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This article originally published by Global Research in 2005 sheds light on the nature of Al Qaeda, an intelligence construct used by Washington to destabilize and destroy sovereign countries, while sustaining the illusion of  an outside enemy, which threatens the security of the Western World.

Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence. “I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . .

“In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs. “It was decided to use a part of the system’s memory to host the Islamic Conference’s database. It was possible for the countries attending to access the database by telephone: an Intranet, in modern language. The governments of the member-countries as well as some of their embassies in the world were connected to that network. “[According to a Pakistani major] the database was divided into two parts, the information file where the participants in the meetings could pick up and send information they needed, and the decision file where the decisions made during the previous sessions were recorded and stored. In Arabic, the files were called, ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ and ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic ‘Q eidat ilmu’ti’aat’ which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for “base.” The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called ‘q eidat ‘riyadh al ‘askariya.’ Q eida means “a base” and “Al Qaida” means “the base.” “In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference’s secretariat.

On Saturday, the Syrian army and its allies foiled a plan by al-Nusra Front in collaboration with Turkish intelligence, to stage a sarin gas attack in the Syrian capital during President Bashar al-Assad’s inauguration.

People in jail per 100k people US 710 Chile 266 Mexico 210 Turkey 179 UK 147 Canada 118 Sweden 67 Japan 51 Iceland 47

Today’s head-scratcher: How could a two-mile long column of jihadi-filled white Toyota Land rovers barrel across the Syrian border into Iraq–sending plumes of dust up into the atmosphere –without US spy satellites detecting their whereabouts when those same satellites can read a damn license plate from outer space? And why has the media failed to inquire about this massive Intelligence failure?

By the way, according to the Telegraph, Obama and friends knew what ISIS was up to, and knew that the terrorist group was going to launch attacks on cities in the Sunni territories, just as they have. Get a load of this: “Five months ago, a Kurdish intelligence “asset” walked into a base and said he had information to hand over. The capture by jihadists the month before of two Sunni cities in western Iraq was just the beginning, he said. There would soon be a major onslaught on Sunni territories. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), a renegade offshoot of al-Qaeda, was about to take its well-known cooperation with leftovers of the regime of Saddam Hussein,  and his former deputy Izzat al-Douri, to a new level.

His handlers knew their source of old, and he had always proved reliable, officials told The Telegraph. So they listened carefully as he said a formal alliance was about to be signed that would lead to the takeover of Mosul, the biggest city north of Baghdad, home to two million people. … ‘We had this information then, and we passed it on to your (British) government and the US government,’ Rooz Bahjat, a senior lieutenant to Lahur Talabani, head of Kurdish intelligence, said. ‘We used our official liaisons.’ ‘We knew exactly what strategy they were going to use, we knew the military planners. It fell on deaf ears.’  (How US and Britain were warned of Isis advance in Iraq but ‘turned a deaf ear, Telegraph)

A recent article written by this writer for Global Research posted last Saturday – “The Benghazi Scandal Is Obama’s Watergate But Worse” – was written in an effort to seek and uncover the truth. Accurate reporting on major world events is a challenge in today’s world where propaganda and disinformation are mainstream media norms and where virtually all major players in American politics simply lie through their teeth every time they open their mouths in constant effort to look good and cover up the truth. The American public knows this pathetic and sobering fact that deception has come to rule in the world of both politics and the media. People today neither believe their newscasters nor their political leaders. That is why examining the content of the tidal wave of assertions and opinions spewing forth from politicians and pundits in the aftermath of the latest Benghazi revelations must be taken with a grain of salt. Again, truth in today’s world is hard to come by. But as an investigative reporter, presenting a brief overview of recent comments and statements for any informed citizen to process and digest seems a worthwhile and important enterprise.

A timeline of recently unfolding events: On 10/12/12 exactly one month after the Benghazi incident, the legal conservative group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking documents related to the Benghazi attack on September 11th, 2012 that killed the US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Obama, who had campaigned on a promise of transparency in the criminal wake of the Bush regime, has proven to be anything but open and transparent. Having to sue the US government for access to the records, on April 18th, 2014, a full year and a half later, the Obama administration’s stonewalling ultimately failed and Judicial Watch successfully got hold of 41 State Department Benghazi related documents. Emails between high level White House officials discussing damage control strategies in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi assault were released last week. Jubilant Republicans are now calling one of those emails their “smoking gun,” believing it is so incriminating that it will do in their would-be opponent Hillary Clinton from potentially competing in the 2016 presidential election.

