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A US-led raid on the compound housing the Islamic State’s ‘chief financial officer’ produced evidence that Turkish officials directly dealt with ranking ISIS members, Martin Chulov ofthe Guardian reported recently. Islamic State official Abu Sayyaf was responsible for directing the terror army’s oil and gas operations in Syria. Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh) earns up to $US10 million per month selling oil on black markets. Documents and flash drives seized during the Sayyaf raid reportedly revealed links “so clear” and “undeniable” between Turkey and ISIS “that they could end up having profound policy implications for the relationship between us and Ankara,” a senior western official familiar with the captured intelligence told the Guardian. NATO member Turkey has long been accused by experts, Kurds, and even Joe Biden of enabling ISIS by turning a blind eye to the vast smuggling networks of weapons and fighters during the ongoing Syrian war.

The move by the ruling AKP party was apparently part of ongoing attempts to trigger the downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Ankara officially ended its loose border policy last year, but not before its southern frontier became a transit point for cheap oil, weapons, foreign fighters, and pillaged antiquities.

In November, a former ISIS member told Newsweek that the group was essentially given free reign by Turkey’s army. “ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because there was full cooperation with the Turks,” the fighter said. “ISIS saw the Turkish army as its ally especially when it came to attacking the Kurds in Syria.” But as the alleged arrangements progressed, Turkey allowed the group to establish a major presence within the country — and created a huge problem for itself. “The longer this has persisted, the more difficult it has become for the Turks to crack down [on ISIS] because there is the risk of a counter strike, of blowback,” Jonathan Schanzer, a former counterterrorism analyst for the US Treasury Department, explained to Business Insider in November. “You have a lot of people now that are invested in the business of extremism in Turkey,” Schanzer added. “If you start to challenge that, it raises significant questions of whether” the militants, their benefactors, and other war profiteers would tolerate the crackdown.

In response to the tragic Paris events of November 13, Central Intelligence Agency director  John Brennan  warned that “ISIL is planning additional attacks… It is clear to me that ISIL has an external agenda, that they are determined to carry out these types of attacks.” (Quoted in Daily Telegraph, November 16, 2015) Five days later following the CIA Chief’s  premonition, the Bamako Radisson Hotel Blu in Mali’s capital was the object of a terrorist attack, resulting in  21 people dead. Following the attack and the taking of hostages by the terrorists, French and Malian special forces raided the hotel. US. Africa Command (AFRICOM) also confirmed that US special forces were involved.

The Bamako terror operation was allegedly coordinated by Mokhtar Belmokhtar (aka Khaled Abu al-Abbas), leader of an affiliate of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Islamist al-Mulathameen (Masked) Brigade, or “Those who Sign with Blood.” Belmokhtar’s group was created in 2012 in the wake of the war on Libya. His organization has also allegedly been involved in the drug trade, smuggling as well kidnapping operations of foreigners in North Africa.  While his whereabouts are said to be known, French intelligence has dubbed Belmokhtar “the uncatchable”. In June he was reported dead  as a result in a U.S. air strike in Libya. His death was subsequently denied. Based on shaky evidence, The New York Times report below (November 20) concludes that Belmokhtar’s group (together with AQIM) is unequivocally behind the Bamako attacks:

A member of Al Qaeda in Africa confirmed Saturday that the attack Friday on a hotel in Bamako, Mali, had been carried out by a jihadist group loyal to Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian operative for Al Qaeda. The Qaeda member, who spoke via an online chat, said that an audio message and a similar written statement in which the group claimed responsibility for the attack were authentic. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist groups, also confirmed the authenticity of the statement. The Qaeda member, who refused to be named for his protection, said that Mr. Belmokhtar’s men had collaborated with the Saharan Emirate of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, … In the audio recording, the group, known as Al Mourabitoun, says it carried out the operation in conjunction with Al Qaeda’s branch in the Islamic Maghreb. The recording was released to the Al Jazeera network and simultaneously to Al Akhbar, … The recording states: “We, in the group of the Mourabitoun [Arabic Rebel Group], in cooperation with our brothers in Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, the great desert area, claim responsibility for the hostage-taking operation in the Radisson hotel in Bamako.” (emphasis added)

