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Yemen as Vietnam or Afghanistan April 1, 2015 With U.S. intelligence help, Saudi Arabia has launched air strikes into Yemen and wants Egypt and Pakistan to invade, threatening to turn a long-simmering civil war into a regional conflict, a scenario that reminded retired U.S. diplomat William R. Polk of his work for President Kennedy on an earlier Yemeni war.By William R. PolkAs the events unfold with the Saudi and Egyptian engagement in Yemen, I was reminded of my discussion with Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser on “his” Yemen war, sometimes called the North Yemen Civil War that began in 1962, became a stalemate and finally ended in 1970. As Mark Twain may have said, “history doesn’t repeat but sometimes it rhymes.” The rhymes, at least, seem unmistakable.In the course of our first lengthy talk on Yemen, Nasser (rather angrily) replied to one of my comments, “you don’t think I will win the war, do you?”

“No, Mr. President,” I replied, “I don’t.”

“Well,” Nasser retorted, “you American’s think you know all about everything, and you don’t even have any of your people in Sanaa and none up in the north where the fighting is going on. You don’t know anything about Yemen.” Then, without thinking of the implication, I suppose, he said, ” You should go see.”“Mr. President,” I quickly said. “I regard that as an invitation.” Impolitely, I then stood up. He looked at me with narrow, angry eyes. He obviously had not meant what I had inferred.“All right, go see,” he said. “I will give instructions that you can go anywhere you want, talk to anyone you want, see everything..”“But, of course, I cannot even get there without your help,” I said.“You can have my plane.”Rather off-handedly and not warmly, we shook hands. I said goodbye and rushed back to our embassy and wrote an “eyes only” message to  President John Kennedy. I did not want it scattered around our government so I prevailed upon the CIA station chief to send it by his rather more restricted route. It was encrypted and sent in three batches. Before the second batch got sent, a reply came back: “go.”

Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks. The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.

The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said. “It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.

The U.S. and Israel, longtime allies who routinely swap information on security threats, sometimes operate behind the scenes like spy-versus-spy rivals. The White House has largely tolerated Israeli snooping on U.S. policy makers—a posture Israel takes when the tables are turned. The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said. Israeli officials denied spying directly on U.S. negotiators and said they received their information through other means, including close surveillance of Iranian leaders receiving the latest U.S. and European offers. European officials, particularly the French, also have been more transparent with Israel about the closed-door discussions than the Americans, Israeli and U.S. officials said.

On 21 August 2013, the Syrian Arab Army launched a major military campaign in Damascus. The campaign, called “Operation Shield of the Capital”, was the largest military operation of the Syrian Arab Army in the Damascus region since the beginning of the war in 2011.

Although U.S. Intelligence reports repeatedly stressed that the opposition was incapable of launching a major, well coordinated attack, the Syrian Army in Damascus was confronted with an organized fighting force of 25.000 men under arms. The Saudi Arabia backed Jihadist front had amassed 25.000 fighters, organized in 13 battalions or kitab, to to launch a major assault against the capital Damascus. Most of the battalions belonged to Jabhat al-Nusrah and Liwa-al-Islam. The other battalions that took part in the campaign, were the Abou Zhar al-Ghaffari, al-Ansar, al-Mohajereen, Daraa al-Sham, Harun al-Rashid, Issa bin Mariam, Sultan Mohammad al-Fatih, Syouf al-Haqq, the Glory of the Caliphate, the Jobar Martyrs. During the night of 20 to 21 August and during the early morning hours of 21 August, the Syrian Arab Army broke through the insurgent lines in the area near the Jobar entrance. The breakthrough resulted in a collapse of the jihadists defensive positions and to a crushing and decisive strategic defeat of the Jabhat al-Nusrah led brigades.

Loosing Jobar effectively cut off the insurgents connection to the Jordanian border town of Al-Mafraq, the most important logistical base for the insurgents as well as for Saudi Arabia and the United States in Jordan. Al-Mafraq was already used as a major staging ground for the two failed attempts to conquer the city of Homs in June and July 2012. In 2012 al-Mafraq became the staging ground for some 40.000 fighters; more than 20.000 of them fought under the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which was under the command of Abdelhakim Belhadj and his second in command, Mahdi al-Harati. The CIA maintains a station, US Special Forces (JSOC) train insurgents, and several other US institutions are present in al-Mafraq. The point is of particular importance with regards to the visit of the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Jordan, which will be detailed below. Al-Mafraq has been the major transit point for Saudi and U.S. arms shipments since 2012, and the delivery of advanced Saudi and U.S. weapons to the insurgents since early August 2013.