The newly declassified email written by Obama’s then Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes specifically directed then UN Ambassador Susan Rice in preparation for her Sunday morning talk show appearances on September 16th, 2012 to explain the administration’s take on what it knew of the Benghazi murders. Rhodes advised Rice to attribute the Benghazi uprising as “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy,” pushing talking points designed to bolster Obama’s presidential image as a cool-as-a-cucumber-under-fire kind of wise and benevolent leader and statesman. The major emphasis of the email instructed Rice to blame the bogus anti-Moslem video as inciting a spontaneous protest like in other countries in the region that apparently grew violently out of control, of course all the while knowing that that was a boldface lie. This crucial piece of evidence proves that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both knew that the video did not cause the attack but that they chose to willfully deceive the American public in order to protect their own political careers and hence was born the infamously never ending Benghazi cover-up. Obama and Hillary withheld this damning email evidence even from the House Oversight Committee led by Congressman Darrel Issa (R-CA) requesting all documents pertaining to Benghazi more than a year ago. With the presidential election less than two months away at the time of the attack, Obama and Hillary were determined at all cost to keep hidden from Americans the real truth of criminal Benghazi activity they were guilty of engaging in during the months leading up to the attack. Last Thursday an angry Issa subpoenaed current Secretary of State John Kerry to appear before the committee on May 21st to further explain why those critical State Department records recently given to Judicial Watch were not among the 3200 documents originally handed over to his committee well over a year ago.

In May 2010, when the United Nations Security Council was weighing sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, several members were undecided about how they would vote. The American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, asked the National Security Agency for help “so that she could develop a strategy,” a leaked agency document shows.The N.S.A. swiftly went to work, developing the paperwork to obtain legal approval for spying on diplomats from four Security Council members — Bosnia, Gabon, Nigeria and Uganda — whose embassies and missions were not already under surveillance. The following month, 12 members of the 15-seat Security Council voted to approve new sanctions, with Lebanon abstaining and only Brazil and Turkey voting against. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Books of The Times: ‘No Place to Hide,’ by Glenn GreenwaldMAY 12, 2014 Later that summer, Ms. Rice thanked the agency, saying its intelligence had helped her to know when diplomats from the other permanent representatives — China, England, France and Russia — “were telling the truth ... revealed their real position on sanctions ... gave us an upper hand in negotiations ... and provided information on various countries ‘red lines.’ ”

The two documents laying out that episode, both leaked by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, are reproduced in a new book by Glenn Greenwald, “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the N.S.A., and the U.S. Surveillance State.” The book is being published Tuesday.

Amid American efforts to allay Sunni Arab concerns over the nuclear deal with Iran, officials are reportedly considering selling Saudi Arabia bunker buster bombs, which are currently only offered to Israel American officials said privately this week that the Obama administration is considering selling GBU-28 bunker buster bombs to the Gulf monarchy, the Washington Times reported this week.

Talks for the sale are taking place in secret, since according to a 2008 congressional mandate, the US must ensure Israel’s military superiority in the Middle East. But the American administration is also anxious to reassure its Sunni allies in the region that it is not abandoning them. In addition to the sale of bunker buster bombs to Saudi Arabia, the US is also considering selling F-35 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates, according to a recent report.

Analysts say the weapons sales could erode Israel’s military edge in the region. The GBU-28, which can penetrate underground fortifications, was supplied in secret to Israel in 2009, reversing a long-standing American refusal to sell the weapons to Jerusalem. The 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs could be used in a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, though analysts say the weapon would be too small to take out Iran’s Fordo nuclear site. The Pentagon has been testing a 30,000 pound bunker-buster which could reportedly penetrate Fordo, but the Obama administration has refused to sell the weapon to Israel.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will maintain a presence in Afghanistan following the conclusion of the alliance’s ongoing mission – The Resolute Support mission. The decision was taken during a meeting of the NATO Foreign Ministers today in Antalya, Turkey. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said “Today, we took a major decision which shows that we stay committed to Afghanistan. We agreed that we will maintain a presence in Afghanistan, even after the end of our current mission, Resolute Support.” Mr. Stoltenberg further added “Our future presence will be led by civilians. It will have a light footprint. But it will have a military component.” NATO’s civilian and military authorities will now develop a plan for this continued NATO presence by this autumn.