As vice president, Dick Cheney was a prime architect of the worldwide torture regime implemented by the U.S. government (which extended far beyond waterboarding), as well as the invasion and destruction of Iraq, which caused the deaths of at least 500,000 people and more likely over a million. As such, he is one of the planet’s most notorious war criminals. President Obama made the decision in early 2009 to block the Justice Department from criminally investigating and prosecuting Cheney and his fellow torturers, as well as to protect them from foreign investigations and even civil liability sought by torture victims. Obama did that notwithstanding a campaign decree that even top Bush officials are subject to the rule of law and, more importantly, notwithstanding a treaty signed in 1984 by Ronald Reagan requiring that all signatory states criminally prosecute their own torturers. Obama’s immunizing Bush-era torturers converted torture from a global taboo and decades-old crime into a reasonable, debatable policy question, which is why so many GOP candidates are now openly suggesting its use.

But now, the Obama administration has moved from legally protecting Bush-era war criminals to honoring and gushing over them in public. Yesterday, the House of Representatives unveiled a marble bust of former Vice President Cheney, which — until a person of conscience vandalizes or destroys it — will reside in Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capitol. At the unveiling ceremony, Cheney was, in the playful words of NPR, “lightly roasted” — as though he’s some sort of grumpy though beloved avuncular stand-up comic. Along with George W. Bush, one of the speakers in attendance was Vice President Joe Biden, who spoke movingly of Cheney’s kind and generous soul

Yesterday, the U.S. government unambiguously signaled to the world that not only does it regard itself as entirely exempt from the laws of wars, the principal Nuremberg prohibition against aggressive invasions, and global prohibitions on torture (something that has been self-evident for many years), but believes that the official perpetrators should be honored and memorialized provided they engage in these crimes on behalf of the U.S. government. That’s a message that most of the U.S. media and thus large parts of the American population will not hear, but much of the world will hear it quite loudly and clearly. How could they not?

US experts are reconstructing and equipping a desolate airport special to carrying agricultural products in the region controlled by the Kurdish forces in Hasaka region, Northeastern Syria, to turn it into a military base.The Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Saturday that a number of US experts have entered the region since 50 days ago to develop and prepare the runways with 2,500m length and 250m width to be used by fighter jets. Abu Hajar airport which has not been used since 2010 is located in Tal al-Hajar region in the Eastern countryside of Hasaka which is controlled by the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG).

The airbase is located Southeast of the town of Rimelan, which is one of the YPG’s main strongholds and “largest arms and ammunition depots”. The US has not received or even asked for a permission from Damascus for reconstructing the airbase. The United States does not have a UN mandate for interventing in the Syria war. The airport will help enable Washington to add an additional safe place to land its forces, commando units for instance, and bring in military support to its allies who are working to finalize control over Southern Hasaka countryside, al-Akhbar said. The report came over a week after the Kurdish region said that the US and Kurdish forces were working together to construct a 10 hectare military airbase South of the town of Rimelan in the village of Rimelan al-Basha. “American experts are directly supervising the airbase with a Kurdish workforce,” the reports claimed, saying that US unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) had been flown from the facility to test it.

Justifiable suspicions about what happened surfaced straightaway after the incident. The alleged perpetrators, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, appear to have been used as convenient patsies – the same way April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Dzhokhar were unjustly framed for a crime they didn’t commit. False flag attacks are used to stoke fear, to enlist public support for planned domestic and foreign horrors. Events post-9/11 are well-documented. What’s unfolding now looks like more of the same – the phony pretext of combating ISIS, state-sponsored high crimes at home and abroad. Eyewitnesses to the San Bernardino shooting said three white gunmen in black military attire, armed with assault rifles, were responsible. Sally Abdelmageed working at the Inland Regional Center described them this way, saying “(a)s soon as they opened up the doors to building three…one of them (began) shoot(ing) into the room.”