On October 30 an international conference on Syria  agreed on a framework for ending the conflict in Syria. The communiqué states: While substantial differences remain among the participants, they reached a mutual understanding on the following: 1) Syria’s unity, independence, territorial integrity, and secular character are fundamental. ... 6) Da'esh, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the U.N. Security Council, and further, as agreed by the participants, must be defeated.... Ministers will reconvene within two weeks to continue these discussions.” Secretary of State Kerry had already accepted the "secular" point in earlier talks with his Russian colleague. The next meeting this Friday will mainly be about the question of who is a terrorist and must thereby be defeated. Propagandist for the Jihadis call this a "Russian trap".

So far the U.S. and its allies have supported various fundamentalist groups who's deeds and proclaimed philosophies surely put them into the same category as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The British Foreign Minister accuses the U.S. of supporting such terrorist groups and said that this needs to change: The world powers trying to end the civil war in Syria are drawing up a list of "terrorist" groups, Britain said Tuesday, warning that some countries may have to drop support for allies on the ground. "It will require deep breaths on several sides, including the US side," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warned, speaking to reporters in Washington. Some of the groups that qualify as terrorists, so Hammond, do get support from the U.S. and it will take a "deep breaths" by the U.S. to refrain from further supporting them. As part of this, Hammond said, the countries backing various factions within the country would have to decide which are moderate enough to be included in the political process and which would be excluded. "I'm not so sure I would write off the possibility of agreeing on who is a terrorist," he said, in remarks at the British embassy the morning after talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry. But he warned that there would be horse trading ahead.

Can one "horse trade" who is a terrorist? Is it "moderate enough" to only cut off the heads of prisoners of war instead of burning them alive? How much would that "trade" cost? Hammond seems to believe that a money-for-values deal is possible and needed. Here is his horse trade: On one side the Saudis want the Jihadists they support to be recognized as non-terrorists: "The Saudis are never going to sign up to Ansar al-Sham being categorized as terrorists," he said, citing the example of one Sunni armed group reported to receive outside Arab backing. "So we have to see whether we can reach a pragmatic solution on these areas," Hammond added.

After almost two decades of discussion, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be proclaimed on 31st December. The AEC is a potentially significant and competitive economic region, should it be allowed to develop according to the aspiration of being a “single market and production base, with free flow of services, investments, and labour, by the year 2020”.

The ASEAN region as a composite trading block has the third highest population at 634 million, after China and India. GDP per capita is rapidly rising. The AEC would be the 4th largest exporter after China, the EU, and the United States, with still very much scope for growth from Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam from a diverse range of activities ranging from agriculture, food, minerals and commodities, electronics, and services. The coming AEC is already the 4th largest importer of goods after the United States, EU, and China, making it one of the biggest markets in the world. Unlike the other trade regions, the AEC still has so much potential for growth with rising population, rising incomes, growing consumer sophistication, and improving infrastructure. Perhaps the biggest benefit of the upcoming AEC is the expected boost this will give to intra-ASEAN trade. Most ASEAN nations have previously put their efforts into developing external relationships with the major trading nations like the EU, Japan and the US through bilateral and free trade agreements. To some extent, the potential of intra-ASEAN trade was neglected, perhaps with the exception of the entrepot of Singapore. The AEC is an opportunity to refocus trade efforts within the region, especially when Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia are rapidly developing, and Myanmar is opening up for business with the rest of the region.