Mr. Stoltenberg pointed out “our aim will be to advise and instruct the Afghan security institutions, to help them become self-sufficient, and to build on what we have achieved so far, as part of the broader international effort.”

The ship Marianne of Gothenburg set sail Monday night on its journey to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. It's journey will mark five years since the Israeli navy forcibly boarded the first Freedom Flotilla's ship Mavi Marmara, killing nine Turkish activists. Israel has announced it will not permit unauthorised ships to enter its territorial waters. Marianne will join additional ships to form the Freedom Flotilla III to perform a peaceful, nonviolent action to break the illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip. In passing, Marianne will call at European ports for demonstrations and actions against Israel's blockade of Gaza. The ship is bringing a limited cargo of solar panels and medical equipment for the people of Gaza. The group Ship to Gaza stated that “In the blockaded Gaza Strip, where the infrastructure has been demolished, solar cells will thus provide an opportunity to independent local production of clean energy. The sun can not be blockaded.”

In addition to a crew of five people, Marianne will have up to eight delegates as passengers in each section of the route. The Freedom Flotilla’s first attempt to break the blockade ended in the deaths of nine Turkish activists after Israeli Navy commandos on May 31, 2010 boarded the Mavi Marmara. The United Nations declared that Israel used excessive force in stopping the ship, and a diplomatic crisis opened between Turkey and Israel which has yet to fully subside. A second attempt was turned back in October 2012. Without relating specifically to the Marianne of Gothenburg, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon told the Jerusalem Post that “if the so-called helpful Gaza flotillas were really interested in the welfare of the population in Gaza, they would send their aid via Israel. The fact that they insist on a flotilla demonstrates this is an unnecessary provocation.” Israel is clearly concerned about the possible ramifications of Freedom Flotilla III, however; the Foreign Ministry has appointed a point-person to coordinate policy on the matter between the foreign ministry, the prime minister’s office, and the defense ministry.

The US is seeking to block a proposal Gazprom made in Athens on a Greek leg of the so-called "Turkish Stream" pipeline, the Greek Foreign Minister has said.In an interview with the Associated Press Greece's top diplomat Nikos Kotzias quoted US Secretary of State  John Kerry as saying Washington would send its top energy envoy Amos Hochstein to Athens to make a "counter-offer", according to Sputnik International and the Athens News Agency.Kotzias is currently on a five-day US visit whose schedule coincides with Tuesday's talks between Greek PM Alexis Tsipras and the Russian energy giant's CEO Alexey Miller. Miller also met with Greek Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, telling him "47 billion cubic meters of gas will be transited through Greece".The Greek leg is planned as an extension to the "Turkish Stream" gas pipeline which was announced as an alternative to the abandoned South Stream project in December of last year. The idea is now to link Turkish Stream, which will start from Russia, go across the Black Sea and reach the Turkey-Greece border, with the EU pipeline network, a move for which the EU is not beginning preparation despite assurances from Moscow that gas transit via Ukraine will be halted once that Turkish Stream is ready in end-2010s.

However, now, there is a US Department of Defense (DoD) document confirming without doubt that the so-called “Syrian opposition” is Al Qaeda, including the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS), and that the opposition’s supporters – the West, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar – specifically sought to establish safe havens in Iraq and eastern Syria, precisely where ISIS is now based. America is Behind ISISFirst appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/05/25/washington-confesses-to-backing-questionable-actors-in-syria/

An alleged telephone conversation tape proving that Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT) involved in arms trading, emerged from the case file regarding ISIL attack in central Anatolian province Niğde.