“I couldn’t see a face. He had a black hat on…black cargo pants, the kind with the big puffy pockets on the side…long sleeve shirt…gloves…huge assault rifle…six magazines…I just saw three dressed exactly the same.” “It looked like their skin color was white. They look like they were athletic(ally) buil(t), and they appeared to be tall” – clearly professionals, carrying out a well-planned attack, the way all false flags are conducted. Abdelmageed and other eyewitnesses gave similar accounts, debunking the official narrative – a Big Lie, framing two innocent Muslim patsies, killed by police to tell no tales, given no chance to explain their innocence. Their bodies were found handcuffed, indicating they were apprehended and likely extrajudicially executed to be unable to refute the official narrative. Former NSA/CIA contractor Steven D. Kelley told Press TV intimated that hired guns allegedly from Craft International (a Blackwater type paramilitary group, the same one responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings) could have been behind the San Bernardino shootings. (see below)

The incident “is just one in a long string of false flag events that I am afraid to say are not over,” he said. “We’ll probably be seeing several more before the end of the year, because of the events that are going on in the world, specifically with NATO implicated in the buying of (stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil complicit with) Daesh and other events.” “(W)hen these things happen, they need to have a rapid response which requires a false flag attack. This was very obvious that this was going to happen” – with lots more to come, Kelly believes, part of Washington’s well-orchestrated fear-mongering campaign. The early stages of its dirty aftermath are playing out, most Americans mindless about how they’re being duped.

Despite a mounting civilian death toll and increased opposition from civil liberties activists, the US Air Force has announced that it plans to double its number of drone squadrons.In October, the Intercept released a report outlining the more secretive aspects of the US drone program. Compiled by a source within the intelligence community, the report offers an in-depth look at who, precisely, the US is targeting – and how accurate those missions really are.

"During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets," the report reads. This, of course, wasn’t the first indication of the drone program’s death toll. Analysis conducted by human rights group Reprieve in 2014 found that in targeting only 41 men, 1,147 people were killed by US airstrikes. But not only is the American drone war not winding down, it’s actually about to double in scope. According to Gen. Herbert Carlisle, head of US Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, the US Air Force is about to double its number of drone squadrons, adding roughly 3,000 personnel to pilot and maintain new UAVs which would be stationed across the globe. The plan calls for an expansion over the next five years, and while it still has to be approved by Congressional lawmakers, the proposal would cost taxpayers $3 billion.

Carlisle says the plan is necessary because the Air Force is currently too busy running attack missions and is unable to meet the rising demand for surveillance missions. "Right now, 100% of the time, when a MQ-1 or MQ-9 crew goes in, all they do is combat," he said, according to the LA Times. "So we really have to build the capacity." The proposal includes adding 75 Reapers to the Air Force’s fleet of 175 Reapers and 150 Predators, and could even entail the construction of a new drone operations center in Suffolk, England, pending approval from the British government.

Crude climbed a second day after tumbling to a six-year low amid signs the U.S. may allow unfettered exports for the first time in 40 years.West Texas Intermediate rose 2.8 percent, adding to Monday’s 1.9 percent gain amid a broader rally of U.S. and European stocks. House Democrats are open to lifting the ban on American crude exports if they get adequate concessions in exchange, a Democratic leadership aide said Monday. U.S. crude supplies probably fell last week, according to a Bloomberg survey before government data on Wednesday.Oil is trading close to levels last seen during the global financial crisis this week after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries effectively abandoned output limits in an effort to defend market share. Repealing the restrictions on shipping U.S. crude overseas could open new markets, buoying the price of domestic crude grades.

OPEC failed to agree to production limits at a Dec. 4 meeting, instead setting aside its quota of 30 million barrels a day until the next gathering in June. Members are showing “renewed determination” to maximize output, the International Energy Agency said in a report last week."We’re seeing bargain-hunting after nearly breaking through the December lows," said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citi Futures Perspective in New York. "Supply is still running ahead of demand and there will probably be more Iranian supply on the market early next year, so we’re still at risk of a further decline."

WTI may fall into the high $20s if tanks used to store crude start to fill up before producers sufficiently curb output, Citigroup Inc. Managing Director Ed Morse said. Brent would need to decline to about $30, he said.“The quarter ahead looks a good deal more bearish than the quarter just ending,” Morse said in a report. “The already oversupplied market now faces the imminent return of Iranian barrels and onshore storage capacity constraints look set to be tested in the first half.”