There are no integrated banking structures, no agreement on common and acceptable currencies (some ASEAN currencies are not interchangeable), no double taxation agreements, and no formal agreements on immigration. There is not even any such thing as a common ASEAN business visa. These issues are going to hinder market access for regional SMEs. Any local market operations will have to fulfil local laws and regulations which may not be easy for non-citizens to meet and adhere to. Even though there are some preferential tariffs for a number of classes of ASEAN originating goods, non-tariff barriers are still in existence, which are insurmountable in some cases like the need for import licenses (APs) in Malaysia, and the need to have a registered company which can only be formed by Thai nationals within Thailand. Some of these problems are occurring because of the very nature of ASEAN itself. ASEAN was founded on the basis of consultation, consensus, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other members. This means that no formal problem solving mechanism exists, and the ASEAN Secretariat is a facilitator rather than implementer of policy. Illegal workers, human trafficking, money laundering, and haze issues between member states have no formal mechanisms through which these issues can be solved from an ASEAN perspective. This weakens the force for regional integration.

The Russian Ministry of Defense held a press conference, presenting satellite images documenting the smuggling of Syrian oil by Daesh via Turkey. The Defense Ministry stressed that a terrorist organization without funds is like a predator without teeth. Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that part of the Turkish leadership is trading with terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. 

On Wednesday the Russian Defense Ministry held a press conference, briefing the press on oil smuggling operations by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS / ISIL / Daesh) as well as other Islamist terrorist organizations from Syria and Iraq via Turkey. Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov, stressed that Russia is aware of three main oil smuggling routes to Turkey. Antonov noted that the Ministry would only be presenting some of the facts that confirm that “a whole team of bandits and Turkish elites are stealing oil from their neighbors”, operating in the region. Antonov stressed that smuggling operations have such proportions that they constitute a de facto pipeline – on wheels – consisting of thousands of trucks. The Defense Ministry released images from Russian air strikes against smuggling operations. Besides that, the Ministry presented satellite images that show how thousands of trucks, including oil tankers are crossing the border between Syria and Turkey, unimpeded and uncontrolled. The flow of oil is in part refined in Syria or northern Iraq, while much is transported to refineries in Turkey. While part of the product is used for the domestic market, much of the oil is exported via Turkish parts such as Iskenderun, as shown in Satellite images.

Russian Air Forces have, over the past two months struck 32 oil complexes, 11 refineries, 23 oil pumping stations, said Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy . Rudskoy stressed that the air strikes have cut the smuggling operations which are estimated at a value between 1.4 and 3 million dollar US per day by about 50 percent. The Chief of the National Center for State Defense Control Lt.Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev said that the Defense Ministry is aware of that up to 2,000 fighters, 120 tons of ammunition and 250 vehicles have been delivered to Islamic State and Al-Nusrah militants from Turkish territory recently. Such operations have, however, been ongoing for a long time. Turkish President R. Tayyip Erdogan responded to the Russian Defense Ministry dipping his nose in ISIS oil, claiming that it was purely slander. Speaking in the Qatari capital Doha, Erdogan attempted to distract from the presented satellite data by accusing Russia of doing business with Daesh. Pentagon spokesman Steve Warren responded by saying that Washington flatly denies that the Turks are somehow working with ISIL. Warren denounced these “allegations” based in satellite images as “preposterous“.

Am I the only person who still remembers how Pentagon officials spoke of the major military bases already on the drawing boards as the invasion of Iraq ended in April 2003? It was taboo back then to refer to those future installations as “permanent bases.” No one wanted to mouth anything that had such an ugly (yet truthful) ring to it when it came to the desires of the Bush administration to occupy and dominate the Greater Middle East for generations to come. Charmingly enough, however, those Pentagon types sometimes spoke instead of “enduring camps,” as if a summer frolic in the countryside was at hand. Later, those enormous installations -- Balad Air Base, the size of a small American town, had its own Pizza Hut, Subway, and Popeye's franchises, "an ersatz Starbucks," a 24-hour Burger King, two post exchanges, and four mess halls -- would be relabeled "contingency operating bases." They were meant to be Washington’s ziggurats, its permanent memorials to its own power in the region. With rare exceptions, American reporters would nonetheless pay almost no attention to them or to the obvious desire embedded in their very construction to control Iraq and the rest of the Greater Middle East.

