaraqosh, a mainly Christian town about 20 km (13 miles) southeast of Mosul, and were carrying out mop-up operations across the town.

Further action was under way to seize a neighboring Christian village, Karamless, also known as Karemlash in the Syriac language. The region's population fled in the summer of 2014, when Islamic State swept in.

Earlier this week, Iraqi special units also captured Bartella, a Christian village north of Qaraqosh.

A U.S. military official estimated there were fewer than a couple of hundred Islamic State fighters in Qaraqosh.

"I've seen berms in Qaraqosh. I anticipate there'll be trenches, there'll be passageways between different buildings," the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

BIGGEST BATTLE SINCE 2003

The offensive on Mosul is expected to become the biggest battle fought in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and it could require a massive humanitarian relief operation.

Some 1.5 million residents remain in the city and worst-case scenario forecasts see up to a million being uprooted, according to the United Nations. U.N. aid agencies said the fighting has so far forced about 6,000 to flee their homes.

The army is trying to advance from the south and the east while Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are holding fronts in the east and north.

Iraqi forces have advanced to five km (three miles) from Mosul and there are signs of revolt against the group, the interior minister of the Kurdish regional government, Karim Sinjar, said in an interview on Saturday in Erbil.

On the southern front, nearly 1,000 people were treated for breathing problems linked to toxic fumes from a sulfur plant that Islamic State militants are suspected to have set on fire on Thursday, said sources at the hospital of Qayyara, reporting no deaths at the medical facility itself.

The fumes prompted U.S. forces at Iraq's Qayyara West airfield to put on protective masks.

A cloud of white smoke blanketed the region to the north, where the factory is located, mingling with black fumes from oil wells that the militants torched to cover their moves.

The Iraqi army's media office said about 50 villages had been taken from the militants since Monday in operations to prepare the main thrust into Mosul itself, where 5,000 to 6,000 IS fighters are dug in, according to Iraqi estimates.

Islamic State also controls parts of Syria.

The warring parties are not announcing casualties, with each claiming to have killed hundreds of enemy fighters since Monday.

Islamic State is relying mainly on suicide car bombs, roadside bombs, mines, sniper and mortar fire to counter the charge of the Iraqi units trained by the United States to deal specifically with this kind of warfare.

"The campaign is proceeding according to plan and the schedule that we've had," Carter said after meeting Abadi. The Iraqi prime minister, however, rejected any Turkish participation in the campaign.

Carter signaled during a visit to Ankara on Friday his support for a possible Turkish role and said there was an agreement in principle between Baghdad and Ankara -- potentially ending a source of tension.

"I know that the Turks want to participate, we tell them thank you, this is something the Iraqis will handle," Abadi said after meeting with Carter. "If help is needed, we will ask for it from Turkey or from other regional countries."

OIL-RICH KIRKUK RETAKEN

Roughly 5,000 U.S. personnel are in Iraq. More than 100 of them are embedded with Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces involved with the Mosul offensive, advising commanders and helping ensure coalition air power hits the right targets.

The militants retaliated to the advance of the Iraqi forces and the Kurdish fighters in Mosul by attacking on Friday Kirkuk, an oil city that lies east Hawija, a pocket they continue to control between Baghdad and Mosul.

Authorities in Kirkuk regained control of the city on Saturday and partially lifted a curfew declared after the militants stormed police stations and other buildings. The region's oil producing facilities were not damaged.

At least 50 people have been killed and 80 others wounded in clashes between security forces and the militants in Kirkuk, according to a hospital sources. Four Iranians doing maintenance work at a power station were among the dead, they said.

A senior U.S. official estimated the number of the militants who attacked Kirkuk at about 80, nearly all of whom were killed or captured. They were mostly foreign fighters trained as commandos who may have received help from sleeper cells inside the city, he said.

(With additional reporting by Phil Stuart and Saif Hameed in Baghdad, Mahmoud Mustafa in Kirkuk, Samia Nakhoul and Michael Georgy in Erbil; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Helen Popper)

RELATED COVERAGE

VIDEO: Burning sulphur near Mosul sends hundreds to hospital
Iraqi PM declines Turkish offer to help in Mosul battle
Turkey 'obliged' to press on to Syria's al-Bab, Erdogan says
Upbeat on Mosul, U.S. defense chief eyes future Iraq aid
Burning sulfur near Mosul sends hundreds to hospital, U.S. troops don masks
 

Housecarl

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Hummm......

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.globalresearch.ca/is-was...a-china-axis-of-evil-into-nuclear-war/5552071

Is Washington “False Flagging” The New Russia-Iran-Syria-China “Axis of Evil”, Into Nuclear War?

By Peter Koenig
Global Research, October 21, 2016

False flagging has hundreds of years of history; successful history that is. Otherwise the method of lying and bullying people into false believes would not have survived the times.

But false flags took on a new dimension since 9/11. The subsequent terror acts, including the Arab Spring and ‘Color Revolutions’; downing of a Russian plane over Egypt; shooting down of a Malaysian plane over the Ukraine; Paris murderous shootings at ‘Charlie Hebdo’ and ‘Bataclan’; Brussels; Nice; Munich; Orlando, Florida; San Bernardino, California – to name just a few over the last years – were perpetrated by the very actors claiming to fight terror, namely predominantly the secret services of the US, UK and Israel, the European vassals and NATO. The purpose of such acts of terror is to create fear, to justify a police crackdown on the populations and doing away with every time more of the democratic civil rights still left in western society.

The penultimate goal is total militarization of the western world, to prevent and suppress protests and revolts if and when the population eventually wakes up to the flagrant lies that it has been force-fed by the presstitute media for years on end.

And that in itself is a crucial step towards the ultimate goal of Full Spectrum Dominance of the world, or world hegemony, by a small corporate and financial elite.

Alas, militarization of the west and ongoing wars and chaos throughout the world, causing millions of death – estimated between 12 and 15 million in the last 15 years – will not suffice to dominate the eastern powers led by Russia and China.

Do the elites who pull the strings in Washington want a nuclear war? It may fulfill their pathological objective of total annihilation of the world as we know it, possibly with hundreds of millions of casualties. Just look at Aleppo and multiply this image by a million. See also Kissinger’s 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide.

https://www.schillerinstitute.org/food_for_peace/kiss_nssm_jb_1995.html .

Is reduction of world population by any means a major objective: Kissinger’s 1974 ‘study’ on famine as genocide, was commissioned in full connivance with Monsanto and the GMO technology – a food war, the preparation of which is ongoing as the world is facing a nuclear threat.

Intensified through four decades of Cold War, the US has grown increasingly dependent on the military – security industry for its economic advances. Creating weapons to exploit and destroy in foreign lands what later needs reconstruction is an easy way to making huge profits, sustaining an otherwise outsourced production economy and an ever poorer local population that lives off imported junk.

This is true for the misinformed US and European public. The West is sinking by its own inaction into a deep hole.

However, the need for more sophisticated weaponry and more destruction is spiraling exponentially, as greed, avarice and power know no limits. A WWIII scenario is becoming an imminent danger. Do the neocon architects of US foreign policy hope to survive a nuclear inferno in their lush bunkers?

The western presstitute media portrays the US as fighting in the Middle East and elsewhere ‘humanitarian wars’ to stamp out terrorism and other atrocities committed by the new Killary anointed Axis of Evil, Russia-Iran-Syria, and by association, China.

The basic premise is, they are the “good guys” and the Russians under Putin’s orders are constantly interfering with America’s humanitarian deeds. This sick understanding, continuously touted by the western media controlled by the six Zionist-Anglo media giants, and repeated hourly, will make massive, credible false-flagging like a walk in the park – a walk in which about a billion ‘westerners’ are cheering for war against the eastern evil.

Currently the US is secretly on DEFCON level 3 warning against a Russian nuclear attack (DEFCON = Defense Readiness Condition). The American public doesn’t know it. – Level 3 means an attack could be days away; level one would imply an imminent attack within less than an hour. This in itself is a false flag, a make-believe that a first strike may come from Russia, when the Pentagon hawks openly boast that a first preventive strike is not off the table. Some high level generals even push for it.

There is a massive orchestrated build-up of potential false flags around the globe that would allow a first strike nuclear attack on several fronts against Russia, Syria, Iran and China, by the US armed forces, NATO and the European vassals’ own armies. Israel is poised to launch an attack against Iran.

Syria – the 20-nation Peace Talks of Saturday 15 October 2016 in Lausanne, Switzerland, focusing on an Aleppo cease fire, predictably failed to produce any tangible results. Nevertheless, in a real humanitarian effort, Russia has declared an 8-hour truce to begin on Thursday, 20 October, “We have taken a decision not to waste time and to introduce ‘humanitarian pauses’, mainly for the free passage of civilians, evacuation of the sick and wounded and withdrawal of fighters.

The ceasefire would run from 0800 to 1600 local time (0500 GMT to 1300 GMT) “in the area of Aleppo. During this period the Russian air force and Syrian government troops will halt air strikes and firing from any other types of weapons,” as ‘vanguardngr.com’ quoted senior Russian military officer Sergei Rudskoi as saying at a press briefing. – Later the truce has been extended to 11 hours and at yesterday’s (19 October) ‘peace discussion’ in Berlin, hosted by Madame Merkel, Mr. Putin said he would be prepared to extend it to 3 days, if all the parties were committed to observe it.

What if – in defiance of this mini-ceasefire – US, US-proxies, or NATO fighters keep bombing Syrian army ground troops in the Aleppo region, as well as hospitals and civilian populations, to encourage Al-Nusra, *** IS terrorists to stay their course and keep sowing misery and killing civilians? – Russia has warned Washington that any attack on Assad’s troops would be the object of retaliation. Might such a scenario be a provocation to start a hot WWIII? – Precedents of defying cease fire agreements and blaming Russia for it exist in the not so distant past: 17 September, when the US air force ‘by mistake’ attacked Assad’s ground forces killing 62 soldiers – and who knows how many civilians – then, through the complicit MSM blamed Russia for it.

It is not inconceivable that US war planes painted to look like Russians, could attack their own Air Force in Syria or Iraq, blaming Russia, thereby triggering a US first strike. With the brainwashed western population, the false flag would be an easy sell as a Russian aggression, justifying Washington’s ‘first strike’.

america’s indefectible British ally has recently given its fighter jet pilots ‘permission’ to fire on Russian aircraft in Syria. – What if they actually do so, as a US proxy? – And Russia retaliates against a NATO country – which is according to NATO rules an aggression against all NATO. This could mean an all-out war. US and NATO bases in Europe would not be spared. By now there are 24 bases, an increase from 14 since 1991, when the West promised not to expand NATO. This would plunge Europe for the third time in 100 years into – this time an all-annihilating – war scenario. How can Europe not see and understand this?

Yemen – Since March 2015 a Saudi led coalition, for which until recently Washington provided weapons, logistical and intelligence support, is bombing the Houthi rebels. The Houtis, fighting for freedom from the western domination, have seized the Presidential Palace in Sana’a, sending the despotic US puppet President Hadi to Saudi Arabia into exile. The Houthis enjoy the backing of the majority of the Yemeni population and are considered the legitimate government. They also receive logistics support from Iran. They control about a quarter of the Yemeni landmass but more than three quarters of the population. The Saudis have been cowardly targeting mostly civilian populations, family celebrations, like weddings and funerals, humanitarian food and medical supplies and hospitals, slaughtering tens of thousands of mainly women and children. A couple of weeks ago the US and UK Air Forces have joined the Saudis in this atrocious war.

While the Houthis have called on President Putin for help, the US has now called, through the UN, for a 72-hour ceasefire to enter into effect on 19 October mid-night. The official purpose is ‘humanitarian aid’, but the real reason is for the alliance of aggressors to regroup and strategize. It is unconceivable that the Master of Chaos would let go of such an optimal strategically placed country, overlooking the Gulf of Oman and the Iran controlled Strait of Hormuz, through which currently about 25 % of the world’s hydrocarbons sail. A western planted false flag, depicting a Russian intervention, could easily activate a full-scale war.

Israel, entering friendly relations with the Saudis, has asked the House of Saud for access to Saudi airfields which they may use to launch a ‘preemptive’ attack against Iran.

Internet spying and cyber war accusations against President Putin – most ridiculous, but with sledgehammer propaganda the American and most of European population will gulp this lie as the truth – and encourage US, UK and Israeli secret services (the infamous trio) to do likewise. The argument is that Mr. Putin wants to derail US elections in favor of Donald Trump and hacking into DNC computers to divulge Democratic party corruption scandals – laying bare Madame Clinton’s corruption and lies. Apparently the CIA has already declared a cyber war against President Putin.

Russia could potentially retaliate, jamming key US strategic war systems with DRFM (Digital Radio Frequency Memory) technology, already successfully applied in 2015 in Syria, near Latakia, disrupting all US-NATO Radar and Satellites Communication systems. – Might such a possible retaliation and escalation in cyber warfare be translated into a lethal aggression by Russia, justifying a full-out war, with nuclear consequences?

On 19 October, Presidents Putin, Hollande and Poroshenko traveled to Berlin at the invitation of Madame Merkel to discuss Syria and implementation of a peace plan for eastern Ukraine. First, how come, a sovereign country like Syria is discussed by foreign powers, without – and I mean without any representation of Mr. Assad’s government? It is a human and diplomatic aberration. But what else would we expect from the west. Still, people need to be reminded that what appears normal is NOT normal at all.