Along with philosophical qualms, McClintock said he has personal reasons to doubt the efficacy of the no-fly list. Turns out that when he was in the state Senate a decade ago, McClintock said, he discovered he couldn’t check into his flight.“When I asked why, I was told I was on this government list,” McClintock said, calling the whole experience “Kafkaesque.”“My first reaction was to ask, ‘Why am I on that list?’ ‘We can’t tell you that.’ ‘What are the criteria you use?’ I asked. ‘That’s classified.’ I said, ‘How can I get off this list?’ The answer was, ‘You can’t.’ ”He said it ended up being a case of mistaken identity with an Irish Republican Army activist the “British government was mad at.” McClintock said he soon learned that a fellow state senator also had been placed on the list, as well as the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy. McClintock said he at least had the state Senate sergeant-at-arms to work through to clear up the confusion – “something an ordinary American would not.”Still, he said it took months of working with officials and repeated petitions to the government to get his name removed. “The farce of it all was that I was advised in the meantime just to fly under my middle name, which I did without incident,” he added.

Less than a week after the attacks in Paris — while the public and policymakers were still reeling, and the investigation had barely gotten off the ground — Cy Vance, Manhattan’s District Attorney, released a policy paper calling for legislation requiring companies to provide the government with backdoor access to their smartphones and other mobile devices. This is the first concrete proposal of this type since September 2014, when FBI Director James Comey reignited the “Crypto Wars” in response to Apple’s and Google’s decisions to use default encryption on their smartphones. Though Comey seized on Apple’s and Google’s decisions to encrypt their devices by default, his concerns are primarily related to end-to-end encryption, which protects communications that are in transit. Vance’s proposal, on the other hand, is only concerned with device encryption, which protects data stored on phones. It is still unclear whether encryption played any role in the Paris attacks, though we do know that the attackers were using unencrypted SMS text messages on the night of the attack, and that some of them were even known to intelligence agencies and had previously been under surveillance. But regardless of whether encryption was used at some point during the planning of the attacks, as I lay out below, prohibiting companies from selling encrypted devices would not prevent criminals or terrorists from being able to access unbreakable encryption. Vance’s primary complaint is that Apple’s and Google’s decisions to provide their customers with more secure devices through encryption interferes with criminal investigations. He claims encryption prevents law enforcement from accessing stored data like iMessages, photos and videos, Internet search histories, and third party app data. He makes several arguments to justify his proposal to build backdoors into encrypted smartphones, but none of them hold water.

Before addressing the major privacy, security, and implementation concerns that his proposal raises, it is worth noting that while an increase in use of fully encrypted devices could interfere with some law enforcement investigations, it will help prevent far more crimes — especially smartphone theft, and the consequent potential for identity theft. According to Consumer Reports, in 2014 there were more than two million victims of smartphone theft, and nearly two-thirds of all smartphone users either took no steps to secure their phones or their data or failed to implement passcode access for their phones. Default encryption could reduce instances of theft because perpetrators would no longer be able to break into the phone to steal the data.

Vance argues that creating a weakness in encryption to allow law enforcement to access data stored on devices does not raise serious concerns for security and privacy, since in order to exploit the vulnerability one would need access to the actual device. He considers this an acceptable risk, claiming it would not be the same as creating a widespread vulnerability in encryption protecting communications in transit (like emails), and that it would be cheap and easy for companies to implement. But Vance seems to be underestimating the risks involved with his plan. It is increasingly important that smartphones and other devices are protected by the strongest encryption possible. Our devices and the apps on them contain astonishing amounts of personal information, so much that an unprecedented level of harm could be caused if a smartphone or device with an exploitable vulnerability is stolen, not least in the forms of identity fraud and credit card theft. We bank on our phones, and have access to credit card payments with services like Apple Pay. Our contact lists are stored on our phones, including phone numbers, emails, social media accounts, and addresses. Passwords are often stored on people’s phones. And phones and apps are often full of personal details about their lives, from food diaries to logs of favorite places to personal photographs. Symantec conducted a study, where the company spread 50 “lost” phones in public to see what people who picked up the phones would do with them. The company found that 95 percent of those people tried to access the phone, and while nearly 90 percent tried to access private information stored on the phone or in other private accounts such as banking services and email, only 50 percent attempted contacting the owner.

Donald Trump has said he will “postpone” a trip to Israel and a meeting with the country’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, until “after I become president of the US”.