In all, from the massive Camp Victory outside Baghdad to tiny outposts in the hinterlands, not to speak of the three-quarters-of-a-billion dollar citadel Washington built in Baghdad’s green zone to house an embassy meant to be the central command post for a future Pax Americana in the region, the Pentagon built 505 bases in Iraq. In other words, Washington went on a base-building bender there. And lest you imagine this as some kind of anomaly, consider the 800 or more bases and outposts (depending on how you counted them) that the U.S. built in Afghanistan. Eight years later, all 505 of the Iraqi bases had been abandoned, as most of the Afghan ones would be.  (A few of the Iraqi bases have since been reoccupied by American advisers sent in to fight the Islamic State.)

Nonetheless, as Chalmers Johnson pointed out long ago (and TomDispatch regular David Vine has made so clear recently), this was the U.S. version of empire building. And in this century, despite the loss of those Iraqi bases and most of the Afghan ones, Washington has continued its global base-building extravaganza in a big way. It has constructed, expanded, or reconfigured a staggering set of bases in the Greater Middle East and on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and has been building drone bases around the world. Then there's the remaining European bases that came out of World War II, were expanded in the Cold War years, and have, in this century, been driven deep into the former Eastern European imperial possessions of the old Soviet Union.  Add in another structure of bases in Asia that also came out of World War II and that are once again added to, reconfigured, and pivoted toward. Toss in as well the 60 or so small bases, baselets, sites, storage areas, and the like that, in recent years, the U.S. military has been constructing across Africa. Throw in some bases still in Latin America and the Caribbean, including most infamously Guantánamo in Cuba, and you have a structure for the imperial ages.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia executed Shiite Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday. Hours later, Iranian protestors set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran. On Sunday, the Saudi government, which considers itself the guardian of Sunni Islam, cut diplomatic ties with Iran, which is a Shiite Muslim theocracy. To explain what’s going on, the New York Times provided a primer on the difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam, informing us that “a schism emerged after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632” — i.e., 1,383 years ago. But to the degree that the current crisis has anything to do with religion, it’s much less about whether Abu Bakr or Ali was Muhammad’s rightful successor and much more about who’s going to control something more concrete right now: oil.

In fact, much of the conflict can be explained by a fascinating map created by M.R. Izady, a cartographer and adjunct master professor at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School/Joint Special Operations University in Florida. What the map shows is that, due to a peculiar correlation of religious history and anaerobic decomposition of plankton, almost all the Persian Gulf’s fossil fuels are located underneath Shiites. This is true even in Sunni Saudi Arabia, where the major oil fields are in the Eastern Province, which has a majority Shiite population. As a result, one of the Saudi royal family’s deepest fears is that one day Saudi Shiites will secede, with their oil, and ally with Shiite Iran.

This fear has only grown since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq overturned Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni regime, and empowered the pro-Iranian Shiite majority. Nimr himself said in 2009 that Saudi Shiites would call for secession if the Saudi government didn’t improve its treatment of them.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered the country’s state energy company PDVSA to close some of its purchase and sale deals using the national commodity-backed digital currency ‘petro.’ The country’s oil ministry tweeted the president’s directive, which also applies to Venezuelan state-run conglomerate CVG, which is charged with economic development in the Guayana region. It also operates aluminum producers and state petrochemical company Pequiven.

The petro is backed by the country’s oil, gas, gold and diamond reserves. Investors purchased around $735 million worth of petro crytptocurrency during the pre-sale on Tuesday, according to President Maduro. He sees it as a way of breaching the US financial blockade.

Maduro also ordered Venezuelan embassies across the world to provide consular services using the digital currency. The president has entertained a proposal made by the airlines association to buy aircraft fuel using the petro.The commodity-based cryptocurrency will be used as a payment instrument on the Venezuela-Columbia border starting from Wednesday.

Nir Hefetz, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "spin doctor" and confidant, will hand over recordings of Netanyahu and his wife Sara as part of a deal with police to turn state's evidence in the bribery case involving the Bezeq telecom giant and the Walla news site. Netanyahu, currently in the U.S. for AIPAC and a meeting with Trump, received the news at the Blair House, where he is a guest of the White House. In return for testifying against Netanyahu, Hefetz will not stand trial, face prison time or be fined. While he testifies, he will be housed at an isolated installation.

