November 21, 2017, Jonathan Cook Blog Investigative journalist Gareth Porter has published two exclusives whose import is far greater than may be immediately apparent. They concern Israel’s bombing in 2007 of a supposed nuclear plant secretly built, according to a self-serving US and Israeli narrative, by Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Although the …

Some western “Liberals” and “Leftists” pay homage to Yassin al-Haj Saleh, an intellectual leftist of the ‘Syrian Revolution’. In fact Saleh represented only a tiny part of Syria’s left. He was ‘persecuted’ because he aligned himself with the 1980 and 2011 bloody uprisings by the sectarian Muslim Brotherhood, and their international …

November 10, 2017, True Publica BACKGROUND Bana Alabed is an 8-year-old Syrian girl who rose to fame in 2016 when a Twitter account was set up in her name and she started tweeting in fluent English from east Aleppo as it was under bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces trying …

November 10, 2017, Information Clearing House – Moon of Alabama A British Minister of Hindu heritage was fired after it emerged that she secretly met Israeli officials in Israel and elsewhere without informing the Foreign Office. Back in Britain she then tried to arrange additional finances for Israel’s arming of al-Qaeda in …

November 6, 2017, Strategic Culture – Finian Cunningham It’s been a more-than-usual eventful week in the Middle East. Russian-backed forces made yet more significant military gains in defeating US-sponsored proxies in Syria, with a fearsome display of long-range Russian air and naval firepower against militant hold-outs near Deir ez-Zor. That …

November 5, 2017, Reuters – Reuters Staff BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces will advance soon to take Raqqa city, which U.S.-backed fighters seized from Islamic State last month, a senior Iranian official said on Friday. Ali Akbar Velayati, the top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, also accused the United …

November 3, 2017, Investig’action   In early 2003 it was claimed that Iraq was a threat to other countries. Despite ten years of crushing economic sanctions plus intrusive inspections, supposedly Iraq had acquired enough “weapons of mass destruction” to threaten the West. It was ridiculous on its face but few …

November 3, 2017, The Guardian Doubts have emerged about the story of a Syrian filmmaker who claimed to have survived a murder attempt in Istanbul last month, after videos were published in which he appears to be planning the attempt on his own life to generate publicity for his anti-Assad …

November 2, 2017, World Specialist Web Site Asked at televised briefing Tuesday for the number of US troops presently deployed in Syria, US Army Maj. Gen. James Jarrard, the commander of the Special Operations Joint Task Force deployed in both Syria and Iraq, told Pentagon reporters that the number was …

The following article, by Whitney Webb, is republished from Mint Press News:  On Tuesday, the Intercept published a hitherto unknown document from the trove of National Security Administration (NSA) documents leaked by Edward Snowden over three years ago. The document was notable as it shed light on the early days of …