Netanyahu had on Wednesday confirmed he would meet the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination to succeed Barack Obama in the White House despite an international outcry over his suggestion that Muslims should be banned from entering the US. Several hours after confirming the meeting, Netanyahu’s office tweeted that the prime minister rejected Trump’s comments about Muslims but had agreed to meet any US presidential candidate who visited Israel.

Trump’s visit had been opposed by dozens of Israeli MPs – both Jews and Arabs – after his remarks drew condemnation across the Israeli political spectrum. The cancellation also followed reports in the Israeli media that Trump had requested a visit to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount religious site, revered by Muslims and Jews alike, and home to the al-Aqsa mosque – one of the most important sites in Islam. Some 37 Israeli MPs had signed a letter asking that Trump not be allowed to visit in light of his remarks. The letter, drafted by MP Michal Rozin, and mainly signed by opposition lawmakers, said that, “while leaders around the world condemn the Republican presidential candidate’s racist and outrageous remarks, Netanyahu is warmly embracing him” and any meeting would “disgrace Israel’s democratic character and hurt its Muslim citizens”. Equally damaging for Trump was the fact that Israel’s rightwing energy minister, Yuval Steinitz, one of Netanyahu’s closest political allies, had weighed in, criticising Trump’s remarks. “I recommend fighting terrorist and extremist Islam, but I would not declare a boycott of, ostracism against, or war on Muslims in general,” Steinitz told Israel’s Army Radio.

Now, in the latest example of just how tenuous Washington’s grip on the region has become, the Iraqi parliament's Security and Defense Committee is calling for the review and cancellation of Baghdad’s security agreement with the US.  “The government and parliament need to review the agreement signed with the United States on security because the United States does not seriously care about its fulfillment,” committee member Hamid al-Mutlaq, a senior Sunni lawmaker told Sputnik on Wednesday. “We demand that it be annulled,” he added. 

and in the fight against terrorism in Iraq," another committee member said earlier this week.  Recall that this is precisely what we said would happen once we learned in September that Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria had set up a joint intelligence sharing cell in Baghdad. It was clear from the beginning that Tehran saw an opportunity to consolidate its power in Iraq and preserve its influence in Syria by convincing Vladimir Putin that Russia could replace the US as Mid-East superpower puppet master by helping Tehran to defeat the insurgency in Syria and boot the US from Iraq once and for all. Moscow will of course get a warm reception from Iraqi lawmakers thanks to the fact that many MPs are loyal to Iran.  This makes sense logistically as well. Once the Russians and Iranians have retaken Aleppo (which admittedly is taking a while), they can push east towards Raqqa and from there, move straight across the border, effectively pinching ISIS between an advance from the west and Iran’s Shiite militias already operating in Iraq. Of course that will entail some measure of cooperation with the US, France, Britain, and, once in Iraq, the Peshmerga. It is at that point that Washington’s resolve when it comes to preserving whatever charade is being perpetrated in Raqqa will be put to the ultimate test.  In the meantime, it will be interesting to see how the US responds to a move by Baghdad to nullify the security agreement.

It now appears that the stage is set for Baghdad to claim that the US, like Turkey, is illegitimately occupying the country (again). If Iraq nullifies the security agreement and moves to invite the Russians into the country, the US will be forced to either pack up and leave, cooperate with Moscow, or fight for the right to preserve American influence. 

“I’ve shown photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products,” Vladimir Putin told reporters earlier this month on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Antalya. Putin was of course referencing Islamic State’s illicit and highly lucrative oil trade, the ins and outs of which we’ve documented extensively over the past two weeks: The Most Important Question About ISIS That Nobody Is Asking Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey's President How Turkey Exports ISIS Oil To The World: The Scientific Evidence ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: "Raqqa's Rockefellers", Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection Turkey’s move to shoot down a Russian Su-24 warplane near the Syrian border afforded the Russian President all the motivation and PR cover he needed to expose Ankara’s alleged role in the trafficking of illegal crude from Iraq and Syria and in the aftermath of last Tuesday’s “incident,” Putin lambasted Erdogan. “Oil from Islamic State is being shipped to Turkey,” Putin said while in Jordan for a meeting with King Abdullah. In case that wasn’t clear enough, Putin added this: “Islamic State gets cash by selling oil to Turkey.”