According to assessments regarding the deal, Hefetz will also give information regarding the other cases against the prime minister and his wife. Keep updated: Sign up to our newsletter Email* Please enter a valid email address Sign up Please wait… Thank you for signing up. We've got more newsletters we think you'll find interesting. Click here Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later. Try again Thank you, The email address you have provided is already registered. Close Hefetz is the third Netanyahu confidant to turn against the prime minister in the ongoing corruption cases. Hefetz is suspected of receiving bribes and obstructing justice as part of what is called Case 4000. He is also a key figure in 1270, and is second fiddle in Case 2000. In Case 4000, Hefetz liaised between the Netanyahu couple and the Walla news website, owned by Bezeq. Hefetz arranged for flattering items on the couple and censorship of less flattering items, Haaretz's Gidi Weitz reported. In Case 1270, Hefetz allegedly served as the prime minister's confidant who sought to elucidate how Judge Hila Gerstl felt about closing a case against Sara Netanyahu. Allegedly a trial balloon was floated, hinting to Gerstl that she would be promoted to Israel's next attorney-general if she closed the case down. Hefetz claims that it all boiled down to idle chatter and hadn't been coordinated with the prime minister and his wife. In Case 2000, Hefetz had involvement on both sides of the coin. He was head of public relations for Netanyahu, before which he served as senior editor in the Yedioth Ahronoth group, owned by Arnon Mozes. In 2009, Mozes is suspected of agreeing to provide sweetheart coverage of Netanyahu, who in turn allegedly promised to get the rival (free) newspaper Israel Hayom to stop printing a weekend edition, which stood to hugely benefit Yedioth.

Channel 10 reports that Hefetz will be providing information on other cases – some of which the public hasn't even heard of yet.

Recent evidence about deadly tests of biological substances in Tbilisi, Georgia raised alarm about U.S. biological weapon research in foreign countries. European scientist are extremely concerned about a dubious research program, financed by the Pentagon, that seems designed to spread diseases to crops, animals and people abroad. The creation of such weapons and of special ways to distribute them is prohibited under national and international law. The U.S. is running biological weapon research across the globe: Bio warfare scientists using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio laboratories in 25 countries across the world. These US bio-laboratories are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program– Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa. Until the mid nineteen-seventies the U.S. military tested biological warfare weapons on U.S. people, sometimes over large areas and on specific races. After a Congress investigation revealed the wide ranging program such testing was moved abroad. Private companies use U.S. government controlled laboratories in foreign countries for secret biological research under contract of the U.S. military, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. Last month the Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva reported of one of these U.S. controlled bio-laboratories: The US Embassy to Tbilisi transports frozen human blood and pathogens as diplomatic cargo for a secret US military program. Internal documents, implicating US diplomats in the transportation of and experimenting on pathogens under diplomatic cover were leaked to me by Georgian insiders. According to these documents, Pentagon scientists have been deployed to the Republic of Georgia and have been given diplomatic immunity to research deadly diseases and biting insects at the Lugar Center – the Pentagon biolaboratory in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi. Al Mayadeen TV broadcasted a video reportage about the laboratory and its deadly effects on Georgian 'patients'.

of Press Relations » Daily Press Briefings » 2016 » October » Daily Press Briefing - October 6, 2016John Kirby SpokespersonDaily Press Briefing Washington, DC October 6, 2016

MR KIRBY: Well, again, I think – and I think Mark walked you through this – there were three principal topics that they discussed. One was Syria; one was Ukraine; and the other, of course, was DPRK and our work inside the UN to pursue additional sanctions on the regime. The discussion on Syria focused on two things principally. One was the situation in Aleppo and the Secretary’s obvious and deep concern about the continued siege there and also about the potential to continue multilateral efforts to discuss the way ahead. And that’s – and that’s basically it. We certainly, when we said we were suspending U.S.-Russia bilateral engagement on the cessation of hostilities and the work to that end in Syria, there was never any expectation that the two foreign ministers wouldn’t speak about Syria again. And certainly, if we’re going to continue multilateral efforts, which we fully intend to do, whether it’s with the ISSG or other partners or through the UN, there’s no way you can do that without including Russia in that discussion. QUESTION: So and just – so are you trying to set up a meeting, for example? I mean, you’re talking about bilateral discussions. Are you trying to set up a meeting with other countries including Russia on this? MR KIRBY: I don’t have anything on the schedule to speak to today, but I certainly wouldn’t rule out the fact that there will be attempts and efforts through multi – through a multilateral fora to meet again and to try to work through this. I certainly wouldn’t rule that out. QUESTION: And just one other one. Given the failure of the previous efforts and given the main thing that you guys argued was that the carrot or the leverage you had was Russia’s eagerness for intelligence-sharing cooperation, et cetera, the JIC, what makes you think they’re going to be any more likely to work to halt or reduce the violence in a multilateral context absent those incentives than they were when they had the incentives on the table? MR KIRBY: We don’t know. We don’t know. That’s a call for them to make if they’re interested or willing in participating in a multilateral discussion or not. But speaking for Secretary Kerry, I can tell you that he fully intends to use multilateral efforts available to him, whether it’s the ISSG or the UN or something separate and distinct. Tom Shannon was in Berlin at the invitation of the German Government just yesterday to – a smaller but still multilateral discussion about Syria. The Secretary has every intent to continue to use those vehicles as best he can. But we don’t know whether Russia will come to those sessions. We don’t know whether they will do so --