The little that emerged from the meeting is that Mr. Hollande went home frustrated since Mr. Putin did not stand up to ‘his responsibilities in Ukraine’- what a flagrant lie! And Hollande knows it! – Also was disclosed that no real agreement was reached on how to go about achieving peace in Syria.

Obviously for the western stooges of Washington, present in Berlin, there is only one way a ‘solution’ could be found: ‘Regime Change’. They will not let go. Even though Hollande and Merkel know absolutely well, why the US instigated the war in Syria, by recruiting and preparing, arming and funding terror groups already in 2007 (look for ‘Syria’ in this article

http://www.globalresearch.ca/its-no...-the-conquest-of-natural-gas-reserves/5307589

On Ukraine – Poroshenko has promised a new road map for peace, nothing more exciting. The practical deadlock on Syria and ‘no news’ on Ukraine was to be expected. It is of course being blamed by both Hollande and Merkel on Vladimir Putin, who has never played a role in either conflict, both of them are the result of the evil fist of Washington.

Mr. Putin entered Syria only at the demand of Mr. Assad, to defend and rid the country of western implanted terrorists. He is also doing everything possible to pacify Ukraine, to no avail. The west doesn’t want peace, but they want to blame Russia for the conflicts. Failure of the Merkel meeting might possibly be followed by a false flag against Kiev or Aleppo, to be put on Putin’s account, what else. Remember, the US Air Force has jets painted as Russian jets.

China

Would a US provocation on the Chinese controlled Spratly Islands, or an infringement on China’s air and land space, as there have been many in the past, become a trigger for engaging China in a nuclear aggression?

Hot spots around the world devastated to chaos by the empire abound. Anyone of them is a potential launch path for an atomic mushroom. Should this happen before the upcoming US elections, Obama might just stay on for another term. He has all the experience it needs to create more chaos and more division to conquer than any of his predecessors. He is also an obedient servant to those that pull the strings and watch through the eye on top of the pyramid, so clearly depicted in the US dollar bill, the symbol for Zionist-Freemason total hegemony. But importantly, he, like Hillary, would most likely not hesitate to push the Red Bottom, when asked to do so by their masters.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media, TeleSUR, TruePublica, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Peter Koenig, Global Research, 2016
 

Housecarl

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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441352/north-korea-iran-nuclear-threats-us-strategy

Stop Iran by Stopping North Korea

by JOSH GELERNTER
October 22, 2016 4:00 AM

Twice in the last week, North Korea has attempted to launch its new “Musudan” ballistic missile. Both launches failed, but according to a new report from a Johns Hopkins think tank, the missile could be perfected and operational next year — several years sooner than expected. “The North Koreans aren’t simply repeating old failures,” the report declares. “And they aren’t taking the slow path to developing a reliable system, with a year or so between each test to analyze the data and make improvements. . . . Instead, they are continuing with an aggressive test schedule. . . . Professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong. [The North Koreans] are still practicing.”

The Musudan missile will be able to reach Guam, and Japan, and according to reports of North Korean nuclear-miniaturization research, it could be nuclear-armed.

In 2006, when North Korea was preparing to test its Taepodong 2 intercontinental ballistic missile — which it has since successfully adapted to launch satellites, and which it could in future arm with nuclear weapons — current Obama defense secretary Ash Carter and former Clinton defense secretary William Perry called for a preemptive strike to destroy it: “We cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature,” they wrote:

If North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead. . . . The effect on the Taepodong would be devastating. The multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive — the U.S. airstrike would puncture the missile and probably cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea’s nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted.

Needless to say, no such preemptive strike occurred, and now that North Korea has nuclear weapons, it might not be prudent to revive the idea. But a strong, substantial response — something more than the traditional, trivial press-release denunciation — would be very useful. Earlier this week, North Korea threatened a preemptive nuclear attack on the U.S., and while it appears they don’t yet have the technology to execute such an attack, they will soon if nothing is done.

What’s more, North Korea isn’t the only increasingly hostile, nuke-ambitious state the United States has to worry about. Since Iran collected its ransom money and centrifuge-shut-off money, it has become more and more belligerent toward the U.S. Just last week, Yemeni Houthi rebels shot at least two cruise-missiles at American warships in the Gulf of Aden. The missiles, which missed, were evidently supplied by Iran, and were guided by Iranian-operated radar installations on shore.

With a real response to North Korea, we might be able to kill two birds with one stone: impede the progress of North Korea’s increasingly capable, increasingly dangerous missile program, and remind Iran that — Syrian red lines aside — the United States is not to be trifled with.

— Josh Gelernter writes weekly for NRO and is a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard. He is a founder of the tech startup Dittach.
 

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Turkish Army Destroys Over 50 Kurdish Self-Defense Forces' Targets ©

AFP 2016/ BULENT KILIC
Middle East13:22 23.10.2016

Turkish military forces hit 51 positions of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria, according to the statement of Turkey's General Staff.

© AFP 2016/ BULENT KILIC
Syrian Military Says Turkish Army's Presence in Syria is Sign of AggressionANKARA (Sputnik)

– Turkish military forces conducted attacks on eight targets of the Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh, banned in Russia) terrorist group and 51 units of the Kurdish self-defense forces in the past 24 hours as part of the Euphrates Shield operation in northern Syria, Turkey's General Staff said Sunday.

"Our Armed Forces hit eight IS positions and 51 positions of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). Syrian opposition continues conducting operation on driving PYD militants out of the three settlements to the south of the city of Marea. The fighting resulted in deaths of four and injuries of 20 opposition fighters. Three PYD militants were eliminated," the Turkish Defense Ministry said.​

According to the General Staff, Turkish airstrikes resulted in elimination of 11 Daesh militants and destruction of four Daesh-controlled buildings.

© AP Photo/ Anatolia, Kenan Gurbuz
Moscow Concerned Over Turkish Airstrikes on Kurdish Positions in Syria - Lavrov

On August 24, Turkish forces, backed by US-led coalition aircraft, began a military operation dubbed Euphrates Shield aimed at freeing the territory of 1,931 square miles from terrorists and creating security zones for accommodation of refugees.

Ankara considers PYD, and its military wing YPG (People's Protection Units) operating in Syria an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is outlawed in Turkey.

Related:Syrian Military Says Turkish Army's Presence in Syria is Sign of Aggression

Moscow Concerned Over Turkish Airstrikes on Kurdish Positions in Syria - Lavrov

Turkish Army Destroys 46 Daesh, Kurdish Forces' Positions in Northern Syria

Syrian Kurds Call for Designating Turkey-Backed Syrian Opposition as Terrorists

Tags:Operation Euphrates Shield, Daesh, Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), Syria, TurkeyRead more: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201610231046633402-turkey-pyd-syria/
 

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By YASSER OKBI/ MAARIV HASHAVUA, JACOB WIRTSCHAFTER/THE MEDIA LINE \ 10/23/2016 11:47

Sinai: 150 ISIS militants wounded, killed in Egyptian air strikes

According to reports, around 70 militants were killed and dozens more wounded.

In retaliation for the assassination of a senior military officer, Egypt's air force has allegedly struck a number of Islamic State outposts in the northern Sinai peninsula, early Sunday morning.

According to reports, around 70 militants were killed and dozens more wounded.

Additionally, air forces attacked positions of the jihadist extremist group 'Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis,' a branch of ISIS-Sinai Province, in the cities of Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid. The strikes destroyed vehicles belonging to the organization which have been used in attacks on Egyptian security forces.

Security forces stated that the strikes focused primarily on a village just west of Rafah, near the border with Gaza, where around 70 militants of the Salafist extremist organization were killed.

Sky News Arabic reported that Egyptian military forces foiled an attempt to carry out four bombings in northern Sinai, as well as killing one militant attempting to launch an RPG-missile from behind an abandoned house in an area between the villages of Haruba and Qabir-Amir.

Top Egyptian officer Maj. Adel Ragaai was gunned down in front of his home north of Cairo just after dawn Saturday in a sign of the increasing conflict between the government and its opponents – both armed and unarmed.

The Lewaa Al-Thawra (Revolution Brigade) claimed responsibility for the assassination of Ragaai, head of the Egyptian Ninth Amour Division - the unit charged with destroying the tunnels running between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

Ragaai’s death is the first political assassination of a military figure since former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was removed from office by Egypt’s military in 2013.

Ragaai oversaw a massive operation that began last year to dig a canal parallel to the Rafah border, flooding the frontier with sea water which seeps into the tunnels, preventing their use.



'I wish the Israelis died in Istanbul attack,' Erdogan party aide tweets

'Hezbollah, Syrian army preparing large operation near Israel border'

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sinai terrorism isis islamic state
 

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World News | Sun Oct 23, 2016 | 4:50am EDT

French police chief promises change after sixth night of protests: TV

France's national police chief has promised to upgrade equipment and improve working conditions for the country's police, who staged a sixth night of protests across several cities.

The police have said they are no longer properly equipped to do their jobs and face harsh working conditions. They staged protests in Paris, Strasbourg and Nancy on late on Saturday, according to BFM TV.

"In Paris, it is mainly young police officers who say they have lost confidence in their hierarchy, in the institution and in their unions," Jean-Marc Falcone, France's national police chief said in an interview with weekly newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

Falcone said he would equip the staff with modern and sophisticated weaponry and gadgets, while he would also seek to reduce the burden of static surveillance missions.

"I understand their concerns. And I also should tell you that I share almost all of their demands," Falcone said.

About 100 police gathered late on Friday in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in central Paris, just opposite the central police headquarters, according to BFM TV.

Some 3,000 of them took to the streets of French cities on Thursday night. [nL8N1CQ35V]

French President Francois Hollande said on Friday he would meet police representatives at his office early next week to hear their grievances.

(Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva. Editing by Jane Merriman)

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Asia Pacific

China's Xi Seeks to Enforce Will at Communist Party Meeting

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OCT. 24, 2016, 1:48 A.M. E.D.T.

BEIJING — Having punished more than a million Communist Party members for corruption, Chinese President Xi Jinping will use a key meeting that started Monday to drive home the message that his signature anti-graft campaign is far from over and that his authority remains undiminished.

The Central Committee plenary gathering also sets in motion preparations for next year's 19th national party congress that will kickoff Xi's second five-year term as head of the ruling party.

At next year's gathering, Xi is expected to place trusted lieutenants into the party's top bodies, including the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, five of whose seven current members are, by custom, due to step down. Only Xi and Premier Li Keqiang, with whom he doesn't always see eye-to-eye, are expected to remain.

This week's meeting comes as Xi is riding high as China's most powerful leader since Deng Xiaoping led the country in the 1980s and gaining kudos at home for his assertive foreign policy, including the leveraging of China's political and economic heft to open up a rift between the Philippines and its longstanding treaty ally, the United States.

Yet Xi's domestic challenges are legion, ranging from slowing economic growth to massive layoffs resulting from the closure of steel and coal mines and other heavy industries in an effort to reduce industrial overcapacity. The state sector still plays an outsize role in the economy, debt is soaring and the potentially volatile wealth gap continues to broaden.

Xi, the son of a former vice premier, has sought to exercise near total control by heading-up a collection of party "leading groups" including a newly created National Security Council that are seen as further eroding the legitimacy of established government institutions. Few political reforms have been mooted and Xi has drawn fire overseas for waging a sweeping campaign against activist lawyers and government critics resulting in a series of televised confessions reminiscent of Josef Stalin's show trials.

Official sources have offered little insight into this week's discussions bringing together the more than 350 Central Committee members and their alternates at a military guesthouse in western Beijing. The official Xinhua News Agency reported their theme would be "strengthening and standardizing intra-party political life," while seeking to "primarily resolve problems of Party leadership fatigue and slackness in party governance and discipline observation."

That indicates Xi is experiencing difficulty keeping the rank and file on-program and establishing himself as the party's "core," said Zhang Lifan, an independent political commentator in Beijing.

"The (meeting's) agenda ... indicates that resistance within the system is persistent and the leader needs to crack the whip," Zhang said. "If he fails to get it done now, it will be even harder to achieve in future."

Xi's main goal at the gathering is to get rid of "governance by personality and hidden rules," said Beijing Institute of Technology political scientist Hu Xingdou.
"For a long time now, problems have existed such as party above state, individual above party or party above law," Hu said.

Other state media reports say new declarations on the anti-corruption front will be issued and the most recent defaulters arrayed before the public.

The past year has seen a number of retired and serving party big-wigs fall, including former top general Guo Boxiong. That followed the downfall earlier in Xi's term of powerful officials including former Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang. More than 1 million of the party's 88 million members have been handed punishments since 2013, according to party corruption watchdog, the Central Committee for Discipline Inspection.

State media say a pair of documents toughening discipline will be put forward at this week's meeting, reflecting Xi's preference for pursuing anti-corruption through party channels rather than the legal system.

What's not clear is how Xi plans to tackle the unintended results of the anti-graft drive. Those include the reluctance of low-level bureaucrats to do their jobs for fear of being accused of taking bribes and a malaise among the higher-ups unwilling to act until they can once again earn kickbacks, according to recent editorials in the China Daily and other state newspapers.

Shortly after the meeting, the process of selecting the roughly 2,300 delegates for next year's five-yearly national congress will begin. Past plenums have seen participants vote in a straw poll as a first step toward selection of candidates for the next Politburo.