To be sure, it’s impossible to track the path ISIS oil takes from extraction to market with any degree of precision. That said, it seems that Islamic State takes advantage of the same network of smugglers, traders, and shipping companies that the KRG uses to transport Kurdish crude from Kurdistan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. From there, the oil makes its way to Israel and other markets (depending on which story you believe) and if anyone needs to be thrown off the trail along the way, there’s a ship-to-ship transfer trick that can be executed off the coast of Malta. The maneuver allegedly makes the cargoes more difficult to track.  Some believe Erdogan’s son Bilal - who owns a marine transport company called BMZ Group - is heavily involved in the trafficking of Kurdish and ISIS crude. Most of the ships BMZ owns are Malta-flagged.  In light of the above, some have speculated that Turkey shot down the Su-24 in retaliation for Russia’s bombing campaign that recently has destroyed over 1,000 ISIS oil trucks. Here’s what Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoub said on Friday:

“All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company’s nerves. They’re importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts as well." Al-Zoub isn’t alone in his suspicions. In an interview with RT, Iraqi MP and former national security adviser, Mowaffak al Rubaie - who personally led Saddam to the gallows - said ISIS is selling around $100 million of stolen crude each month in Turkey. Here are some excerpts:  “In the last eight months ISIS has managed to sell ... $800 million dollars worth of oil on the black market of Turkey. This is Iraqi oil and Syrian oil, carried by trucks from Iraq, from Syria through the borders to Turkey and sold ...[at] less than 50 percent of the international oil price."   "Now this either get consumed inside, the crude is refined on Turkish territory by the Turkish refineries, and sold in the Turkish market. Or it goes to Jihan and then in the pipelines from Jihan to the Mediterranean and sold to the international market.”

A military statement has ordered civilians to leave the "Islamic State"-held city, without giving further details. Some analysts believe a major US-led operation to retake the city is imminent.

Monday's statement was broadcast on Iraqi state TV, requesting that Ramadi civilians leave the city from its southern Himaira area. No further details were given. The announcement immediately fuelled speculation that a major operation by Iraqi forces to retake Ramadi from "Islamic State" ("IS") militants was about to begin. The statement followed three days of air strikes in Iraq and Syria by the US-led coalition fighting the jihadist group, and was issued after Iraqi forces cut the last "IS" supply line into the city by seizing a key bridge. IS militants were imposing a 5,500 euro ($6,000) levy for anyone who wanted to leave, the military said, adding that around 50,000 civilians have been prevented from traveling.

American and allied jets conducted seven strikes against "IS" positions around the city on Saturday and five on Sunday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has used a secretive authority to compel Internet and telecommunications firms to hand over customer data including an individual’s complete web browsing history and records of all online purchases, a court filing released Monday shows.The documents are believed to be the first time the government has provided details of its so-called national security letters, which are used by the FBI to conduct electronic surveillance without the need for court approval.The filing made public Monday was the result of an 11-year-old legal battle waged by Nicholas Merrill, founder of Calyx Internet Access, a hosted service provider, who refused to comply with a national security letter (NSL) he received in 2004. Merrill told Reuters the release was significant “because the public deserves to know how the government is gathering information without warrants on Americans who are not even suspected of a crime.”

National security letters have been available as a law enforcement tool since the 1970s, but their frequency and breadth expanded dramatically under the USA Patriot Act, which was passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. They are almost always accompanied by an open-ended gag order barring companies from disclosing the contents of the demand for customer data.A federal court ruled earlier this year that the gag on Merrill’s NSL should be lifted. Merrill's challenge also disclosed that the FBI may use NSLs to gain IP addresses on everyone a suspect has corresponded with and cell-site location information. The FBI said in the court filings it no longer used NSLs for location information. The secretive orders have long drawn the ire of tech companies and privacy advocates, who argue NSLs allow the government to snoop on user content without appropriate judicial oversight or transparency.