QUESTION: Yeah, okay. And is there anything that you are doing to try to stop Aleppo from falling to the government, the Russian-backed government offensive, or have you kind of written it off? MR KIRBY: Nobody is writing off Aleppo. I think everybody’s deeply troubled and concerned about what appears to be a very continued, concerted, and if – and increased effort by the regime to conduct a siege and to take Aleppo. But -- QUESTION: Yeah. Are you doing anything to stop it? MR KIRBY: Well, we obviously are continuing – another reason why, as I said, they – Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Secretary spoke yesterday was the Secretary was expressing our concerns about what’s going on in Aleppo. We’re not turning a blind eye to that. And we still want – the short answer to your question is we’re still interested in pursuing a cessation of hostilities that can endure nationwide, and certainly in Aleppo. It’s just that now we’re going to have to pursue that goal through a multilateral effort and not any longer solely through a bilateral effort with Russia.

By M.K. Bhadrakumar October 5, 2016 9:54 AM (UTC+8) Share 0 Tweet Print Email Comment 0 Asia Times is not responsible for the opinions, facts or any media content presented by contributors. In case of abuse, click here to report. On Monday, the Barack Obama administration fulfilled its week-old threat to suspend bilateral talks with Russia over the Syrian crisis. Does this signal that the dogs of war are about to be unleashed? The thought may seem preposterous but tensions are palpable. US spy planes are spotted ever more frequently in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea over Russian bases, especially Tartus and Hmeimim in Syria.

Russia has deployed SA-23 Gladiator anti-missile and anti-aircraft systems in Syria, the first-ever such deployments outside Russia. Western analysts see it as a pre-emptive step to counter any American cruise missile attack. Russia is not taking any chances.

Moscow factors in that the US may use some rebel groups to ensure that Russian “body bags” are sent to Moscow, as threatened explicitly by US state department spokesman John Kirby last week. Moscow suspects American involvement in the missile attack on the Russian embassy in Damascus — “Brits and Ukrainians clumsily helped the Americans”, a Russian statement in New York said on Tuesday. Indeed, passions are running high. There could be several dozen western intelligence operatives trapped with the rebel groups in east Aleppo. Clearly, the turning point was reached when the US and western allies undertook a fierce air attack on the Syrian army base at Deir Ezzor lasting an hour and killing 62 government troops. The US explanation of that being an accident lost credibility, since within an hour of the airstrike, extremist groups of al-Qaida followed up with ground attack as if acting in tandem.

Russia is ordering all of its officials to fly home any relatives living abroad amid heightened tensions over the prospect of global war, it has been claimed.Politicians and high-ranking figures are said to have received a warning from president Vladimir Putin to bring their loved-ones home to the 'Motherland', according to local media.It comes after Putin cancelled a planned visit to France amid a furious row over Moscow's role in the Syrian conflict and just days after it emerged the Kremlin had moved nuclear-capable missiles near to the Polish border.Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has also warned that the world is at a 'dangerous point' due to rising tensions between Russia and the US.According to the Daily Star, administration staff, regional administrators, lawmakers of all levels and employees of public corporations have been ordered to take their children out of foreign schools immediately.Failure to act will see officials jeopardising their chances of promotion, local media has reported.The exact reason for the order is not yet clear.But Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky is quoted by the Daily Star as saying: 'This is all part of the package of measures to prepare elites to some 'big war'.' Relations between Russia and the US are at their lowest since the Cold War and have soured in recent days after Washington pulled the plug on Syria talks and accused Russia of hacking attacks.