Despite informal rules on retirement, Xi may push to have ally Wang Qishan, who has been spearheading the anti-corruption drive, remain on the Politburo Standing Committee, said Steve Tsang, a Chinese politics expert at the University of Nottingham. Xi might then use his personal authority to angle for a third five-year term, breaking the precedent limiting him to two terms and obviating the need to anoint a successor at next year's congress, Tsang said.

"I don't think this is a foregone conclusion, as there is strong resistance within the establishment against Xi breaking rules to do so and asserting himself so powerfully. We will see from how the plenum goes the real extent of Xi's power," Tsang said.

Xi has offered no public insights or opinions on the meeting's nitty-gritty, but in a speech at a patriotic gathering on Friday, called for total adherence to party edicts, devotion to the people and full support for the armed forces that remain ultimately loyal to the party rather than the Chinese nation.

He offered a hopeful message as well, saying the struggles of the past showed that no challenge was too great and that China was closing in on its goal of becoming a modern nation with a comfortably well-off society.

"We are closer now than at any period in history to realizing the great goal of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," Xi said, shortly before the meeting closed with the singing of communist anthem "The International."

"We have more confidence and ability than at any period in history to realize this goal."
 

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World News | Sun Oct 23, 2016 | 1:12am EDT

Opium crops spread in Afghanistan as Taliban gains ground, U.N. says

The cultivation of opium poppy in Afghanistan, the world's main source of heroin, has risen to its third-highest level in more than 20 years, the United Nations confirmed on Sunday, as the Taliban insurgency gains ground.

In the key findings of its annual Afghanistan opium survey, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the total area of land devoted to poppy cultivation had risen 10 percent in 2016 to 201,000 hectares (497,000 acres).

"The survey shows a worrying reversal in efforts to combat the persistent problem of illicit drugs and their impact on development, health and security," UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov said in a statement.

The government's loosening grip on security in many areas contributed to a collapse in poppy eradication efforts, a method championed by the United States after it led an invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 when the country was under Taliban rule.

"Eradication has dropped precipitously to 355 hectares — a fall of some 91 percent," Fedotov said. The report said cultivation was also spreading to new areas, as the number of poppy-free provinces fell to 13 from 14 out of a total of 34.

The report confirmed a statement by Fedotov earlier this month that the area under cultivation in 2016 had exceeded 200,000 hectares, putting it in the top three years since the UNODC began providing estimates in 1994.

Fedotov's statement on Oct. 4 was made at a conference in Brussels at which world powers raised $15 billion to fund Afghanistan over the next four years.

Taliban successes on the battlefield have exposed the defensive limits of Afghanistan's NATO-trained armed forces, which are supposed to number 350,000 personnel but which have been heavily depleted by casualties and desertion.

"Strong increases (in cultivation) were observed in the northern region and in Badghis province where the security situation has deteriorated since 2015," the UNODC said. The western region, which includes Badghis, has the second-biggest area under cultivation after the southern region.

The key findings released on Sunday said there had also been a 30 percent increase in the estimated yield from poppy fields this year, bringing potential production to the seventh-highest on record, 43 percent more than in 2015.

The UNODC added, however, that its yield estimate was less reliable than that of the area under cultivation.

"There are some limitations in these estimates since the yield survey was not implemented in all main cultivating provinces for security reasons," it said. "For the provinces not covered, the regional average was used."

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Helen Popper)

Also In World News
France starts clearing 'jungle' migrant camp in Calais
Top U.S. diplomat to meet Philippine foreign minister amid 'separation' issue
 

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http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Eco...-to-build-subs-amid-Asian-geopolitical-shifts

October 23, 2016 7:00 am JST

Taiwan to build subs amid Asian geopolitical shifts

KENSAKU IHARA and FUMIE YAKU, Nikkei staff writers

TAIPEI -- Taiwan is taking steps to develop homegrown submarines under pro-independence President Tsai Ing-wen in a bid to bolster its defense capabilities amid growing uncertainty over the role of the U.S. in regional security in East Asia.

The island is planning to spend 470 billion New Taiwan dollars ($14.8 billion) from 2018 through 2040 for construction of its own battleships and submarines.

In mid-September, Taiwan's shipbuilding industry held its first-ever maritime and defense expo in the southern city of Kaohsiung. Over 150 government institutions, private companies and other groups took part in the event, filling up the exhibition space with models of submarine control rooms and anti-ship missiles. "The attitude has shifted under the new government," an executive from a shipbuilding company said, expressing hopes for growing demand.

Standing alone is not a valid defense strategy for Taiwan, which Beijing considers a part of its core national interest and hopes to eventually fully integrate with the mainland. Though the island possesses advanced weapons, such as high-precision, supersonic anti-ship missiles, its defense spending of about $10 billion a year is dwarfed by Beijing's $140 billion 2016 defense budget. Cooperation with Japan and the U.S., which are both wary of China, is key.

Taiwan is gaining geopolitical importance given its strategic location close to China's maritime interests. But many in the U.S. believe that Washington bears too much of the burden of maintaining global peace. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. cannot protect the entire world and calls for a cut to military spending. The Tsai administration, with its strong ties to the U.S., has caught wind of this shift and is responding by boosting Taiwan's own defense capabilities.

The push for homegrown submarines is a symbolic move. Subs can help boost Taiwan's ability to deter Chinese activities in the South China Sea and raise Taiwan's strategic value. The island has needed to update its aging four-ship submarine fleet for some time.

Uphill battle

Many countries are reluctant to sell submarines and other powerful military assets to Taiwan over concerns of provoking China. This also goes for Japan and the U.S., even though their interests align closely with Taiwan's. Tokyo backs efforts to export Japanese submarines in general, but no deals involving Taiwan have come to light. Washington agreed in 2001 under then-President George W. Bush to sell submarines to Taiwan, but nothing has come of that.

Taipei will allocate NT$3 billion over the four years starting in 2017 to design its own subs. "Taiwan is more than capable of building the vessels itself," said Ikuo Kayahara, professor emeritus at Japan's Takushoku University. But many experts believe the island will still need outside help, due to its lack of experience developing a submarine from top to bottom, including weaponry and information systems.

Funding could also become an issue. Taiwanese Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan requested at least NT$400 billion for defense spending under the budget for 2017, but was granted only NT$320 billion. This accounts for 16% of the total budget, about the same percentage as under former President Ma Ying-jeou. It is unclear whether Taiwan will be able to come up with the necessary funds when the submarine building begins in earnest while grappling with fiscally challenging issues, such as growing welfare spending and structural reform of its industries.

Beijing demands that Tsai accept the "One China" principle -- that Taiwan is part of China -- before any negotiations take place, but the Taiwanese leader has refused. The island must overcome both pressure from the mainland and its own technological and financial constraints to achieve the difficult task of raising its profile within the Asian security landscape.

Related stories
Tsai 'upset' with Taiwan's exclusion from UN body meeting due to China interference
Xi talks tough on foreign policy in anniversary speech
 

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Could India's Arihant-class SSBN Lead to Strategic Instability in South Asia?

Are India’s deterrent needs served appropriately with the Arihant-class?

By Robert Farley
October 24, 2016

Will INS Arihant and her sisters provide stability in South Asia, or increase the dangers of a crisis? A recent article in the Washington Quarterly suggests the latter. Diana Wueger argues that, contrary to the experience of the Cold War, the development of a sea-based deterrent will probably not contribute to the stability of the South Asian nuclear balance. Instead, it could lead to a dangerous spiral between India and Pakistan, or between India and China.

It’s worth thinking about what the Indian Navy expects the Arihant-class to do. In traditional deterrence terms, Arihant provides insurance against a disarming or decapitating nuclear strike launched by either China or Pakistan. China surely has sufficient weapons and delivery systems to carry out such a strike, possibly in a very short time frame, and potentially using its own nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) in the process. Pakistan’s expanding nuclear arsenal could also put India’s command and control systems at considerable risk in a general attack.

Wueger expresses several concerns. First, she worries that the specific dynamics of India’s deterrent relationships don’t demand the development of an SSBN force; India can manage without and boomers take away from other naval priorities. She also worries that an expansion of India’s SSBN force — and potentially the creation of Pakistan’s — will drive a destabilizing anti-submarine warfare (ASW) race in the Indian Ocean. The Cold War saw precisely this development, as both the United States and the USSR redoubled their investment in ASW as SSBNs became more capable. China’s ASW capabilities have already begun to grow more formidable, just as the PLAN has devoted greater attention to the Indian Ocean.

The Arihant could also throw off the already tenuous crisis-management dynamics between India and Pakistan. In particular, Pakistan might seek to develop its own sea-based deterrent, only without the economic and technical resources that India has on command. This could result in Pakistani diesel-electrics carrying nuclear-armed cruise missiles, an outcome that would have deeply destabilizing effects on crisis scenarios.

In short, Wueger suggests that SSBNs do no transform the deterrent relationship between China and India (although they do introduce a new arena for competition), and that they have the potential to destabilize the already problematic Indo-Pakistani relationship. Unfortunately, it’s far too late for India to change its mind; Arihant is conducting trials, and the rest of the class will hit the sea over the next decade. Over the long run, however, the Indian Navy may regret the investment in a class of subs designed to do nothing other than hide at the bottom of the ocean, instead of concentrating on more practical, useful vessels.

___
___

ETA: IMHO the Pakistanis are going to go the SSK/SLCM route anyways, no matter what India was going to do.
 

AlfaMan

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I hope the ROCs build their subs-the US threw Taiwan away when Nixon went to China. With the loss of the Phillipines (thanks Comrade Obama) we need land in the Pacific. We can't project power using what few aircraft carriers we have left. Use of bases in Taiwan is ideal to check ChiCom expansionism.
 

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http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/japans-master-plan-defend-itself-china-18147

Japan's Master Plan to Defend Itself from China

Kyle Mizokami [2]
October 23, 2016

For decades, Tokyo’s plans to defend the homeland were frozen in amber. During the Cold War it was assumed, that in the event of war the Soviet Union would invade the northern one-third of the country. A powerful tank corps to contest a Soviet landing, a strong air force to beat back city-destroying bombers and a strong destroyer force to keep open the sea-lanes would be all that was needed to hold out until the Americans arrived.

The defense plan staggered on after the end of the Cold War like a zombie, even after the evaporation of the Soviet threat, for lack of anything better to plan for. Now the rise of the Chinese military and Beijing’s claims on what Japan calls the Senkaku Islands have Japan reorganizing its forces to face new potential threats to the south.

Sino-Japanese relations were relatively good for decades, even as China’s defense budget grew a solid 10 percent annually for eighteen years. In 2010, Beijing abruptly began to press its claim to what it calls the Diaoyu Islands, also known to Japan as the Senkaku Islands. Suddenly, China’s defense buildup—including Type 071 amphibious ships and a new fleet of destroyers and frigates—began to look a lot more menacing than a nonexistent Soviet Union.

The so-called “Dynamic Defense Plan” is a total turnaround, in practically every way. Instead of the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan’s focus is on the the southern Senkaku and Ryukyu island chains. While the old plan envisioned a tank-heavy defense centered around the Seventh Armored Division, the new plan involves a newly created brigade of rapidly deployable marines.

The core of the new defense is the new Amphibious Brigade. The brigade will be based on the southern island of Kyushu at Sasebo, close to Japanese—and American—amphibious ships. The brigade is slated for initial operational capability in 2017 with two thousand personnel, ramping up to three thousand as trained personnel become available.

The nucleus of the brigade will be the Japan’s Western Army Infantry Regiment (WAIR), a battalion-sized light infantry that has become the brain trust of Japan’s amphibious knowledge. The WAIR has participated in the biennial Iron Fist and Dawn Blitz amphibious exercises with the U.S. Marine Corps since 2000, slowly ramping up Japanese training in landing operations as insurance against precisely this sort of contingency.

The Amphibious Brigade will consist of three marine infantry battalions supported by the new Maneuver Combat Vehicle, a brand-new 8x8 wheeled armored vehicle with 105-millimeter gun designed to provide mobile fire support to Japan’s light forces. Tactical lift for the brigade will come in the form of thirty Assault Amphibious Vehicles (AAVs) purchased from the U.S. Marine Corps and refurbished by BAE Systems. This will give the brigade the rough equivalent of a USMC Assault Amphibian Company and the ability to put an entire battalion ashore by armored vehicle. The AAV, while obsolete, was the only available choice until the American Amphibious Combat Vehicle program is sorted out.

The brigade will also be equipped with seventeen V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. The Ospreys will enable another company’s worth of marine infantry to conduct airmobile operations, their range extended by Japan’s six KC-130 tanker aircraft [3]. The First Airmobile Brigade, based in Chiba, can also cross-attach H-60 medium transport, CH-47J heavy transport and AH-64J attack helicopters as needed for additional support.

Meanwhile, the Maritime Self Defense Force is gearing up to support the brigade. The MSDF has three Osumi-class landing ships, tank vessels that can transport the brigade and its vehicles by sea. Each LST has a full-length flight deck for helicopters and a well deck that typically carries two American-designed LCAC hovercraft. The well deck can also “float out” AAV vehicles, each carrying up to eighteen brigade troops, for a beach landing.

Airmobile operations have become a cornerstone of amphibious warfare, and the SDF will be no exception. The MSDF has experimented with using its Hyuga-class “helicopter destroyers” as helicopter troop carriers. During the 2015 Dawn Blitz exercises, a Hyuga ferried both AH-64J and CH-47J helicopters from Japan to the California coast, then acted as a floating helicopter base just as the USS Ronald Reagan did during the 2011 tsunami and earthquake emergency. Japan’s V-22 Osprey tiltrotors will also be able to operate off the Hyugas.

Part of the dynamism of Japan’s new defense strategy is the need to rapidly deploy forces across Japan’s archipelago. Japan consists of 6,852 islands, and garrisoning all of them is an impossible task. Rather, Japan is scattering observation posts and radar stations across the southern island chains, in order to give advance warning of potential attack. Only four islands in the Ryukyus will actually have troops based on them—Yonaguni, Amami-Oshima, Ishigaki and Okinawa—while the rest will remain undefended.

How would Japan’s new doctrine be employed in a crisis? The Senkaku Islands are small and considered uninhabitable, so any ground defense of the island would likely rely on the Amphibious Brigade quickly sending a landing party via Osprey. A larger force could be dispatched from Sasebo by ship as reinforcements, and sailing at twenty knots would arrive within twenty-eight hours.

If the enemy managed to occupy Japanese territory, the location would determine the nature of the response. If the landing were on one of the Senkakus even a platoon could take it back from an enemy battered by naval gunfire, but if it were in the Ryukyus—many of whose islands are populated—a battalion or even the full Amphibious Brigade would be necessary.

As the first step toward liberation, the occupied island would be placed under naval blockade to isolate the defenders from outside support. Prior to the landing brigade forward observers, trained to direct air and naval gunfire support by their U.S. Marine Corps during exercises on Catalina Island, would direct the five-inch guns of Japanese destroyers onto enemy positions. AH-64J Apache helicopters would operate off the Hyuga-class helicopter carriers to attack ground targets much as British Apaches operated off HMS [4]Ocean [4] during the intervention in Libya.

Finally, a landing of AAV7s carrying infantry and LCACs carrying Mobile Combat Vehicles would be carried out on an unopposed location on the island, with the Marine unit moving to make contact with the enemy over land. If the island were large enough, a supporting airmobile assault would be plausible.

Japan’s new dynamic defense strategy is designed to provide security with a minimum amount of new expenditure. To pay for the creation of the brigade, Japan plans to do away with the bulk of its main battle tanks which are of little use in the new island-hopping campaigns anyway. Brigade troops will be drawn from disbanded units, and the entire SDF is projected to grow by less than a thousand personnel. The result however will be a more flexible, rapidly deployable force capable of operating on the battlefields of tomorrow.

Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in the Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and the Daily Beast. In 2009 he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. You can follow him on Twitter: @KyleMizokami [5].

Image [6]: A Japanese soldier with the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force conducts a beach raid as part of training for Exercise Iron Fist 2016. DVIDSHUB/Public domain

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Source URL (retrieved on October 24, 2016): http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/japans-master-plan-defend-itself-china-18147
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[1] http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/japans-master-plan-defend-itself-china-18147
[2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/kyle-mizokami
[3] http://www.navair.navy.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.NAVAIRNewsStory&id=5277
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/05/nato-libya-apache-gunships-success
[5] http://twitter.com/kylemizokami
[6] https://www.dvidshub.net/image/2428552/exercise-iron-fist-2016-phiblex-recon-insert
[7] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/china
[8] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/japan
[9] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/defense
[10] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/amphibious
[11] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/naval-power
[12] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/military
[13] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/war
[14] http://nationalinterest.org/tag/politics
[15] http://nationalinterest.org/topic/security
[16] http://nationalinterest.org/region/aisa
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
I hope the ROCs build their subs-the US threw Taiwan away when Nixon went to China. With the loss of the Phillipines (thanks Comrade Obama) we need land in the Pacific. We can't project power using what few aircraft carriers we have left. Use of bases in Taiwan is ideal to check ChiCom expansionism.

Yeah they've been looking at this for a long time and have had fits and starts with the project. In all frankness, taking their Zwaardvis-class submarines as a technical starting point is probably the way to go. As to tonnage and other particulars with the PLAN literally on their door step whatever they do is going to be having to walk up a very steep hill, particularly if the shooting starts.
 
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Housecarl

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http://www.defenseworld.net/news/17...lation_Of_Drone_Exports_Document#.WA6LRPkrLIV

Israel Refuses To Sign US Regulation Of Drone Exports Document
Our Bureau 10:09 AM, October 24, 2016
1011 views

Israel has refused to sign an US document on regulation of drone exports saying the American document could damage Israeli exports.

The one-page document covers international legal standards, oversight of exports and transparency in the use and export of armed drones, Haaretz reported Sunday.

Sources in Israel’s defense industry were quoted as saying to Ha’aretz that they think the American document could limit their export business, and, in fact, constitutes yet another American attempt to damage Israeli exports. They cite another US move in admitting India to the multilateral Missile Technology Control Regime, these removing barriers to the sale of American drones to India.

Shortly thereafter, India went shopping for the US made Predator drone over its Israeli competitors. Ha’aretz reported earlier about a lawsuit by an American company, General Atomics, trying to block Israel from leasing the Heron TP drone to Germany. Slowly but surely, these and other American companies have been encroaching on a field where in the past Israeli products ruled.

In February 2015, the US Department of State announced a “new policy” pertaining to the export of military drones, that a number of news outlets have hailed as a lifting of restrictions on the export of military, armed drones – referred to by industry as Unmanned Aircraft Systems (“UAS”). Concurrent with the Department of State release of its policy, the US Department of Commerce signaled the near-term publication of regulatory changes in the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) regarding the export licensing of small non-military UAS.

The two announcements are part of an overall Obama Administration policy to regulate the export of UAS in a manner consistent with national security objectives, without over-regulating UAS that are less-sensitive.

According to the announcement, the standards for the sale, transfer, and subsequent use of U.S.-origin military UAS are formulated in five different categories; Sales and transfers of sensitive systems to be made through the government-to-government Foreign Military Sales program; Review of potential transfers to be made through the Department of Defense Technology Security and Foreign Disclosure processes; Each recipient nation to be required to agree to end-use assurances as a condition of sale or transfer; End-use monitoring and potential additional security conditions to be required; and All sales and transfers to include agreement to principles for proper use.

So far, the document has been signed by more than 40 governments, including Austria, Germany and Italy.

A senior Israeli Air Force official told Ha’aretz that the one advantage the Israeli drones still possess is the promise to potential buyers to train with Israel’s drone squadron, because the Israel Air Force is considered the world’s expert in the use of drones.
 

Housecarl

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http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a23523/chinese-hack-visitors-uss-ronald-reagan/

China Tried to Hack Dignitaries Touring a U.S. Aircraft Carrier
Foreign visitors to the ship were sent fake emails.

By Kyle Mizokami
Oct 24, 2016

Chinese hackers attempted to gain information about an American aircraft carrier by sending fake emails to foreign government officials scheduled to tour the ship. Visitors to the USS Ronald Reagan were targeted with malware in an attempt to access their computers, according to the Financial Times. The technique, called "spear phishing," is meant to trick people into installing malware on their computers by impersonating a trusted source.

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan has been a major part of the U.S. effort to counter China' aggressive posture in the South China Sea. Based in Japan, the flat top has conducted exercises in the South China Sea, shown the flag, and hosted visits by dignitaries from foreign countries pressured by Beijing's expansive claims in the region.

The day of one such visit in July, an official-looking email was sent to local government officials set to tour the carrier. The email contained Enfal malware, which can be used to gain entry to an infected computer. According to the Financial Times, the IP address from which the email originated has been used by Chinese intelligence before.

The country involved in the incident has not been named, but could be one of several countries in the region including Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, or Indonesia. The carrier was touring the South China Sea at the time and could have flown in dignitaries from any one of those countries.

What were the Chinese trying to find out? The U.S. Navy wouldn't share classified information about the Reagan with foreign dignitaries, and it's likely the attack wasn't meant to dig up any information about the ship at all. Rather, the Chinese would be more interested in monitoring the communications of the tour members, their impressions of the ship, and how the trip might shape their opinions about their country's relationship with the U.S. This sort of information would be useful at the strategic level, so that Chinese policymakers could work to figure out how to respond to U.S. diplomacy in the region.

The U.S. Navy said there was no indication the Ronald Reagan or Navy networks were compromised during the attack.

Source: Financial Times
 

Housecarl

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http://abcnews.go.com/International...g-6000-migrants-destroying-huge-camp-43008475

France Moving More Than 6,000 Migrants From Makeshift Camp

By ELAINE GANLEY, ASSOCIATED PRESS CALAIS, France — Oct 24, 2016, 5:59 PM ET

France began the mass evacuation Monday of the makeshift migrant camp known as "the jungle," a mammoth project to erase the humanitarian blight on its northern border, where thousands fleeing war or poverty have lived in squalor, most hoping to sneak into Britain.

Before dawn broke, long lines of migrants waited in chilly temperatures to board buses in the port city of Calais, carrying meager belongings and timid hope that they were headed to a brighter future, despite giving up their dreams of life across the English Channel in Britain.

Closely watched by more than 1,200 police, the first of dozens of buses began transferring them to reception centers around France where they can apply for asylum. More police patrolled inside the camp, among them officers from the London police force.

Authorities were expected to begin tearing down thousands of muddy tents and fragile shelters on Tuesday as the migrants vacated them.

Migrants have flocked to the Calais region for nearly two decades, living in mini-jungles. But the sprawling camp in the sand dunes of northern France became emblematic of Europe's migrant crisis, expanding as migrant numbers grew and quickly evolving into Europe's largest slum, supported by aid groups, and a black eye on France's image.

"It's not good, the jungle," said 31-year-old Mahmoud Abdrahman of Sudan. "Eating not good. Water not good, shelter not good, no good toilets." He said he would leave Tuesday when lines were shorter, gesturing to a black knapsack that was all packed to go as proof he was ready.

Ultimately, Abdrahman said, he wanted one thing more than anything else.

"I need peace," he said. "Anywhere."

Home to migrants from Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Syria and elsewhere, the closing of the camp fell like a stone on many as the reality of the evacuation sunk in and plans had to be made. Uncertainty and a lack of precise information left many fearful.

"What should I do?" asked a 14-year-old newly arrived Afghan.

"It is really hard because we have found some good friends over here," said Tariq Shinwari, a 26-year-old Afghan.

The camp shutdown left some, like Imran Khan, an Afghan who was fingerprinted in another country before coming to France, with a tough choice — get on a bus and risk expulsion or go on the run as winter approaches. Under European rules, asylum seekers must be returned to the country where they were fingerprinted on arrival.

"I will decide tomorrow what to do," the 35-year-old said.

By nightfall on Monday, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 1,918 people had been processed and sent to 80 centers around France. Another 400 unaccompanied minors were being housed in heated shelters at the camp.

The numbers were lower than the 3,000 expected to be evacuated Monday. The operation, expected to last a week, would continue as long as necessary, Cazeneuve said. "This is an operation we want to be peaceful and under control. So far it is," he said.

Authorities say the camp holds nearly 6,500 migrants, while aid groups put the number at more than 8,300, with more than 1,200 unaccompanied minors among them.

Unaccompanied minors, many with family members in Britain, were to be housed on-site in containers set up earlier this year as their files are studied in London to see if they qualify for a transfer across the English Channel. The humanitarian organization France Terre d'Asile says 1,291 unaccompanied minors live in the camp.

In a breakthrough, Cazeneuve announced late Monday that Britain had agreed to take in unaccompanied minors with family ties in Britain, an important step after months of prodding by France.

Officials have said that there will be a solution for each migrant, though expulsion may be among them for those who don't qualify for asylum. Meanwhile, France will spend 25 euros a day on each migrant in the reception centers, according to officials.

As the day dragged on, a group of Sudanese got tired of waiting and returned to their shelter in the camp, bags slung over their shoulders and laughing. They said they'd try again on Tuesday.

The camp, which sprang up 18 months ago, was previously tolerated but given almost no state help. Aid groups, and hundreds of British volunteers, have provided basic necessities. It devolved into a slum where tensions bubbled, friendships formed and smugglers thrived.

The forced departure of thousands is an enormous task, planned for months, but authorities have had practice. They dismantled the southern half of the camp in March, a chaotic, often brutal, bulldozing operation that drew complaints from human rights groups.

This time, France hopes to restore some pride by closing the camp that has been seen as a national disgrace in a peaceful, humane operation.

Some doubt the camp's dismantling will end the migrant influx into northern France which predates the slum. A 2003 French-British accord effectively put the British border in Calais, stopping migrants there and putting the onus on France to deal with their plight.

While a sense of camaraderie grew inside the camp, so did tensions. Two of the largest communities, Afghans and Sudanese, have clashed in the past and whole sectors of shelters burned down.

Life at night is the toughest. In the dark, migrants invade the roadway, throwing tree branches and other objects into the path of oncoming trucks heading to port ferries to slow traffic enough to hop on the back.

Fourteen migrants have died this year in the Calais area, mostly in hit-and-run accidents.

"I'm three months in the jungle. I feel like I've stayed three years," said Amin, a 32-year-old Sudanese with perfect English — and a brother in Britain.

Amin, who asked not to be further identified because of concerns for his future, lost his best friend in a hit-and-run accident this summer, a man he shared the treacherous journey with to Calais.

"Nobody looked after this case. He's a murderer," Amin said of the driver who struck his friend. "There was no mention in the newspaper that he died."

Amin said he will take a bus tomorrow and seek asylum in France.

"We have tried but we're fed up. France is good," he said.

———

Associated Press writers Thomas Adamson and Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Jeffrey Schaeffer in Calais contributed to this report.
 

Housecarl

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/world/asia/quetta-police-militants-attack.html?_r=0

ASIA PACIFIC

Clash With Militants at Police College Near Quetta, Pakistan, Kills 20

By SALMAN MASOOD
OCT. 24, 2016

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least six heavily armed attackers stormed a police training college in southwestern Pakistan late Monday, trapping at least 250 cadets and staff. The security forces quickly mounted an operation to clear the premises, army officials said.

It was not immediately clear how many people were being held hostage, but heavy exchanges of gunfire were reported between the attackers and the security forces early Tuesday. Intelligence officials said army commandos had entered the building that the militants had taken, and were in the process of clearing rooms. At least 12 people were taken to hospitals, officials said.

The siege unfolded near Quetta, the capital of the restive Baluchistan Province, which has simmered with a low level separatist insurgency by Baluch rebels. At the same time, Taliban militants maintain a presence in Quetta and many regions of the province that borders Afghanistan.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, the chief minister of Baluchistan, told local news media that “we received intelligence reports three to four days back that terrorists, suicide bombers planned to target Quetta.”

“Security was already on high alert and maybe that is why they have targeted the police training center on the outskirts of the city,” Mr. Zehri told the GEO News television network.

The police training college, about nine miles from Quetta city, covers about 250 acres.
 

Housecarl

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http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/...ing-centre-terrorists-policemen/1/794722.html

Pakistan: Terror attack in Quetta's police academy, at least 30 killed, over 100 injured

At least five loud explosions were also heard from inside the college after the terrorists entered the premises around 10.00pm.

IndiaToday.in | Posted by Ashna Kumar
Karachi, October 25, 2016 | UPDATED 05:27 IST

In a terror attack on a police training academy in Quetta, at least 30 security personnel have been killed while over 100 have been injured.

Three militants have been killed in crossfire by security forces, who attacked the centre late Monday night.

Balochistan province's home minister, Mir Sarfaraz Bugti told reporters that Pakistani military and other security forces had started a operation in the premises and had managed to clear two floors of the hostel. "The security forces in the operation have safely rescued 250 cadets from the ground and first two floors of the hostel," Bugti said.

ANI ✔ @ANI_news
#SpotVisuals At least 33 killed, several injured in an attack on police training academy in Quetta (Pak), 3 terrorists killed #QuettaAttack
4:53 PM - 24 Oct 2016
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A government source said that one of the killed terrorists was wearing a suicide jacket with explosives which were yet to be defused.

According to reports, six militants attacked the centre in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta, injuring several policemen and taking some security personnel hostage.

The terrorists stormed the police training centre's hostel on Saryab road at around 11:30 pm last night, started firing and held 700 police recruits hostage.

The gun battle has ended.

At least five loud explosions were also heard from inside the college after the terrorists entered the premises around 10.00 pm.

The health secretary of the Balochistan government, Abdul Haq Baluch said at least 65 injured people had been shifted to the Civil hospital and Military hospital.

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement that five to six terrorists had attacked the police training centre.

The attackers entered the complex through the front gate, said SSP Operations Mohammad Iqbal.

An emergency has been declared in all government hospitals of the provincial capital, with the injured shifted to Civil Hospital Quetta and the Bolan Medical Complex.

The injured are in stable condition, said the police official.

Militants have conducted attacks against security forces and national installations in Balochistan, which has been plagued by an insurgency and growing sectarian killings for more than a decade.

With inputs from PTI
Also read: If ISI won't act, we will destroy terror networks operating in Pakistan, warns US
Also read: US asks Pakistan to act firm on terrorists, delegitimise all terror groups
 

Housecarl

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http://thediplomat.com/2016/10/narendra-modis-guns-vs-butter-approach-to-terror-from-pakistan/

Narendra Modi's Guns vs. Butter Approach to Terror From Pakistan

The Indian prime minister’s response to Pakistani provocations has been remarkably well balanced.

By Raymond E. Vickery Jr.
October 24, 2016

When Pakistani militants killed 18 Indian soldiers at the village of Uri in Kashmir recently, the Indian drums of war were sounded. In the past, India had acted with “strategic restraint” in response to terrorism from Pakistan. However, this time was to be different. Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had campaigned for prime minister, in part, on a tougher stance toward handling of Pakistan. After Uri, the BJP cadres and activists of all stripes were in a frenzy, a frenzy perhaps best captured by the BJP national general secretary’s comment, “For one tooth, the whole jaw. Days of so-called strategic restraint are over.”

However, Modi’s response to the Uri attack has been remarkably, and some would say courageously, balanced. In essence he has been presented with a version of the classical “guns vs. butter” trade-off model. On the “guns” side, he authorized so-called “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control in Kashmir. These strikes were said by the Indian military to have caused “significant” casualties at launch pads for terrorists planning strikes into Kashmir and Indian metropolitan areas. Later Indian reports indicated that “significant” meant scores of casualties and the destruction of a half dozen launch pads.

Perhaps even more remarkable than the “guns” of military actions taken on September 29 was the balancing “butter” in the speech that Modi had delivered just five days earlier. In the speech given before thousands of BJP party members, many lusting for military action against Pakistan, Modi called for war of a different kind. “I call upon people of Pakistan to come forward, fight a war on who defeats unemployment, poverty and illiteracy first. Let’s see who wins.” He mixed economic and military themes when he said, “While India exports software, Pakistan exports terrorism across the world.”

Unquestionably, India has suffered greatly from terrorism based in or inspired by Pakistan. The United States had its “9/11,” but, not long thereafter, extremists tried to decapitate the entire Indian political leadership by blowing up the country’s parliament. On December 13, 2001, terrorists dressed as Indian police attacked the Parliament. Only quick action and luck (the attackers mistakenly ran into the Vice President’s motorcade) caused all five attackers to be killed, one being blown to bits when his suicide vest was hit with a bullet.

Tensions increased when the terrorists were identified as members of groups headquartered in Pakistan. War seemed imminent five months later when an attack on the family quarters of Indian soldiers in Kashmir resulted in 34 deaths. In India’s “26/11” (November 26, 2008), terrorists from Pakistan attacked Mumbai, killing 166 and wounding hundreds more. And these are only a few of the major incidents. Even before the Uri attacks, the government of India counted more than 700 deaths attributable to terrorist attacks since 2005, the vast majority of these showing support originating from Pakistan.

However, in responding to the Uri crisis, Modi has shown an appreciation for the fact that war is bad not only for living things, but also for Indian economic development. India’s world-leading exports are in the field of software and information technology enabled services. All-out war would not only damage production facilities, it would undermine the foreign confidence in security of data and certainty of services necessary for the industry to survive. Modi’s manufacturing initiative “Make in India” would also have trouble finding investors for plants under the threat of destruction.

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman famously wrote of the 2002 India-Pakistan cease-fire, ”That was brought to us not by General Powell but by General Electric.” Not only did economic interests play a substantial role in India’s reaction in 2002, but also in the face of the more egregious attacks on Mumbai in 2008. In both instances, the need to foster economic security was a key factor in moderating the Indian response.

Modi’s “guns and butter” approach seems to have confounded both his militant friends and his militant enemies. Reaction to his BJP National Council speech was decidedly mixed among supporters on social media and in the press. Some viewed it as innovative to challenge the people of Pakistan to compete on economic and social challenges rather than go to a shooting war. Others felt it too weak in response to the Uri attack.

Most amazing was the immediate reaction of Pakistani leaders to the surgical strikes. They questioned whether the surgical strikes had actually taken place, as did some Indians. Perhaps this was understandable coming from Indians who sought a more robust military response from the Modi government. However, for Pakistani leaders, it seemed a way of arguing against further escalation. After all, if the surgical strikes had not actually occurred, there would be no need to revenge them.

At any rate, Modi’s approach seemed about right to the Indian business community.

The Bombay Stock Exchange and the value of the rupee dropped on news of the surgical strikes. Even so, business leaders backed the surgical strikes while maintaining that the world looks to India because of its strong economic performance and the attention it receives globally.

Thus, Modi has balanced the need to take military action against Pakistan while furthering his economic development agenda. Hopefully, he has provided a context in which both security and economic goals can be pursued. However, whether this balancing act will be successful ultimately remains to be seen.

While economic factors provide a balance against war for India, that is less true for Pakistan. To an extent, Modi is right when he says India exports software while Pakistan exports terrorism. Pakistan has no equivalent to the international software and information technology enabled services industry that drives so much of Indian export activity, and the country is much less prosperous.

Perhaps the surest way to economic prosperity in Pakistan is through the military. It is the most powerful institution in the country and arguably the only merit-based institution. Unfortunately many of its members view its reason for being as fighting India directly and through proxies. This is certainly true of the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the bureau in immediate control of covert activities. Unless the Pakistani military changes this perception of itself and there are greater economic incentives outside the military, the reaction of Pakistan to even the most calibrated of India’s strategic actions can be radical escalation and disproportionate violence.

Thus, as in many adversarial endeavors, there are no right and wrong answers on how to deal with terrorism emanating from Pakistan. There are only answers that are better and those that are worse. So far, Modi’s approach balancing guns and butter seems the better answer.

Raymond E. Vickery Jr. is a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and former U.S. assistant secretary of commerce, trade development. He is also a senior advisor at Albright Stonebridge and Of Counsel at Hogan Lovells.
 

Housecarl

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http://www.wionews.com/south-asia/india-pakistan-cross-border-firing-kills-4-7864/

India-Pakistan cross-border firing kills 4

Two children and a soldier of India's Border Security Force were among the ones killed

Jammu and Kashmir | Oct 24, 2016, 07.50 PM (IST)

Four people including two children and a soldier were killed in cross-border firing between India and Pakistan today.

An 18-month-old girl and another civilian were killed in “unprovoked firing” by the Indian Army, the Pakistani military said.

The firing took place in the villages of Harpal, Pukhlian and Charwah around the border of the nuclear-armed countries, AFP reported.

The Indian police said that the late night firing took place in its RS Pura sector, killing an Indian border security guard and a six-year-old boy.

Six other Indians were also injured during the exchange, an Indian police officer was reported as saying.

Relations between the two south Asian countries have worsened in the recent past with India blaming Pakistan for an attack on its army base in September killing 19 soldiers of the Indian Army.

India later launched what it called "surgical strikes" across the border in Pakistan. Pakistan, however, denied any such strikes.

The state of Kashmir sandwiched between India and Pakistan has been claimed in full by both the two countries ever since they gained independence from Britain in August 1947.

(WION with inputs from agencies)
 

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http://www.defense.gov/News/Article...ddresses-strategic-deterrence-in-21st-century

Stratcom Commander Addresses Strategic Deterrence in 21st Century

By Terri Moon Cronk DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2016 — Global security threats today must be viewed in a transregional, multidomain and multifunctional context, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command said Oct. 21.

Speaking at Kansas State University’s Landon Lecture Series, Navy Adm. Cecil D. Haney addressed U.S. military strategic deterrence in the 21st century.

Haney discussed Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as the five evolving challenges the military faces, and he emphasized that strategic deterrence capabilities are used every day to maintain strategic stability.

“As we look in the rear-view mirror over the last year and extrapolate into the future, our global security environment remains dynamic and uncertain,” the Stratcom commander said. “Some nation-states are developing and modernizing their nuclear weapons capabilities,” he said. “Nuclear and non-nuclear nation states aspire to or have demonstrated their ability to employ not just a variety of missile capabilities, but also cyber, counter-space and other asymmetric capabilities.”

Addressing Challenges

But any nation that thinks it can get away with a strategic attack on the United States and its allies must think carefully about their actions and potential consequences, Haney cautioned. “I think we all understand the impact a nuclear weapon could have, but it’s also important to understand that an attack in space or cyberspace can have strategic effect,” he said.

And with all the complexities and the interconnectedness of globalization, these strategic problems have global ramifications that require comprehensive solutions, Haney said.

As a global combatant command, Stratcom has transregional responsibility that extends from under the sea to geosynchronous orbit, the admiral explained.

“[Stratcom’s] capabilities underpin the fundamental elements of deterrence, affording the United States the ability to maintain strategic stability – a must in this dynamic and uncertain security environment,” he emphasized.

Stratcom works to understand deterrence mechanisms and gain a deeper understanding of the adversary, he noted, adding, “We provide the nation with a safe, secure, effective and credible strategic nuclear deterrence force that is ready.”

Deterrence Forces Critical in Global Security

U.S. deterrence forces stand at the ready and are critical in a global security environment where it is clear other nation-states are placing a high priority on developing, sustaining, modernizing, and in some cases expanding their nuclear forces, Haney said.

“Today, the extended service of our nuclear delivery platforms is testament to the efforts and ingenuity of our predecessors -- particularly the designers, engineers, maintainers, and industry -- but we are fast approaching the point where having an effective nuclear deterrent will be put at risk,” he said. “To be clear, however, baseline sustainment won’t meet future adversarial threats. We simply must modernize.”

Delaying development and fielding of our modernization programs – everything from space-sensing, communications, platforms and life extensions for warheads – or ceasing to invest in the people who engineer, maintain and operate these systems -- will create an unacceptable increase in risk, the admiral said.

“Equally, if not more important, delaying will directly affect our credibility and ability to deter and assure and will detract from our nonproliferation efforts,” Haney told the audience.

Synchronized Campaign

Meeting future challenges requires a synchronized campaign of investments supporting the full range of military operations that secure U.S. national security objectives, he added. And while the admiral said he was pleased with the president’s proposed defense budget request for fiscal year 2017, he said he is “not pleased with the fact we do not have an approved budget and continue to live with a continuing resolution.”

A credible strategic deterrence capability cannot be done by Stratcom alone, he said, adding that a holistic approach should be taken to integrate military effects with all instruments of national power.

Haney explained such synchronization is commonly called “DIME” – for diplomatic, information, military and economic – “which together deters our adversaries and assure U.S. allies and partners.”

For example, he said, Stratcom aims to work seamlessly with the other combatant commands and across the federal government, as well as with partners and allies, the commercial sector and academia to apply the scope of its portfolio toward a synchronized pursuit of national objectives, such as building, sustaining and supporting partnerships to better understand the strategic and the regional environment and successfully develop effective strategies.

The Stratcom commander also noted that leaders must ensure they are developing the talent that will assume the mantle as the geopolitical landscape continues to change and evolve.

Nation Needs Future Leaders

The nation needs professionals who can think deeply and strategically, voice educated opinions, coherently document those thoughts and drive effective solutions, Haney said. “We must ask ourselves: How do we deter one without provoking another?” he said. “Are we thinking about our actions from the perception of our adversaries? How do we communicate our intent, our resolve, and our readiness?”

The answers to those questions start with this institution and with the people in this room,” the admiral told the university audience. “KSU fosters a high-velocity learning environment and helps to create leaders who not only understand the challenges associated with the world we live in today, but who can develop and apply solutions. Therefore, we need you.”

The goal of deterrence is peace, the Stratcom commander noted. “Peace is achieved through strength,” he added. “Strength is all of us working together to prepare for an uncertain world.”

(Follow Terri Moon Cronk on Twitter: @MoonCronkDoD)
 

Housecarl

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http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/...ing-centre-terrorists-policemen/1/794722.html

Pakistan: Terror attack in Quetta's police academy, at least 30 killed, over 100 injured

At least five loud explosions were also heard from inside the college after the terrorists entered the premises around 10.00pm.

IndiaToday.in | Posted by Ashna Kumar
Karachi, October 25, 2016 | UPDATED 05:27 IST

In a terror attack on a police training academy in Quetta, at least 30 security personnel have been killed while over 100 have been injured.

Three militants have been killed in crossfire by security forces, who attacked the centre late Monday night.

Balochistan province's home minister, Mir Sarfaraz Bugti told reporters that Pakistani military and other security forces had started a operation in the premises and had managed to clear two floors of the hostel. "The security forces in the operation have safely rescued 250 cadets from the ground and first two floors of the hostel," Bugti said.



A government source said that one of the killed terrorists was wearing a suicide jacket with explosives which were yet to be defused.

According to reports, six militants attacked the centre in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta, injuring several policemen and taking some security personnel hostage.

The terrorists stormed the police training centre's hostel on Saryab road at around 11:30 pm last night, started firing and held 700 police recruits hostage.

The gun battle has ended.

At least five loud explosions were also heard from inside the college after the terrorists entered the premises around 10.00 pm.

The health secretary of the Balochistan government, Abdul Haq Baluch said at least 65 injured people had been shifted to the Civil hospital and Military hospital.

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement that five to six terrorists had attacked the police training centre.

The attackers entered the complex through the front gate, said SSP Operations Mohammad Iqbal.

An emergency has been declared in all government hospitals of the provincial capital, with the injured shifted to Civil Hospital Quetta and the Bolan Medical Complex.

The injured are in stable condition, said the police official.

Militants have conducted attacks against security forces and national installations in Balochistan, which has been plagued by an insurgency and growing sectarian killings for more than a decade.

With inputs from PTI
Also read: If ISI won't act, we will destroy terror networks operating in Pakistan, warns US
Also read: US asks Pakistan to act firm on terrorists, delegitimise all terror groups

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...nts-attack-Pakistan-police-academy-killing-61

Latest report has the KIA at double the earlier reports......

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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...lling-61/ar-AAjmSYT?li=AA4Zpp&ocid=spartanntp

Militants attack Pakistan police academy, killing 61

Associated Press
By ABDUL SATTAR, Associated Press
2 hrs ago

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Militants wearing suicide vests stormed a Pakistani police academy in the southwestern city of Quetta overnight, killing 61 people, mostly police cadets and recruits, and waging a ferocious gunbattle with troops that lasted into early hours Tuesday.

The four-hour siege — one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistan's security forces in recent years — also wounded 123, mainly police trainees but also some paramilitary troops, according to Wasay Khan, a spokesman for the elite Frontier Corps. Some of the wounded were reported to be in critical condition.

The assault caught many of the recruits asleep in their dorms and forced cadets and trainers to jump off rooftops and run for their lives to escape the attackers.

Pakistani troops responding to the assault said it was over after all three suicide bombers involved in the attack were killed — one was gunned down while two others blew themselves up.

Later Tuesday, conflicting claims of responsibility emerged. The Islamic State group, which is waging war in Syria and Iraq where it has declared a self-styled caliphate, posted a claim on the group's media arm, the Arabic-language Aamaq news agency. It said three IS fighters killed 60 police recruits in Quetta but the claim was not confirmed by Pakistani officials and IS did not offer any previously unknown details about the assault.

Earlier, a little-known breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Hakimullah group, also issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. Pakistani officials, doubting the group's capabilities in staging such a coordinated and spectacular assault, also could not confirm that claim.

While most of the casualties were cadets and others from the academy, some of the army personnel who responded to the assault were also among those killed, said Shahzada Farhat, police spokesman in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

The attack began at 11:30 p.m. on Monday, said Baluchistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti, with three militants shooting and killing a police guard at the watch tower before storming into the academy, located on the city's outskirts.

Baluchistan officials had earlier received "intelligence reports that some terrorists have entered the province" but had no indications about possible targets.

"We had tightened security, which is why they could not do it in the city and chose a target on the outskirts," said Baluchistan's chief minister, Sanaullah Zehri.

There were initially also conflicting police and military statements about the number of attackers involved. About 700 cadets, trainees, instructors and other staff were inside the academy when it was attacked, Bugti said.

Once inside the academy grounds, Pakistani media said the gunmen headed straight to the dorms housing the cadets and trainees and opened fire, shooting indiscriminately. Some of the cadets jumped off rooftops and through windows to try to escape.

"They were rushing toward our building, firing," one cadet told Pakistani Geo TV news channel. "We rushed for safety toward the roof and jumped down in the back of the building."

Another recruit, his face covered in blood, told the station the gunmen shot at whoever they saw. "I ran away, just praying God might save me," he said.

After the attack, Pakistani forces tightened security around the academy and Quetta hospitals were the wounded were taken. Footage aired on local television stations showed ambulances rushing out of the main entrance of the academy as fire engines struggled to put out fires set off by the explosions from the attackers' suicide vests.

Most of those being treated at the city hospitals had gunshot wounds, although were injured jumping off the rooftop of the hostel housing the cadets to escape the gunmen.

"This war isn't over," said Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. "The enemy is weakened, but not eliminated."

Maj. Gen. Sher Afgan, head of the Pakistani paramilitary force which is primarily responsible for the province, claimed the attackers had received instructions from commanders in neighboring Afghanistan. He said they were most likely from the banned Lashker-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi militant group affiliated with al-Qaida and the Taliban. The Sunni militant group has mainly targeted minority Shiite Muslims whom its members consider to be infidels.

The paramilitary chief spoke before the Islamic State and the Hakimullah group's claims surfaced.

Afghanistan condemned the attack and dismissed Pakistan's allegations that the assault was planned from bases inside Afghanistan. "Afghanistan is the biggest victim of terrorism and denounces all terrorist attacks," said Mohammad Haroon Chakhansuri, spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

In a separate statement, Ghani also condemned the attack, saying that "terrorism is a threat throughout the region, which is reflected in the brutal act today in Quetta."

Pakistan maintains that militants fleeing army operations in the tribal regions regularly escape across the border, finding safe havens inside Afghanistan. For his part, Ghani has been deeply critical of Pakistan, saying it has provided safe havens to the Taliban and in particular the violent Haqqani network.

For over a decade, Baluchistan has been the scene of a low-intensity insurgency by nationalist and separatist groups demanding a bigger share in the regional resources. Islamic militants and Sunni sectarian also have a presence in the province.

Pakistan has carried out several military operations against militants in country's lawless tribal regions along Afghanistan border, including a major push that started mid 2014 in North Waziristan, a militant base. The Islamic militants have killed tens of thousands of people in their bid to overthrow Pakistan's government and install their own harsh brand of Islamic law.

Later Tuesday, a roadside bomb killed a police official escorting a polio team that was travelling in northwestern Pakistan as part of a vaccination campaign, according to Furqan Bilal, a police superintendent in Peshawar. Militant attacks on polio teams are common in Pakistan as Taliban and other extremists denounce such vaccination campaigns as a Western conspiracy.
___
Associated Press Writers Munir Ahmed, Zarar Khan and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad; Riaz Khan in Peshawar; Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, and Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
 

Housecarl

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Last days of the caliphate

Islamic State’s messianic apocalypse is postponed

But the defeat of the jihadist group in the real world might revive realism among Sunnis

Oct 24th 2016 | Middle East and Africa
Comments 26

THE fate of a small rural town in northern Syria might seem inconsequential when faced with a multinational assault on the group’s main stronghold, Mosul. But few places were more central to the image of Islamic State (IS). The jihadists lauded Dabiq as the locus, as cited in an obscure Hadith, or saying of the Prophet Muhammad, of the battle of the end of days; in their vision it would host an apocalyptic showdown between the self-styled caliphate’s faithful and Western crusaders. It named its glossy English-language e-zine after the town, and beheaded its victims, like Peter Kassig, an American aid worker, in its foothills. As the day of reckoning approached, observers reported that IS had fortified Dabiq with 1,200 fighters.

In the end, IS went with barely a whimper (see map). The jihadists folded before the advance of Turkish-backed rivals after just a day’s battle. IS’s caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had foretold of the capitulation in a dream, explained apologists. IS’s propagandists even pre-empted the fall with the launch of a new English title, Rumiya, deferring the end-of-days battle until IS reaches Rome.

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IS’s eschatology—the theology of death, judgement and the ending of the world—has always been flexible. Experts see it more as a recruitment tool than a tenet of faith. “Opportunistic apocalypticism,” is how one French scholar, Jean-Pierre Filiu, has called it. Mr Baghdadi seemed more interested in state-building than doomsday. He called himself “caliph”, an earthly ruler, rather than a mythological mahdi, or messiah. But theological hype helped whip up impressionable Muslims abroad, like Mohammed Emwazi, a London dropout who executed Mr Kassig and others. “Apocalyptic motifs helped recruit people unfamiliar with the tradition. Europeans fit into that category,” says David Cook, an American professor and author of “Apocalyptic Islam”. In the words of Ibn Khaldoun, classical Islam’s greatest and most cynical historian, “The Arabs obtain power only by relying on a religious movement.”

Traditionally, Sunni Islam—Islam’s dominant sect—sought to prop up the world order. The notion of upending it was more a Shia belief, offering Islam’s suppressed and historically battered minority a hope of final redemption. At the appointed hour, their 12th imam, who disappeared in 941 to avoid the persecution Sunni despots had inflicted on his 11 predecessors, would return as al-mahdi al-muntadhar, “the awaited saviour”, and vanquish the Shias’ Sunni oppressors.

But over the past century Sunnis have come to see the world differently. Western armies upturned the old order of Islam’s Iraqi heartland, replacing Sunni masters (a minority) with non-Sunni ones (the Shia majority). Sunni confidence has turned to despair.

Jihadists like al-Qaeda had scant time for the apocalyptic, but as successive waves of jihad floundered and the Sunni lot worsened, some Sunnis adopted some of Shia Islam’s more fantastical thinking. “Millennial traits were always there in Sunni Islam but undeveloped in any great detail,” says Robert Gleave, of Exeter University. After America killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, in 2006, and put his jihadists to rout, a despondent remnant unearthed references buried in canonical compilations of Muhammad’s sayings. They unearthed*alamat al-saa, or signs of the hour, including the race to construct sky-high buildings, the rising of the sun in the west and an army brandishing black banners in the east—all signs that Zarqawi’s devotees claimed to discern. Accompanying the mahdi, Jesus would return, they claimed, bearing a bloody lance.

By contrast, as Iraq’s Shias grew accustomed to power, their own apocalyptic impulse waned. “When we suffered we prayed for the imam”, says a taxi-driver from Baghdad’s teeming Shia shantytown, Sadr City. “Now that victory is here, we’ve forgotten him.” In Iran, laymen and low-level clerics have still found the notion of apocalypse useful in challenging establishment clerics. When challenged by ayatollahs, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Islamic Republic ex-president, and only layman to have held the job, would convene his cabinet in Jamkaran, one of the bling-emblazoned sites where the 12th imam is expected to return. But on the whole, Shias have tempered their talk of extra-worldly deliverance. Even Muqtada al-Sadr, a lowly but firebrand Iraqi cleric, rebranded his Mahdi Army as the Brigades of Peace.

Now that Dabiq has failed to deliver, might jihadists abort their more nihilistic ideas? Precedent suggests that, for some, failure will only redouble their flights of fancy. But from the pavements of Cairo to Karbala, Mr Cook detects a decline in apocalyptic publications. Under tighter surveillance, the more hysterical might have gone underground or found a home on the deep web. But many Sunni Iraqis are as appalled by IS’s horror movies as anyone else. Preachers in Baghdad say a new realism is taking hold. Better, perhaps, that the appointed hour waits.*
 

Housecarl

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South China Sea

The Latest US Freedom of Navigation Operation Opens the Legal Door to More Aggressive US Challenges to China’s Artificial Islands

By Julian Ku Monday, October 24, 2016, 2:51 PM

Last week, the US Navy conducted another freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) in the South China Sea.*Although this FONOP may seem just like the others, I believe it is legally different because it is the first recent FONOP to openly and decisively reject a Chinese claim of maritime sovereignty. US FONOPs over the past year have been limited to challenging technical Chinese law requirements for seeking permission before transit.*This new FONOP does more than that and should open the legal door to a more aggressive US challenge to China’s island-building in the South China Sea.

The most recent FONOP was conducted by the USS Decatur near the Chinese-occupied Paracel Islands (also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam).*According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the Decatur “conducted this transit in a routine, lawful manner without ship escorts and without incident…”*Reports further confirm that the Decatur did not come within 12 nautical miles of any of the China-occupied islands, and the use of the term “routine” suggests the Decatur did not sail under the rules of “innocent passage.”*(This last point has not been confirmed, however, by the Defense Department.)

Although the US DOD statement does not explicitly say so, it is most likely that the Decatur’s passage was a challenge to China’s excessive straight baselines around the Paracels.*Because China is claiming a right to a territorial sea beyond 12 nautical miles as a result of its use of straight baselines, the Decatur entered Chinese-claimed “territorial seas” even though it did not sail within 12 nautical miles of any of the islands. This is confirmed by the Chinese government’s reaction, which described the FONOP as “uninvited entry” into China’s “territorial waters.” (To see China’s baselines on a map, look at this U.S. Department of State publication and scroll down to the last page).*

States use baselines to determine where to draw the line between their coast and the beginning of their territorial sea under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.*Under that treaty, a “normal baseline” is a “low water line along the coast” as set forth in Article 5.*But under Article 7, states may use a “straight baseline” joining appropriate points (not at the low-water line) where “the coastline is deeply indented and cut into, or if there is a fringe of islands along the coast in its immediate vicinity…”*

Excessive straight baselines are a common target of US FONOPs challenging territorial claims, and China is one of many countries that have, in the view of the U.S., abused this tool of maritime demarcation. In 2015, the US challenged the excessive straight baselines of three countries (China, Nicaragua, Vietnam) and in 2014 the US challenged those of seven (China, Ecuador, South Korea, Nicaragua, Iran, Vietnam and Taiwan).

In the case of China, the U.S. has long argued that China cannot simply connect straight baselines between the various small islands in the Paracels, since none of the circumstances in Article 7 apply and China is also not an archipelagic state like Japan or the Philippines (The US critique is laid out in detail here at pages 7-8).
*
This brings me back to my main point.*Unlike the other US FONOPs in the South China Sea since October 2015, the Decatur FONOP (probably) did not follow the rules of innocent passage even though it was entering waters China claims are its territorial waters.*While the US has always followed innocent passage when it sailed into other Chinese-claimed 12 nautical mile territorial seas, it did not do so here because the US government believes no country, including China, can use straight baselines to delimit a territorial sea between the Paracels (an “archipelagic straight baseline”).*Put another way, the U.S. government does not accept that any country can use straight baselines to create a “territorial sea” in the way that China claims to have done in the Paracels.*This amounts to a flat-out rejection of China’s claim to maritime sovereign rights.*

This approach should inform a US FONOP aimed at China’s recently-built artificial islands. Just as it rejects “excessive straight baselines,” the U.S. government does not accept that any country can use an artificial island to generate a territorial sea in the way that China seems to have done at Mischief Reef in the Spratlys. Under UNCLOS Article 60, coastal states (like the Philippines) have exclusive jurisdiction to build artificial islands in their own EEZs, and artificial islands cannot generate entitlements to a territorial sea. The July 12 UNCLOS arbitral tribunal award confirmed this point, holding that China’s artificial island on Mischief Reef had no legal foundation whatsoever because it sits inside the Philippines’ EEZ.*China has no legal basis (that the US would recognize) for any territorial seas around that reef.*Like it has done in the Paracels, therefore, the U.S. could conduct a “routine” non-innocent passage FONOP within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef.*

There is no legal obstacle to a US FONOP directly challenging the legal basis of China’s artificial islands.*Indeed, the legal basis seems at least as strong as the challenge to the “excessive straight baselines” just conducted in the Paracels.*Given the strategic problem China’s artificial islands pose to US freedom of navigation interests, it is actually surprising that the U.S. has not conducted such a FONOP yet. The legal basis existed before the July 12 arbitral award and has only become clearer since the award’s issuance.*To be sure, China will not be happy with this “violation of its territorial seas.” But it is unlikely to react any more aggressively than it has just done with respect to the Decatur’s recent FONOP.*A Mischief Reef FONOP is the logical next step.*Whether it happens will tell us a great deal about the future scope and effectiveness of US FONOPs in the South China Sea.

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Water Wars: A Waiting Game in the South China Sea
Chris Mirasola Fri, Oct 14, 2016, 11:54 AM
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Julian Ku, Chris Mirasola Mon, Oct 3, 2016, 2:39 PM
 

Housecarl

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Omphalos

Middle East Ticker: Egypt Nears Its Boiling Point, Mosul Offensive Enters Second Week, and Two More Ceasefires Collapse

By J. Dana Stuster Tuesday, October 25, 2016, 10:10 AM

Omphalos: Middle East Conflict in Perspective

The End of Sisi’s Authoritarian Honeymoon

When Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi entered office in June 2014, he did so riding a groundswell of support. Just a month into his presidency, he went ahead with the unpopular measure of slashing fuel subsidies, a pragmatic but polarizing move only made possible by his popularity. In addition to taking this prudent measure, he also promoted a series of expensive policies that did little to improve the country’s economic straits, including the costly project to expand the Suez Canal—which seemed intended to draw comparisons to Nasser’s Aswan Dam project rather than to bring any tangible benefits. One of his few unqualified successes—for himself, at least—has been his efficient consolidation of power. Just last week, Reuters reported that the Egyptian government has carried out a dedicated campaign against judges who signed a July 2013 letter in support of a return to “constitutional legitimacy” after the military ousted President Mohamed Morsi. Now, with Egypt still trying to secure funding to support a $12-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, Sisi’s honeymoon has definitively ended.

“By almost every measure, conditions in Egypt are worse now than prior to the revolution,” the Council on Foreign Relations’ Steven A. Cook wrote last week for Foreign Affairs. “Economic growth remains stagnant. Egypt’s reserves of foreign currency have dwindled to perilous levels: in July they dropped beneath $16 billion, their lowest level in almost a year and a half and barely enough to cover three months of imports. The Egyptian pound has collapsed, and the government has begun rationing dollars.” Sisi also pushed through a new value-added tax last month which, despite provisions that are supposed to protect the country’s most impoverished residents, is anticipated to hit poor families the hardest, according to a report by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. In addition to the new tax, Egypt is undergoing a severe shortage of sugar and other staple goods; last month, the country’s failure to import wheat sparked fears of an impending bread crisis, and Egyptians may be on the brink of a fuel shortage after Saudi Arabia cut off its supply of oil-based aid two weeks ago.

Sisi will not be able to ride his popularity through the current crisis. A constant thread in the reporting from Cairo is the palpable frustration with Sisi’s government. “We watch TV and you would think Cairo is Vienna, but go to the street and it is Somalia’s cousin,” a tuk-tuk driver named Moustafa Abdou told a news station in an interview that went viral last week. “You go spend untold billions on mega-projects and our education is at the lowest level possible?" The video was quickly deleted but prompted people to tweet their dissatisfaction with the hashtag #WhatHasSisiDoneForUs? Another frustrated Egyptian man told the Washington Post, “People here do not care who is president...They only care that they can work and profit under whomever is in power. I used to make much more money three years ago.” The anger on Egyptian streets goes beyond just words. One man, Ashraf Shahin, immolated himself in Alexandria, shouting at bystanders that he couldn’t afford to eat; the video of that incident also went viral. (He died this past Sunday from his burns.)

Shahin has already drawn comparisons to Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit seller whose self-immolation was a catalyst for the Arab Spring. Even before he set himself on fire, activists had announced plans to hold protests against the government on November 11. "This president is an employee like any other…we are tired…we have lost our breath…you want to leave peacefully leave, if not we will force you,” one of the activists, Shershoub Hamam, says in a recent YouTube video. “Our revolution demanded justice, freedom and bread and we've got none of it.” Sisi’s government has come down hard on protesters before: just earlier this year, authorities arrested nearly 400 people in anticipation of planned protests in April—and it is likely to do so again in the next few weeks.
*
Conflict and Competition in the Mosul Offensive

The first week of the offensive to push the Islamic State out of Mosul saw some swift gains but was also marked by competition within the coalition. Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi military forces traded accusations about each slowing the other down, and tensions between Baghdad and Ankara about the role for Turkish forces (which the Ticker has covered before) have continued.

Within hours of the start of the offensive, peshmerga forces were able to seize 20 towns in the outlying countryside near Mosul, and soon after, Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces began advancing from the southeast. But despite officials saying that the offensive was proceeding ahead of schedule, both groups expressed frustration with the pace of the advance. One Iraqi commander vented to the Washington Post that he was “waiting for the peshmerga to finish their job.” Since the initial blitz early last week, the advance has slowed as troops have encountered more traps, IEDs, and ambushes. Sophia Jones, a reporter for the Huffington Post, spoke to an Iraqi lieutenant colonel who was defusing IEDs with a pair of pliers and minimal protective gear. He told her that the Islamic State is leaving bombs on roads, over doorways, and in Qurans. Hours after the interview, he was killed when a bomb detonated while he was trying dismantle it. The toll from the fighting also includes a U.S. soldier who was killed by a roadside bomb.

More dangerous than the tense working relationship between the peshmerga and the Iraqi military is the continuing strain on the Turkish-Iraqi relationship over the Mosul offensive. The United States is trying to maintain cooperation between the two governments, and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said last week that an agreement had been reached “in principle” that balances “respect for the sovereignty of Iraq” and “respect also for Turkey’s historic role in the region.” But that tentative arrangement may not hold. On Monday, Iran voiced its support for the Iraqi government, saying that Turkey should get permission from Baghdad to participate in the Mosul offensive. Meanwhile, in Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuþoðlu said that Turkish forces are already deeply involved in the drive to Mosul, shelling Islamic State positions and supporting local forces. "There are also four F-16 fighters jets on standby for an air operation as part of the international coalition, ready for airstrikes. How they are deployed will depend on decisions by members of the coalition and our military,” he said. Today, he doubled down, saying that Turkey is “ready to use all our resources including a ground operation” to address any threat it perceives in Iraq.

The Islamic State struck back over the weekend. On Friday, approximately 100 Islamic State fighters attacked the city of Kirkuk, southeast of Mosul along the border of Iraq’s Kurdish region. The attack, conducted by a combination of invading militants and terror cells hiding in the city, struck police buildings and a power station before being cornered in a hotel. At least 99 civilians and Iraqi security forces were killed in the three-day attack. The local Iraqi governor said Monday that, after fighting through the weekend, security has been restored in the city and that at least 74 militants had been killed. Michael Knights, an expert on Iraqi security at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted on Twitter that experts had been anticipating an attack on Kirkuk and that the assault is similar to a previous coordinated wave of attacks that took place in January 2015.
*
Another Ceasefire Ends in Aleppo...

Assad regime forces are on the offensive again in Aleppo this week. On Monday, pro-regime troops seized the hilltop in Bazo, a strategic position from which they have begun bombarding rebel districts in the city’s east. The regime advance follows the expiration of the humanitarian ceasefire that went into effect on Thursday. Russia said it would suspend airstrikes from 8 AM to 7 PM and open humanitarian corridors to allow civilians and surrendering rebels to leave besieged areas, but many Aleppo residents distrusted the offer and no individuals fled the city during the ceasefire, according to reports. The Russian government said on Saturday that it was ending the truce after just two days and would not consider renewing the ceasefire. However, despite reports of renewed airstrikes on Saturday and Tuesday, today Russia denied that it had resumed its air campaign and said humanitarian corridors to east Aleppo remain open. But even during the ceasefire, those routes did not meet U.N. security standards, and on Monday the U.N.’s humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator announced they would have to abandon the planned evacuation of people in need of medical attention that had been scheduled for last week.
*
...And Another Ceasefires Collapses in Yemen

In Yemen, another attempted ceasefire never really materialized. The truce nominally entered force on Wednesday night and was slated to last for three days, but was marred by numerous violations of the agreement. Sanaa saw its first night without airstrikes in nearly three months, but elsewhere Saudi officials reported skirmishes and missile launches along the Saudi-Yemeni border. By Saturday, the last day of the ceasefire, Saudi forces reported that Houthi attacks had escalated to “a sustained Houthi ground attack” and Saudi jets had responded with airstrikes, Reuters reports. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned during the implementation of the ceasefire that "it is essential that the Houthis, who have said they will support this ceasefire, live by it” and that “breaches of this put at risk the entire possibility of getting back to talks.” Despite efforts by U.N. Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed to extend the ceasefire, there does not appear to be any initiative on either side to try again.