Last year, the Obama administration announced it would permit Internet companies to disclose more about the number of NSLs they receive. But they can still only provide a range such as between 0 and 999 requests, or between 1,000 and 1,999. Twitter (TWTR.N) has sued in federal court seeking the ability to publish more details in its semi-annual transparency reports. Several thousand NSLs are now issued by the FBI every year, though the agency says it is unaware of the precise number. At one point that number eclipsed 50,000 letters annually. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

“We have received additional information confirming that the oil controlled by Islamic State militants (ISIS) enters Turkish territory on an industrial scale. We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure the security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers.” –Russian President Vladimir Putin, Paris, 11-30-15

In candid remarks to the Russian media, Putin implicated the US in the downing of the Su-24 stating that the US military was briefed on the warplane’s flight path and then immediately passed along that information to Turkey. Here’s what he said: “We told our US partners in advance where, when at what altitudes our pilots were going to operate. The US-led coalition, which includes Turkey, was aware of the time and place where our planes would operate. And this is exactly where and when we were attacked. Why did we share this information with the Americans? Either they don’t control their allies, or they just pass this information left and right without realizing what the consequences of such actions might be. We will have to have a serious talk with our US partners.” Putin’s damning remarks have not appeared in any of the western media. The censorship of this information is similar to the blackout of comments Putin made just two weeks earlier at the G-20 summit where he announced that “40 countries” are financing ISIS including members of the G-20.

Here’s an except of Putin’s bombshell announcement: “I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them,” Putin told the journalists. “I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products. The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon,” Putin added, comparing the convoy to gas and oil pipeline systems.” (Putin: ISIS financed from 40 countries, including G20 members, RT)

Tony Blair went to war in Iraq despite a report by South African experts with unique knowledge of the country that showed it did not possess weapons of mass destruction, according to a book published on Sunday.

God, Spies and Lies, by South African journalist John Matisonn, describes how then president Thabo Mbeki tried in vain to convince both Blair and President George W Bush that toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003 would be a terrible mistake. Mbeki’s predecessor, Nelson Mandela, also tried to convince the American leader, but was left fuming that “President Bush doesn’t know how to think”. The claim was this week supported by Mbeki’s office, which confirmed that he pleaded with both leaders to heed the WMD experts and even offered to become their intermediary with Saddam in a bid to maintain peace. South Africa had a special insight into Iraq’s potential for WMD because the apartheid government’s own biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programme in the 1980s led the countries to collaborate. The programme was abandoned after the end of white minority rule in 1994 but the expert team, known as Project Coast, was put back together by Mbeki to investigate the US and UK assertion that Saddam had WMD – the central premise for mounting an invasion.

Mbeki, who enjoyed positive relations with both Blair and Saddam, asked for the team to be granted access. “Saddam agreed, and gave the South African team the freedom to roam unfettered throughout Iraq,” writes Matisonn, who says he drew on sources in Whitehall and the South African cabinet. “They had access to UN intelligence on possible WMD sites. The US, UK and UN were kept informed of the mission and its progress.” The experts put their prior knowledge of the facilities to good use, Matisonn writes. “They already knew the terrain, because they had travelled there as welcome guests of Saddam when both countries were building WMD.” On their return, they reported that there were no WMDs in Iraq. “They knew where the sites in Iraq had been, and what they needed to look like. But there were now none in Iraq.”

The Pentagon will consider deploying more special operations troops to fight Islamic State militants if its pilot project in Syria shows signs of progress, a senior Defense official told USA TODAY on Monday.The Pentagon last month announced that 50 commandos would be sent to northern Syria to advise forces battling the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS. Sending that initial force amounts to "breaking the seal" on inserting special operations forces in Syria and could lead to further deployments, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about planning. The Pentagon will not comment on whether those commandos have arrived in Syria.The trigger for sending more special operations forces, the official said, is the ability of local forces to take ground from ISIL in Syria and hold it. Adding more forces on the ground in Syria would represent a significant deepening of the U.S. commitment to the counter-ISIL effort, potentially requiring additional forces to support them. There are about 3,400 American forces in Iraq.