The Kremlin has also suspended a series of nuclear pacts, including a symbolic cooperation deal to cut stocks of weapons-grade plutonium. Just days ago, it was reported that Russia had moved nuclear-capable missiles near to the Polish border as tensions escalated between the world’s largest nation and the West.The Iskander missiles sent to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea between Nato members Poland and Lithuania, are now within range of major Western cities including Berlin.Polish officials – whose capital Warsaw is potentially threatened – have described the move as of the 'highest concern'. Putin's decision to cancel his Paris visit came a day after French President Francois Hollande said Syrian forces had committed a 'war crime' in the battered city of Aleppo with the support of Russian air strikes.Putin had been due in Paris on October 19 to inaugurate a spiritual centre at a new Russian Orthodox church near the Eiffel Tower, but Hollande had insisted his Russian counterpart also took part in talks with him about Syria.The unprecedented cancellation of a visit so close to being finalised is a 'serious step... reminiscent of the Cold War', said Russian foreign policy analyst Fyodor Lukyanov.'This is part of the broader escalation in the tensions between Russia and the West, and Russia and NATO,' he told AFP.The Kremlin has also been angered over the banning of the Russian Paralympic team from the Rio Olympics amid claims of state-sponsored doping of its athletes.

Meanwhile, the top advisor to US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said the FBI is investigating Russia's possible role in hacking thousands of his personal emails.But Russian officials have vigorously rejected accusations of meddling in the US presidential elections and dismissed allegations that Moscow was behind a series of recent hacks on US institutions. Retired Russian Lt. Gen. Evgeny Buzhinsky told the BBC: 'Of course there is a reaction. As far as Russia sees it, as Putin sees it, it is full-scale confrontation on all fronts. If you want a confrontation, you'll get one.'But it won't be a confrontation that doesn't harm the interests of the United States. You want a confrontation, you'll get one everywhere.'Earlier this week British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson waded into the row, calling for anti-war campaigners to protest outside the Russian embassy in London.Johnson said the 'wells of outrage are growing exhausted' and anti-war groups were not expressing sufficient outrage at the conflict in Aleppo.'Where is the Stop the War Coalition at the moment? Where are they?' he said during a parliamentary debate.

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday he could no longer accept the role of the United States as a mediator in talks with Israel because of Washington’s behavior, Reuters reported. “We state that from now on we refuse to cooperate in any form with the U.S. in its status of a mediator, as we stand against its actions,” Abbas told Putin at the start of talks in Moscow. The PA chairman said he wanted an expanded new mediation mechanism to replace the Middle East Quartet. “For instance, ‘the quartet’ plus some other countries like the model used to achieve the deal on Iran,” Abbas said, referring to international talks about Tehran’s nuclear program. Abbas reacted in anger in December when U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and set in motion the process of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv. Following Trump's Jerusalem move,Abbas declared that he would "no longer accept" any peace plan proposed by the United States. He is due to speak at the United Nations Security Council on February 20, where he is expected to respond to Trump's recognition of Jerusalem.

James Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Emerging Threats at NATO – now that’s a lovely title – recently gave a talk at a private club in London on the Islamic State/Daesh. Shea, as many will remember, made his name as NATO’s spokesman during the NATO war on Yugoslavia in 1999.After his talk Shea engaged in a debate with a source I very much treasure. The source later gave me the lowdown.  According to Saudi intelligence, Daesh was invented by the US government – in Camp Bacca, near the Kuwait border, as many will remember — to essentially finish off the Shiite-majority Nouri al-Maliki government in Baghdad.