An alleged telephone conversation tape proving that Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT) involved in arms trading, emerged from the case file regarding ISIL attack in central Anatolian province Niğde. Masum Gök According to the court file regarding the two suspects of ISIL's terrorist action in Niğde, Ayhan Orli and Kassuma code named terrorist Muzaffer Yılmaz had a phone conversation regarding arms trading. According to the tape obtained by Turkish Gendarmarie forces, Arms dealer Ayhan Orli said "Brother, the goods are not in their hands. Intelligence (MİT) is keeping the goods," adding that the Grad rockets are in Mersin province. Here's the full text of the alleged telephone conversation between Ayhan Orli and Muzaffer Yılmaz (Kassuma) in 29 July 2014:

Who is Ayhan Orli? The figures such as Ayhan Orli and Heysem Topalca who have a strong contact with terrorist groups in Syria, turned the civil war into a highly beneficial business. Ayhan Orli who lives in Yayladağı district of Hatay is a Syrian Turkmen. Orli moved to Syria to join the AKP backed terrorist groups after the beginning of civil war. His brother Adil Orli is one of the leaders of the Turkmen Batallion fighting against Syrian regime. One of the prisoners staying in a Syrian prison said in an interview that Ayhan Orli is cooperating with Turkish intelligence and there is an intense deal between them. Ayhan Orli receives million dollar worth commissions from the weapons provided to terrorist groups in Syria. He not only cooperates with intelligence organizations but also a number of international mafia organizations.

Why were there so few U.S. air attacks on the Islamic State attackers when they took Ramadi? The first excuse put out by the U.S. military was "a sandstorm ate my lunch". That excuse was placed as news in the NYT: Islamic State fighters used a sandstorm to help seize a critical military advantage in the early hours of the terrorist group’s attack on the provincial Iraqi capital of Ramadi last week, helping to set in motion an assault that forced Iraqi security forces to flee, current and former American officials said Monday. The stenographer writing the piece did not bother to ask eyewitnesses or to check with some weather service. The myth of the "sandstorm" was thus born and repeated again and again. But people looking at the videos and pictures from the fighting could only see a bright blue sky. The military, though not the NYT, had to retract: Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters today that last weekend's sandstorm had not affected the coalition’s ability to launch airstrikes in Ramadi, though “weather was a factor on the ground early on.”

Now the U.S. military needs a new excuse to explain why it does not really bother to attack the Islamic State troops. Again it is the NYT that is willing to stenograph: American officials say they are not striking significant — and obvious — Islamic State targets out of fear that the attacks will accidentally kill civilians. Killing such innocents could hand the militants a major propaganda coup and alienate both the local Sunni tribesmen, whose support is critical to ousting the militants, and Sunni Arab countries that are part of the American-led coalition. The alleged restrain in in fear of killing civilians in bonkers. The few U.S. airstrikes on Islamic State targets, though not admitted, have already killed hundreds of civilians. This excuse for not helping the defenders of Ramadi is also nonsense as many occasions for potential attacks, like the Islamic State parade in this picture, are in areas with no or few civilians around. Why are Islamic State fighters free to travel the roads between Syria and Iraq in mass?

Nether the "sandstrom" excuse nor the "fear" of accidentally killing civilians seem to be an explanation for the decision to not support the Iraqi troops against the Islamic State attacks. A sound explanation can be found in the 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency assessment, recently revealed, that says that the U.S. and the Gulf monarchies do want an Islamic State covering east Syria and west Iraq: “… there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).” In a recent Sunday show the neocon and former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton put it on the record: I think our objective should be a new Sunni state out of the western part of Iraq, the eastern part of Syria run by moderates or at least authoritarians who are not radical Islamists. What's left of the state of Iraq, as of right now, is simply a satellite of the Ayatollahs in Tehran. It's not anything we should try to aid.

Tens of thousands of Brazilians again flooded the streets of the country's biggest city to raise a collective cry against a longstanding lament — people are weighed down by high taxes and high prices but get low-quality public services and a system of government infected with corruption. That was the repeated message Tuesday night in Sao Paulo, where upward of 50,000 people massed in front of the city's main cathedral. While mostly peaceful, the demonstration followed the rhythm of protests that drew 240,000 people across Brazil the previous night, with small bands of radicals splitting off to fight with police and break into stores.

Mass protests have been mushrooming across Brazil since demonstrations called last week by a group angry over the high cost of a woeful public transport system and a recent 10-cent hike in bus and subway fares in Sao Paulo, Rio and elsewhere

The local governments in at least four cities have now agreed to reverse those hikes, and city and federal politicians have shown signs that the Sao Paulo fare could also be rolled back. It's not clear that will calm the country, though, because the protests have released a seething litany of discontent from Brazilians over life's struggles.

The Iraq Security Forces are making daily progress in Ramadi during a difficult counterattack against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the chief of staff of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve said today. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Killea, briefed the press here on operations in Iraq and Syria and ongoing discussions with Turkey about their support in the campaign against ISIL.