As Laura Kasinof writes in a recent article for Slate, the failed ceasefire comes at a difficult time. The United States, which has supported the Saudi intervention, is increasingly frustrated by Riyadh’s conduct of the war. But despite the stalemate, both sides remain committed to the bloody conflict, which has killed more than 10,000 people so far. Kasinof writes, “It seems that Saudi Arabia has resigned to try to smoke out the rebels in control of Sanaa. If northern Yemen is desperate and starving enough, maybe Saleh and the Houthis will concede. Yet so far, the Houthi-Saleh alliance has only dug in further because, true to any war of personalities, it has become a matter of pride.”
 

Housecarl

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IRGC to expand Basij special forces

By Amir Toumaj | October 24th, 2016 | amir@defenddemocracy.org | @AmirToumaj

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) held a commemoration ceremony in Tehran on Friday for members of the Fatehin (“Conquerors”) Special Unit of the Basij paramilitary killed in combat in Syria. IRGC chief commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari praised the Fatehin battalion, reaffirming ongoing plans to establish these units beyond Tehran province and across the country. Jafari told the media that he had given a report to the supreme leader about the expansion of the Fatehin.

Earlier this year, the commander of the IRGC’s Mohammad Rasulollah unit (Greater Tehran) signaled plans to expand these units, making the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the Fatehin who have fallen in Syria. The Fatehin unit of Qom province held its first drill in September. The drill’s motto was “the path to Jerusalem goes through Karbala,” first proclaimed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, during the Iran-Iraq war.

The IRGC commanders who delivered remarks at the ceremony on Friday in Tehran proclaimed that without the sacrifice of all Iranian-backed combatants in Syria, instability would spread to Iran.

“There’s not a day we do not hear about murder and explosion in neighboring countries and Europe,” Fatehin Commander Mahmoud Hashemi*said*on Friday.

The Basij, also known as the Organization for the Mobilization of the Oppressed, is an all-volunteer force that serves as auxiliary to the IRGC Ground Forces, as well as internal morality police and recruitment pool for the Guard.* The IRGC Tehran unit established the Basij Fatehin some time in 2009 or 2010. The decision to establish the unit was likely made following the 2009 post-election protests, during which the IRGC and the Basij led a crackdown on protesters. The Fatehin has participated in IRGC drills held in Tehran, during which units practiced exercises to suppress mass protests and unrest. The Fatehin receive advanced training courses such as airborne and parachute, in addition to heavy ideological indoctrination. In Sept. 2015, the IRGC established a Fatehin sniper unit.

Basij members have deployed to both Syria and Iraq as part of the IRGC Ground Forces expeditionary force. In Syria, regular IRGC forces fight alongside IRGC-backed proxies in support of Bashar al Assad. Over 30 members of the Fatehin have been killed in Syria, out of the approximately 440 regular IRGC-GF.* Senior IRGC commanders praise the Fatehin as “a model” for the Guard.

Mehdi Hadavandi, the commander of the Fatehin Basij Tehran unit as well as the unit’s Syria operations,*said*the IRGC has set up “special courses” for “resistance forces,” which include Iranian as well as proxies, for combat in Iraq and Syria. The commander told an audience last week that “the required forces are in Syria right now,” though registration is open should the situation demand more boots on the ground. He described the war in Syria as Kafai Jihad (meaning if the number of fighters are sufficient for jihad, the obligation to wage jihad is lifted for others).

“Resistance in Syria is different than all the fields until today,” Hadavandi said last week week. “Many of warriors and commanders who have served in areas such as the northwest and northeast of the country, Iraq, and Lebanon admit that Syria is different than all others. Training demands operations field, which has been created in Syria.”

“Because the Basiji fights in Syria the Basij of the Islamic world has taken shape. The blood of Iranians, Lebanese, Afghans, Pakistanis, etc., have been mixed in Syria,” Fatehin commander Hashemi said on Friday. “The enemies must know that the Fatehin is ready to Israel.”

“Armed struggle of the Islamic revolution beyond Iran’s borders is a very big and divine blessing that not everyone will have,” proclaimed IRGC chief commander Jafari on Friday. He vowed that all “shrine defenders would continue armed struggle until fulfillment of goals.” Jafari then boasted that “the blood of the martyrs and the preparedness of the forces” have strengthened the Islamic Republic’s hand, forcing “regional countries who claim to determine the destiny of Syria to negotiate with Iran.”

Jafari then claimed that “the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic resistance” have prevented “Israel’s territorial expansion.” He then proclaimed that all of the plans of Israel and the United States “have been defeated.”

“Today we are witnessing the formation of the army of the Master of Time [12th Shiite Imam Mahdi who will herald the apocalypse] in Syria,”*proclaimed*Hadavandi earlier this month at a ceremony for Ashura religious mourning ceremony in Tehran.
Amir Toumaj is a Research Analyst at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

1 Comment
den says:
October 25, 2016 at 1:58 am
These are the same basij who at the start of the protests would go out in groups on motorcycles and beat people pulling them out of the rest never to be seen alive. So as they have made their intentions clear to everyone, again, to raise a proxie Shia revolutionary army, after Syria and Iraq fall to them. It seems to now be the natural mutation of what’s to follow.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-politics-idUSKCN12P2AK

World News | Tue Oct 25, 2016 | 12:20pm EDT

Afghan leaders trade barbs as government splits widen

Divisions at the top of Afghanistan's government deepened on Tuesday after President Ashraf Ghani was forced to reject accusations by his own vice president that he was favoring members of his Pashtun ethnic group.

Ghani's reaction followed incendiary comments from First Vice President General Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek with a long history of blunt speaking and a sizeable militia at his command, who said the government was wholly run by Pashtuns.

"Anyone who speaks Pashto is a good man," Dostum said at a press conference in the northern province of Faryab. "If he speaks Pashto and is from Logar, he is even a better person," he added, referring to Ghani's home province in eastern Afghanistan.

Dostum accused a small Pashtun coterie around the president, including National Security Adviser Hanif Atmar, intelligence chief Massoom Stanekzai and chief of staff Abdul Salam Rahimi, of controlling Ghani.

"If they say the milk is black, the president says the milk is black," he said.

The comments, which risk stoking brewing ethnic tensions, were made last week but only gained wide attention after they circulated on social media.

Pashtuns are Afghanistan's largest ethnic group and have always dominated Afghan governments. But resentment of their dominance has been growing among others, including Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazaras and Dostum's Uzbek minority.

In a statement on Tuesday, Ghani rejected the comments, which he said helped Afghanistan's enemies and were not consistent with Dostum's position in the government.

In a comment that appeared to reflect accusations against Dostum of widespread human rights violations, the statement also said that the government "was aware of its duty" and could investigate complaints of abuses and crimes "by the Taliban and any other forces involved in the fighting".

The spat comes at a difficult moment for the unwieldy national unity government, which has been riven by infighting and has struggled to contain an escalating Taliban insurgency.

The militants have come close to seizing at least three provincial capitals in recent months, pushing into Kunduz in the north, Lashkar Gah in the southern province of Helmand and Tarin Kot in the southern province of Uruzgan. Heavy casualties were inflicted, laying bare the weakness of Afghan security forces.

As the security situation has deteriorated and political divisions worsened, old rivalries between Afghanistan's different ethnic groups have resurfaced, threatening the stability of the Western-backed government.

Ghani, a former World Bank official, is supported by the United States, which sees him as the leader most committed to fighting corruption and reforming the shattered economy.

But political rivals accuse him of monopolizing power, while many non-Pashtuns believe he deliberately favors his own ethnic group at the expense of others.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; writing by James Mackenzie; editing by Larry King)

Also In World News
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Philippines Duterte tells U.S. to forget about defense deal 'if I stay longer'
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-clapper-idUSKCN12P2L7

World News | Tue Oct 25, 2016 | 3:03pm EDT

Getting North Korea to denuclearize 'probably a lost cause': U.S.

The U.S. policy of trying to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons "is probably a lost cause" and the best that can probably be hoped for is some kind of cap on the country's nuclear capability, the director of U.S. National Intelligence James Clapper said on Tuesday.

"I think the notion of getting the North Koreans to denuclearize is probably a lost cause," Clapper said at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in New York. "They are not going to do that - that is their ticket to survival."

Clapper said he got a good taste of how the world looks from North Korea's viewpoint when he went to Pyongyang on a mission in 2014 to secure the release of two Americans held there.

"They are under siege and they are very paranoid, so the notion of giving up their nuclear capability, whatever it is, is a non-starter with them," he said.

"The best we could probably hope for is some sort of a cap, but they are not going to do that just because we ask them. There’s going to have to be some significant inducements."

Clapper said it bothered him that the United States was not capitalizing on using information as a weapon against North Korea.

"That's something they worry about a lot ... That is a great vulnerability I don't think we have exploited. Right now we are kind of stuck on our narrative and they are kind of stuck on theirs."

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Eric Walsh and James Dalgleish)
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://gizmodo.com/russia-reveals-satan-2-nuclear-missile-capable-of-destr-1788187587

Russia Reveals 'Satan 2' Nuclear Missile Capable of Destroying Texas in One Blow

Michael Nunez
Today 12:35pm
Filed to: Russia
Comments 766

Russia is flexing its military muscle as tensions with the US simmer in the wake of a heated third presidential debate, where Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton called Republican candidate Donald Trump a “puppet” for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now, Russia has declassified the first image of its new thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missile.

The RS-28 Sarmat missile—better known as the Satan 2 nuclear missile—has finally been revealed after years of being hyped by the Russian government. According to a Russian publication aligned with the Kremlin called Sputnik, the super-nuke has a payload capable of destroying an area “the size of Texas.”

The new weapon can deploy warheads of 40 megatons, or about 2,000 times as powerful as the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagaski in 1945.

Former assistant secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy Dr. Paul Craig Roberts called the atomic bombs that Washington dropped on Japan “popguns” compared to today’s thermo-nuclear weapons. “One Russian SS-18 wipes out three-fourths of New York state for thousands of years,” he said in a blog post. “Five or six of these ‘Satans’ as they are known by the US military, and the East Coast of the United States disappears.”

To make it even more frightening, the Satan 2 is also capable of evading radar defenses and could travel far enough to strike the US East and West Coast.

lklatrfvpj2raruwbz33.png

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/lklatrfvpj2raruwbz33.png

The picture of the rocket was published today by chief designers at Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau. Along with photos of the rocket, the designers included the following statement (roughly translated by Google Translate).

In accordance with the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation: On the state defense order for 2010 and the planning period 2012-2013. JSC SRC Makeyev instructed to begin the development of OCD Sarmat. In June 2011, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation signed a state contract for OCD Sarmat. Prospective strategic missile systems (RKSN) Sarmat is created in order to secure and effective nuclear deterrent tasks of Russia’s strategic forces.

This rough translation can give you at least some insight into how long the engineers have been working on this missile, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has been following the US-Russia relations. In 2013, Russian announced it would begin deploying a new type of long-range missile to replace its Cold War standby, the original Satan missile. The Satan 2 missile realization of the deployment.

The original Satan missile was developed in the 1970s, as the Soviet Union achieved nuclear parity with the US in the wake of the Cold War. Those missiles are now approaching the end of their service lives. US and Russia both signed treaties in 2010 restricting the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles the countries would keep in reserve, but despite the truce, Russia said it must maintain a strong nuclear deterrent because of the US military involvement in Europe. The Satan 2 will be put into service in late 2018, and Russian officials say it will fully replace the old Satan missiles by 2020.

Russia’s decision to suddenly reveal the new missile is especially troubling as tensions between the country and US are flaring up over hacking allegations and conflict in Syria. While we don’t expect any immediate military conflicts with our NATO allies, it is certainly upsetting to know that people are actually spending time building such catastrophic weapons.
 

homecanner1

Veteran Member
Satan 2? Satan 1 not diabolocal enuf eh?

The info is just staggering, esp. that 2.5 hour state news broadcast yesterday

I expect the classical Tchaikovsky 24/7 any day now

Many thanks for your posts during baseball fever!
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
Satan 2? Satan 1 not diabolocal enuf eh?

The info is just staggering, esp. that 2.5 hour state news broadcast yesterday

I expect the classical Tchaikovsky 24/7 any day now

Many thanks for your posts during baseball fever!

"Satan"/SS-18 was the NATO/US designation for the Soviet/Russian R-36 heavy ICBM. In single warhead configuration it can throw either an 18 or 25 Mt warhead/RV. In MIRV configuration it can throw 10 RVs of up to 1 Mt each. I've seen speculation on line that it could toss at least double that number of smaller SLBM RVs or that many decoys.
 
Last edited:

homecanner1

Veteran Member
Quote: "....A target area the size of France *or* Texas,..."

well hell why not both if we are going for M.A.D. The casualness of that is stunning.

Saw that 18 warhead configuration noted elsewhere. I take them at their word on its capabilities.
 

GammaRat

Veteran Member
“Five or six of these ‘Satans’ as they are known by the US military, and the East Coast of the United States disappears.”

That's a step in the right direction.
 
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