It didn’t happen this way, of course. Then, years later, in the summer of 2014, Daesh routed the Iraqi Army on its way to conquer Mosul. The Iraqi Army fled. Daesh operatives then annexed ultra-modern weapons that took US instructors from six to twelve months to train the Iraqis in and…surprise! Daesh incorporated the weapons in their arsenals in 24 hours. In the end, Shea frankly admitted to the source that Gen David Petraeus, conductor of the much-lauded 2007 surge, had trained these Sunnis now part of Daesh in Anbar province in Iraq. Saudi intelligence still maintains that these Iraqi Sunnis were not US-trained – as Shea confirmed – because the Shiites in power in Baghdad didn’t allow it. Not true. The fact is the Daesh core – most of them former commanders and soldiers in Saddam Hussein’s army — is indeed a US-trained militia. True to form, at the end of the debate, Shea went on to blame Russia for absolutely everything that’s happening today – including Daesh terror. 

It is early on in Abu Zubaydah’s time at a CIA black site. He insists to his interrogators that he has no additional information on jihadist operations planned against the US, but his captor won’t stop slapping him. Eventually a hood is placed over Zubaydah's head and he is placed into a confinement box by unseen security officers. He is told this is his new home until he’s prepared to provide information on operations against the US.Several physically stressful hours in the confinement box fail to elicit any intelligence, so Zubaydah’s captors place him in an even smaller box. He makes painful groans and is forced to scoot out of the box on his hindquarters when he’s finally allowed out. He is immediately made to stand and backed up against a wall. Two interrogators begin to double-team him with rapid-fire questions. Zubaydah is told that if he does not cooperate, he will only bring more misery on himself. Again he denies having any additional knowledge, but this time, he isn’t slapped. Instead, Zubaydah is hooded and a water board is brought into the cell.Zubaydah is the first post-9/11 detainee to be waterboarded, and this is his first session. He coughs and vomits. The waterboarding lasts for over two hours, but he still insists he does not have any additional information beyond that which he already provided to the FBI. He is then put into the larger confinement box, where he spends the rest of the evening. The interrogation process resumes in the morning: more slapping, zero new information, and more time in the smaller box.This was a summary of CIA documents obtained by AlterNet’s Grayzone Project. The records were originally obtained by Zubaydah’s defense team through the discovery process and were provided to me by a source familiar with the case who considered their publication critical to the public’s understanding of Zubaydah’s treatment. The vast majority of the documents have not been available to the public prior to this story.

As clinically detailed as they are gut-wrenching, the documents comprise hundreds of pages on the interrogation of Zubaydah, perhaps Guantanamo Bay’s most famous detainee. The files revealed here have renewed significance as Zubaydah has decided to testify about conditions at Guantanamo Bay despite the likelihood that it will imperil his legal situation. The records also highlight the methods of psychologist James Mitchell, a top architect of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program.” Though Mitchell had previously worked as an Air Force psychologist, the Senate “Torture Report” noted that he had no prior experience as an interrogator. Mitchell’s private contracting company had received over $80 million from the CIA by the time their contract was terminated in 2009. The contract was terminated because, as the CIA Inspector General put it, there was no reason to believe Mitchell’s interrogation techniques were effective or even safe.Mitchell and the US government originally believed Zubaydah to be a top leader of Al Qaeda who had knowledge of imminent plots against the US; however, the government would later concede that Zubaydah was never an Al Qaeda leader but still contend that he poses a threat. According to the US government, Zubaydah "possibly" knew in advance about the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.After his capture in Pakistan in 2002, Zubaydah was held in CIA black sites for four years where he was subjected to extended torture so intense he lost his left eye. Following his first waterboarding, he was subjected to the same form of torture 82 times. It is unclear the brutal methods applied to Zubaydah’s body elicited any valuable intelligence.

Malaysian Defense Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said the country's armed forces are ready to play a role following U.S. President Donald Trump's official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The statement came a day after protesters gathered in front of the American embassy in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. "Armed Forces chief (General Tan Sri Raja Mohamed Affandi Raja Mohamed Noor) and the MAF are definitely ready," said Hishammuddin.

More than 100 countries defied President Donald Trump on Thursday and voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for the United States to withdraw its decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.The motion was adopted with a decisive vote of 128 to nine, with 35 abstentions.President Donald Trump had warned ahead of the vote in the 193-nation assembly that "we're watching" and threatened reprisals against countries backing the measure, which reaffirms that the status of Jerusalem must be resolved through negotiations.

Seven countries - Guatemala, Honduras, Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and the Marshall Islands - joined Israel and the United States in opposing the measure.