Killea also provided an update on the Aug. 11 mortar attack against the Kurdish Peshmerga that, according to press reports, involved a chemical agent. Preliminary field tests show the presence of sulfur mustard, he confirmed, but full testing will take a few more weeks. In the meantime, forces in Iraq and Syria “really don't need another reason to hunt down ISIL and kill them wherever we can and whenever we can,” Killea said. But, he added, any indication of the use of a warfare agent reinforces the coalition position that ISIL is an abhorrent group that will kill indiscriminately without a moral or legal code or restraint. A couple of days after the attack, Killea said, “we were able to … take fragments from some of those mortar rounds and do a presumptive field test on those fragments and they showed the presence of HD, or what is known as sulfur mustard. That is a class-one chemical agent.” Such a presumptive test is not conclusive, he added, and the results indicate only the presence of that chemical. “It doesn't tell us anything more than that. So it is going to take us a couple of weeks to do the full testing on those fragments to figure out what was contained in or on those mortar rounds before we make a determination on exactly what it was, potentially how much it was and maybe even where it came from,” the general said.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and Air Force launched several attacks in Lattakia province. The initiative comes against sustained support of Jabhat al-Nusrah and other Al-Qaeda-linked brigades via NATO member Turkey and discussions about the deployment of US Special Forces to the region. 

The military offensive in Lattakia province comes as the U.S. think tank the Brookings Institution suggested the deployment of U.S. Special Forces to the region while simultaneous launching a propaganda campaign to promote calls for the enforcement of a no fly zone for the Syrian Air Force.

U.S. special forces have been observed in Syria since the onset of the war in 2011. Their presence has, however, been unofficial and unrecognized. It was only in 2012 that a senior Whitehall official would blow the whistle and tell that British SAS troops, as well as Turkish, French and “possibly US troops” were operating in Syria.

Greece supports the plan of building a natural gas pipeline jointly with Russia to be an extension of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, new Minister of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy of Greece Panos Skourletis said on Monday at the ceremony of responsibilities’ handover from the former minister Panagiotis Lafazanis. Skourletis said the plan of building a new Greek-Russian gas pipeline in the territory of Greece is supported. It opens new opportunities to be used, the minister said. This pipeline is more beneficial for Greece than the planned Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), Lafazanis said earlier. "The Russian project will provide more benefits because Greece will own a 50% stake in the pipeline and because tariffs will be higher," the ex-minister added. Greek state-owned Energy Investments Public Enterprise S.A. (EIPE S.A.) and Russia’s VEB Capital will be partners in the project. Investments into construction will amount to $2 bln. The project will be 100% financed by the Russian side and will make possible to create 20,000 jobs in Greece. The parties signed the intergovernmental memorandum on cooperation within the framework of building the Turkish Stream gas pipeline extension in Greece at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 19. Construction of the segment is to start in 2016 and will end at the turn of 2019.

Greece supports the plan of building a natural gas pipeline jointly with Russia to be an extension of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, new Minister of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy of Greece Panos Skourletis said on Monday at the ceremony of responsibilities’ handover from the former minister Panagiotis Lafazanis. Skourletis said the plan of building a new Greek-Russian gas pipeline in the territory of Greece is supported. It opens new opportunities to be used, the minister said. This pipeline is more beneficial for Greece than the planned Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), Lafazanis said earlier. "The Russian project will provide more benefits because Greece will own a 50% stake in the pipeline and because tariffs will be higher," the ex-minister added.

Greek state-owned Energy Investments Public Enterprise S.A. (EIPE S.A.) and Russia’s VEB Capital will be partners in the project. Investments into construction will amount to $2 bln. The project will be 100% financed by the Russian side and will make possible to create 20,000 jobs in Greece. The parties signed the intergovernmental memorandum on cooperation within the framework of building the Turkish Stream gas pipeline extension in Greece at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 19. Construction of the segment is to start in 2016 and will end at the turn of 2019.

Foreign investment in Israel plummeted almost 50 percent in 2014, a fact attributed to last summer’s assault on Gaza and the growing impact of boycotts. This week the UN’s trade and development agency UNCTAD released its annual World Investment Report on foreign direct investment (FDI) – a measure of money that investors from overseas put into a country to invest in businesses, build factories or start other economic projects. According to the report, FDI into Israel in 2014 plummeted to just $6.4 billion from almost $12 billion in 2013. The 2014 figure appears to be the lowest in more than a decade. Foreign direct investment into Israel averaged around $9 billion per year from 2005 to 2012. “We believe that what led to the drop in investment in Israel are Operation Protective Edge and the boycotts Israel is facing,” Roni Manos, an Israeli economist who co-authored the report, told Israel’s Ynet.

“Operation Protective Edge” is the name Israel gave its 51-day assault last summer that devastated much of Gaza and killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 chidren. In line with global trends, FDI fell in other regional countries, but nowhere near as sharply as in Israel. FDI fell 1.7 percent in Turkey, 6.8 percent in Iraq, 4 percent in the United Arab Emirates and 9.6 percent in Saudi Arabia. But it actually rose by 6.6 percent in Lebanon. Iran, which has been under brutal international sanctions, saw inward investment decline by about a third to just over $2 billion.

The news that investors are fleeing is only the latest economic blow to Israel as a result of its attack on Gaza. In May, Ynet revealed a dramatic plunge in visits to the country in an article headlined “Tourists have stopped coming to Israel.” During the Gaza assault, Palestinian resistance organizations considered it a significant strategic achievement that they managed to force a shutdown of Israel’s main international airport for several days, dealing Israel a severe economic and reputational blow. But it appears the damage may have lasted far longer than the airport shutdown. “Despite the hopes for a recovery two or three months after last summer’s operation in Gaza, it seems the crisis is only getting worse,” Ynet reported, “the number of tourists is dropping, the number of hotel stays is declining and the number of organized tours has been significantly cut.”

Just one day after Turkey’s announcement of plans to invade Syria by implementing a “no-fly zone” or “buffer zone,” Jordan has now announced that it is consideringdoing the same. According to a report by the Financial Times published on Monday, the Jordanians also plan to implement a “buffer zone” on the southern border with Syria, stretching across the provinces of Deraa and Suwayda. The “buffer zone” would most likely include the city of Deraa and, like the Turkish incarnation, a “militarized zone” to “separate the buffer area from government forces.” While the Jordanian military would obviously be involved, the zone would largely be manned by terrorists receiving support from the United States and the West.

Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence. “I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . . “Two of my Jordanian colleagues were experts in computers. They were air defense officers. Using computer science slang, they introduced a series of jokes about students’ punishment. “For example, when one of us was late at the bus stop to leave the Staff College, the two officers used to tell us: ‘You’ll be noted in ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ which meant ‘You’ll be logged in the information database.’ Meaning ‘You will receive a warning . . .’ If the case was more severe, they would used to talk about ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Meaning ‘the decision database.’ It meant ‘you will be punished.’ For the worst cases they used to speak of logging in ‘Al Qaida.’

“In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs. “It was decided to use a part of the system’s memory to host the Islamic Conference’s database. It was possible for the countries attending to access the database by telephone: an Intranet, in modern language. The governments of the member-countries as well as some of their embassies in the world were connected to that network. “[According to a Pakistani major] the database was divided into two parts, the information file where the participants in the meetings could pick up and send information they needed, and the decision file where the decisions made during the previous sessions were recorded and stored. In Arabic, the files were called, ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ and ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic ‘Q eidat ilmu’ti’aat’ which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for “base.” The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called ‘q eidat ‘riyadh al ‘askariya.’ Q eida means “a base” and “Al Qaida” means “the base.”

“In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference’s secretariat. “In the early 1990s, I was a military intelligence officer in the Headquarters of the French Rapid Action Force. Because of my skills in Arabic my job was also to translate a lot of faxes and letters seized or intercepted by our intelligence services . . . We often got intercepted material sent by Islamic networks operating from the UK or from Belgium. “These documents contained directions sent to Islamic armed groups in Algeria or in France. The messages quoted the sources of statements to be exploited in the redaction of the tracts or leaflets, or to be introduced in video or tapes to be sent to the media. The most commonly quoted sources were the United Nations, the non-aligned countries, the UNHCR and . . . Al Qaida. “Al Qaida remained the data base of the Islamic Conference. Not all member countries of the Islamic Conference are ‘rogue states’ and many Islamic groups could pick up information from the databases. It was but natural for Osama Bin Laden to be connected to this network. He is a member of an important family in the banking and business world.