The Pentagon's counter-ISIL strategy will be the focus of a hearing Tuesday before the House Armed Services Committee; Defense Secretary Ash Carter is scheduled to testify.Rep. Mac Thornberry, the Texas Republican who chairs the committee, said in an interview that he would support a greater commitment of U.S. ground forces to Syria and Iraq, including spotters for airstrikes, if they are part of more robust strategy to confront the Islamic State."The issue is OK, What would it take to really degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS?" Thornberry said. "Send however many guys or assemble whatever coalition is necessary to accomplish that goal."Thornberry dismissed the deployment of 50 commandos as a half measure that won't work."Fifty guys to be deployed is not going to turn the tide of this battle," he said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday accepted Russia's long-standing demand that President Bashar Assad's future be determined by his own people, as Washington and Moscow edged toward putting aside years of disagreement over how to end Syria's civil war. "The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change," Kerry told reporters in the Russian capital after meeting President Vladimir Putin. A major international conference on Syria would take place later this week in New York, Kerry announced. Kerry reiterated the U.S. position that Assad, accused by the West of massive human rights violations and chemical weapons attacks, won't be able to steer Syria out of more than four years of conflict. But after a day of discussions with Assad's key international backer, Kerry said the focus now is "not on our differences about what can or cannot be done immediately about Assad." Rather, it is on facilitating a peace process in which "Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria." Kerry's declarations crystallized the evolution in U.S. policy on Assad over the last several months, as the Islamic State group's growing influence in the Middle East has taken priority.

President Barack Obama first called on Assad to leave power in the summer of 2011, with "Assad must go" being a consistent rallying cry. Later, American officials allowed that he wouldn't have to resign on "Day One" of a transition. Now, no one can say when Assad might step down. Russia, by contrast, has remained consistent in its view that no foreign government could demand Assad's departure and that Syrians would have to negotiate matters of leadership among themselves. Since late September, it has been bombing terrorist and rebel targets in Syria as part of what the West says is an effort to prop up Assad's government. "No one should be forced to choose between a dictator and being plagued by terrorists," Kerry said. However, he described the Syrian opposition's demand that Assad must leave as soon as peace talks begin as a "nonstarting position, obviously."

Earlier Tuesday in the Kremlin, Putin noted several "outstanding issues" between Russia and its former Cold War foe. Beyond Assad, these include which rebel groups in Syria should be allowed to participate in the transition process and which should be deemed terrorists, and like the Islamic State group and al-Qaida, combatted by all. Jordan is working on finalizing the list of terrorist vs. legitimate opposition forces. Representatives of Syria's opposition themselves hope this week to finalize their negotiating team for talks with Assad's government. The U.S., Russia and others hope those talks will begin early next year. Appearing beside Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hailed what he described as a "big negotiating day," saying the sides advanced efforts to define what a Syrian transition process might look like.

Martin Shkreli, a boastful pharmaceutical executive who came under withering criticism for price gouging vital drugs, denied securities fraud charges on Thursday following an early morning arrest, and was freed on a $5 million bond. While the 32-year-old has earned a rare level of infamy for his brazenness in business and his personal life, what he was charged with had nothing to do with skyrocketing drug prices. He is accused of repeatedly losing money for investors and lying to them about it, illegally taking assets from one of his companies to pay off debtors in another. “Shkreli essentially ran his company like a Ponzi scheme where he used each subsequent company to pay off defrauded investors from the prior company,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said at a press conference.

Evan Greebel, a New York lawyer, who is alleged in the federal indictment to have helped Shkreli in his schemes, was also arrested and charged. Like Shkreli, he pleaded not guilty, and he was freed on a $1 million bond. Both men and their lawyers declined to comment after their court appearance.

Read the full text of the indictment here In the federal indictment and a complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission, authorities say Shkreli began losing money and lying to investors from the time he began managing money. In his mid-20s, he got nine investors to place $3 million with him and at one point he had only $331. Securities fraud is hardly unheard of on Wall Streeet and the amounts involved here are nowhere near on the scale of Bernie Madoff. But Shkreli’s case has drawn such attention because of his defiant price-gouging and his own up-by-the-bootstraps history. The son of immigrants from Albania and Croatia who did janitorial work and raised him and his brothers in working-class Brooklyn, Shkreli seemed at first to embody the American dream and then to mock it. After dropping out of an elite Manhattan high school, he worked as an intern for Jim Cramer’s hedge fund as a 17-year-old and quickly impressed with his ability to call stocks. He created hedge funds, taught himself biology and, after earning a BA at Baruch College in New York City, began hedge funds investing in biotech.

Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces do not have a combat mission."Earnest said the promises of "no boots on the ground" first came in the context of removing Syrian President Bashar Assad because of his use of chemical weapons. Since then, Syria has become a haven for Islamic State fighters.Here's a recap of Obama's no-boots pledge: