Nasheman

India's largest selling Urdu weekly, now also in English

You are here: Home / Archives for Pentagon

Pentagon: Paris attacks suspects killed in air strikes

by

Two ISIL fighters with ties to Paris assault among 10 “leaders” killed in recent air attacks.

The Pentagon said most ISIL leaders were killed in drone strikes in Syria and Iraq [US military/Reuters]

The Pentagon said most ISIL leaders were killed in drone strikes in Syria and Iraq [US military/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Two suspects in the deadly Paris attacks claimed by ISIL were killed this month by coalition air strikes in Syria and Iraq, the US military said on Tuesday.

French national Charaffe al-Mouadan, 27, a native of the St Denis suburb of Paris, was among 10 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant leaders killed in air raids targeting its leadership, Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

“Over the past month, we’ve killed 10 ISIL leadership figures with targeted air strikes, including several external attack planners, some of whom are linked to the Paris attacks,” Warren said.

Mouadan is believed to have fled to Syria in November 2015. It was unclear if he travelled there before or after the November 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds of others.

“Charaffe al-Mouadan – a Syrian-based ISIL member with a direct link to Abdel Hamid Abaaoud, the Paris attack cell leader – was killed on December 24,” said Warren.

“Al-Mouadan was actively planning additional attacks against the West.”

Warren said that the 10 ISIL leaders were mainly killed by drones in Iraq and Syria.

The other dead suspect involved in the Paris attacks was identified as Abdel Kader Hakim who was killed in Mosul, Iraq on Saturday.

“He was part of ISIL’s external operations group who enabled attacks against Western targets,” said Warren. “His death removes an important facilitator with many connections in Europe.

Most of the 10 killed appeared to be mid-level ISIL leaders, Warren said.

Another was from Bangladesh but spent time in Britain and was a hacker who coordinated anti-surveillance technology, he said.

Teams of gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs and wearing suicide vests hit public targets throughout Paris on Friday November 13. French President Francois Hollande called the brazen assault an “act of war” and deployed an aircraft carrier to the Middle East after ISIL claimed responsibility.

Revealed: Pentagon blocking release of cleared Guantánamo detainees

by

Exclusive reporting by the Guardian reveals that the U.S. government is intentionally “dragging its feet” on allowing Shaker Aamer, others to go home

Demonstrators call for the release of cleared Guantanamo Bay detainee Shaker Aamer. (Photo: Justin Norman/flickr/cc)

Demonstrators call for the release of cleared Guantanamo Bay detainee Shaker Aamer. (Photo: Justin Norman/flickr/cc)

by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

The U.S. Pentagon is blocking the release of Guantánamo Bay detainees who have been cleared to return home through diplomatic deals between the U.S. and UK governments, the Guardian revealed on Thursday in an exclusive report.

Among those detainees is Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen and UK resident who has been held at the U.S. military base in Cuba for more than 13 years without charge and has twice been cleared for release. In 2010, the Pentagon itself participated in a federal review of Aamer’s case, as well as that of another detainee, both of whom were deemed to pose no threat to national security and cleared to go home.

But as one official told the Guardian, the U.S. government’s defense secretaries have been playing “foot-dragging and process games” to keep the diplomatic deals that secured his release from going through.

The Guardian reports:

Pentagon chief Ashton Carter, backed by powerful US militaryofficers, have withheld support for sending Aamer back to the UK. The ongoing obstruction has left current and former US officials who consider the detainees a minimal threat seething, as they see it undermining relations with Britain and other foreign partners while subverting from the inside Obama’s long-stifled goal of closing the infamous detention facility.

[….] The transfers have the backing of the US Justice Department, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

But since White House rules depend on full administration consensus, Aamer remains at Guantánamo until Carter and the Pentagon say otherwise.

The Pentagon is also blocking the release of Ahmed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania and Abdul Shalabi of Saudi Arabia. Carter has yet to sign the diplomatic deals already brokered between the U.S. and the men’s home countries which would enable their release.

Aamer’s case has drawn widespread support from human rights groups and peace activists. A campaign for his release, which operates under the banner Save Shaker Aamer, stages regular actions and protests to call attention to his continued illegal detention. According to legal charity Reprieve, which represents Aamer, he has been subject to force-feedings, solitary confinement, and beatings by guards up to eight times a day while in custody at Guantánamo Bay.

Pentagon rewrites ‘Law of War’ declaring ‘belligerent’ journalists as legitimate targets

by

The Pentagon (AFP Photo)

The Pentagon (AFP Photo)

by RT

The Pentagon has released a book of instructions on the “law of war,” detailing acceptable ways of killing the enemy. The manual also states that journalists can be labeled “unprivileged belligerents,” an obscure term that replaced “enemy combatant.”

The 1,176-page “Department of Defense Law of War Manual” explains that shooting, exploding, bombing, stabbing, or cutting the enemy are acceptable ways of getting the job done, but the use of poison or asphyxiating gases is not allowed.

Surprise attacks and killing retreating troops have also been given the green light.

But the lengthy manual doesn’t only talk about protocol for those on the frontline. It also has an extensive section on journalists – including the fact that they can be labeled terrorists.

“In general, journalists are civilians. However, journalists may be members of the armed forces, persons authorized to accompany the armed forces, or unprivileged belligerents,” the manual states.

The term “unprivileged belligerents” replaces the Bush-era term “unlawful enemy combatant.”

When asked what this means, professor of Journalism at Georgetown Chris Chambers told RT that he doesn’t know, “because the Geneva Convention, other tenets of international law, and even United States law – federal courts have spoken on this – doesn’t have this thing on ‘unprivileged belligerents’.”

This means that embedded journalists, who are officially sanctioned by the military and attached to a unit, will be favored by an even greater degree than before. “It gives them license to attack or even murder journalists that they don’t particularly like but aren’t on the other side,” Chambers said.

Even the Obama Administration’s definition of “enemy combatant” was vague enough, basically meaning any male of a military age who “happens to be there,” Chambers added.

The manual also deals with drones, stating that there is “no prohibition in the law of war on the use of remotely piloted aircraft (also called “unmanned aerial vehicles”).” Such weapons may offer certain advantages over the weapons systems. It states that drones can be designated as military aircraft if used by a country’s military.

The book includes a foreword from the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Stephen Preston, who states that “the law of war is part of who we are.” He goes on to say that the manual will“help us remember the hard-learned lessons from the past.”

The manual is the Pentagon’s first all-in-one legal guide for the four military branches. Previously, each sector was tasked with writing their own guidelines for engagement, which presumably did not list journalists as potential traitors.

The Pentagon did not specify the exact circumstances under which a journalist might be declared an unprivileged belligerent, but Chambers says he is sure “their legal department is going over it, as is the National Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists.”

U.S troops will deploy to Iraq without congressional approval: Pentagon

by

This Department of Defense photo shows US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey as he addresses questions from US military members during a town hall meeting in Baghdad, Iraq, November 15, 2014. AFP/DOD/ D. Myles Cullen

This Department of Defense photo shows US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey as he addresses questions from US military members during a town hall meeting in Baghdad, Iraq, November 15, 2014. AFP/DOD/ D. Myles Cullen

by Al-Akhbar

Some of the 1,500 new US troops authorized to “advise and train” Iraqi forces in their fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants will be deployed in Iraq within the next few weeks without waiting for Congress to fund the mission, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said leading elements of the US force would begin moving to Iraq in the coming weeks, even if Congress has not yet acted on a $5.6 billion supplemental request to fund the expanded fight against the militants who overran northwestern Iraq earlier this year.

Large swathes of land in Iraq have become ISIS strongholds as the extremist group, which declared a “caliphate” in the territory it seized in Iraq and Syria, drove Iraq’s army – the recipient of $25 billion in US training and funding since the 2003 invasion – to collapse.

Late October, the Pentagon revised its estimate of the cost of the US air war in Iraq and Syria, saying the price tag for the campaign against ISIS comes to about $8.3 million a day.

Since US airstrikes began on August 8, the campaign – which has involved about 6,600 sorties by US and allied aircraft – has cost the US $580 million, said Pentagon spokesman Commander Bill Urban.

In addition, the campaign, which has so far failed to stop ISIS from advancing, has also cost the Iraqi government $260 million.

Officials initially indicated they needed to get lawmakers to approve the funding for the troops deployment before the Pentagon could start the mission, but General Lloyd Austin, the head of US troops in the Middle East, recommended starting the effort using resources already available to him.

“The commander … can reallocate resources inside his theater as he deems fit. So he is going to .. try to get a jump start on this program,” Kirby told reporters, adding that congressional approval of the $5.6 billion was still needed to carry out the “more robust program.”

The Pentagon’s announcement came just days after US officials said some 50 troops had been sent to Ain al-Asad air base in Anbar province in Iraq to establish an operation to “advise and train” Iraqi troops.

Kirby said Austin thought that starting the expanded mission sent a message both to Iraqis and other coalition partners.

“It sends an important signal … about how seriously we’re taking this,” Kirby said. “The sooner we get started, the sooner Iraqi units will improve … and the sooner we’ll get coalition contributions to that particular mission.”

US President Barack Obama, who was elected in 2008 largely due to his promises to exit Middle Eastern military entanglements – especially in Iraq – and avoiding new ones, announced plans last week to double the number of American troops in Iraq, approving an additional 1,500 forces to establish sites to “train” nine Iraqi military brigades and three Kurdish peshmerga brigades.

The move came almost three years after US troops completed their withdrawal from Iraq after a nine year occupation that left the country in turmoil.

Iraq ranked first out of 162 countries on the Global Terrorism Index, the Australia and US-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) said in a report published Tuesday, giving the country a score of 10 out of 10.

According to the report, 80 percent of the lives lost to terrorist attacks in 2013 occurred in just five countries – Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria.

The influx in terrorist attacks raises questions about the effectiveness of the US “War on Terror” launched by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks, which included the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The campaign failed to eliminate or even reduce terrorism, as the report showed a steady increase in the death toll over the last 14 years, from 3,361 in 2000 to 11,133 in 2012 and 17,958 in 2013.

On the contrary, the campaign in general and the US invasion of Iraq in particular served as a recruitment tool for terrorist groups, such as ISIS, as figures show that terrorism rose precipitously in Iraq since 2003.

Kirby indicated additional US troops would begin deploying to Iraq before the end of the year.

“You’re going to start to see initial elements of the 1,500 or so additional start to flow in the next few weeks,” he said. “I think certainly by the end of the calendar year you’re going to see a much more robust presence, not just by the United States doing this but by coalition partners as well.”

Some 3,500 US troops are believed to be on Iraqi land.

ISIS claims Erbil suicide bombing

The US-led anti-ISIS campaign has so far failed to stop ISIS from gaining ground, thus drawing criticism from many sides, including the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous region, Massoud Barzani.

On Wednesday, following a suicide bombing that hit the usually secure capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, Barzani accused Western countries of not providing enough heavy weapons to help peshmerga forces deliver a “decisive blow” against ISIS militants.

Later on Thursday, ISIS claimed responsibility of the suicide attack in an online statement.

“We breached all the security checkpoints of the agent Kurdistan government and reached the heart of the city of Erbil,” the statement said.

It identified the bomber as Abdul-Rahman al-Kurdi, indicating that he was an ethnic Kurd.

The bomber struck the main checkpoint on the way to the provincial government headquarters in the northern city just before noon on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding more than two dozen.

The bombing was the worst attack to hit Erbil since September 29, 2013, when militants struck the headquarters of the Asayesh security forces in the city, killing seven people and wounding more than 60.

In that attack, the Asayesh said a suicide bomber detonated explosives at the entrance to their headquarters, after which they killed four more would-be bombers before a fifth blew up an ambulance rigged with explosives.

Kurdish peshmerga forces joined the battle against ISIS in August after the extremist group targeted ethnic and religious minorities, took control of the country’s largest dam and moved within striking distance of Erbil, where many Western expatriates, including oil industry and aid workers are based.

(Al-Akhbar, Reuters, AFP)

"US Bio-Warfare laboratories in West Africa are the origins of the Ebola epidemic"

by

Could Ebola Have Escaped From US Bio-warfare Labs? American law professor Francis A. Boyle, answers questions for tvxs.gr and reveals that USA have been using West Africa as an offshore to circumvent the Convention on Biological Weapons and do bio-warfare work.

Prof. Francis Boyle

Prof. Francis Boyle

– by Aggeliki Dimopoulou

Is Ebola just a result of health crisis in Africa – because of the large gaps in personnel, equipment and medicines – as some experts suggest?

That isn’t true at all. This is just propaganda being put out by everyone. It seems to me, that what we are dealing with here is a biological warfare work that was conducted at the bio-warfare laboratories set up by the USA on the west coast of Africa. And if you look at a map produced by the Center of Disease Control you can see where these laboratories are located. And they are across the heart of Ebola epidemic, at the west coast of Africa. So, I think these laboratories, one or more of them, are the origins of the Ebola epidemic.

US government agencies are supposed to do defensive biological warfare research in these labs. Is there any information about what are they working on?

Well, that’s what they tell you. But if you study what the CDC and the Pentagon do… They say it is defensive, but this is just for public relation purposes than anything. It’s a trick. What it means is what they decide at these bio-warfare labs. They say, “well we have to develop a vaccine”, so that’s their defensive argument. Then what they do is to develop the bio-warfare agent itself. Usually by means of DNA genetic engineering. And then they say, “well to get the vaccine we have to develop the bio-warfare agent” – usually by DNA genetic engineering – and then they try to work on the vaccine. So it’s two uses type of work. I haven’t read all these bio-warfare contracts but that’s typical of the way the Pentagon CDC has been doing this since at least the 1980’s. I have absolute proof from a Pentagon document that the Center of Disease Control was doing bio-warfare work for the Pentagon in Sierra Leone, the heart of the outbreak, as early as 1988. And indeed it was probably before then because they would have had to construct the lab and that would have taken some time. So we know that Fort Detrick and the Center for Disease Control are over there, Tulane University, which is a well-known bio-warfare center here in USA – I would say notorious for it – is there. They all have been over there.

In addition, USA government made sure that Liberia, a former colony of the USA, never became a party to the Biological Weapons Convention, so they were able to do bio – warfare work over there – going back to 1980’s – the USA government, in order to circumvent the Biological Weapons Convention. Likewise, Guinea the third state affected here – and there is an increase now – didn’t even sign the Biological Weapons Convention. So, it seems to me, that the different agencies of the US government have been always there try to circumvent the Biological Weapons Convention and engage bio-warfare work. Indeed, we had one of these two lab bio-warriors admit in the NY Times that they were not over there for the purpose of either screening or treating people. That’s not what these labs are about. These labs are there in my opinion to do bio-warfare work for different agencies of the US government. Indeed, many of them were set up by USAID. And everyone knows that USAID is penetrated all up and down by the CIA and CIA has been involved in bio-warfare work as well.

Are we being told the truth about Ebola? Is that big outbreak began all of a sudden? How does it spread so quickly?

The whole outbreak that we see in the west coast of Africa, this is Zaire/Ebola. The most dangerous of five subtypes of Ebola. Zaire/Ebola originated 3500 km from the west coast of Africa. There is absolutely no way that it could have been transmitted 3500 km. And if you read the recently published Harvard study on the DNA analysis of the west Africas’ Zaire/Ebola there is no explanation about how the virus moved there. And indeed, it’s been reported in the NY Times that the Zaire/Ebola was found there in 1976, and then WHO ordered to be set to Porton Down in Britain, which is the British equivalent to Fort Detrick, where they manufacture all the biological weapons for Britain. And then Britain sent it to the US Center for Disease Control. And we know for a fact that the Center for Disease Control has been involved in biological warfare work. And then it appears, at least from whatever I’ve been able to put together in a public record, that the CDC and several others US bio-warriors exported Zaire/Ebola to west Africa, to their labs there, where they were doing bio-warfare work on it. So, I believe this is the origins of the Zaire/Ebola pandemic we are seeing now in west Africa.

Why would they do that?

Why would they do that? As I suggested to try to circumvent the Biological Weapons Convention to which the US government is a party. So, always bio-warriors do use offensive and defensive bio-warfare work, violating the Biological Weapons Convention. So effectively they try to offshore it into west Africa where Liberia is not a party and Guinea is not a party. Sierra Leone is a party. But in Sierra Leone and Liberia there were disturbances which kept the world from really paying attention of what was going on in these labs.

USA sent troops to «fight» Ebola. What do you think about that move?

The US military just invaded Liberia. They send in the 101st Airborne Division to Liberia. That’s an elite division of combat and they have no training to provide medical treatment to anyone. They are there to establish a military base in Liberia. And the British are doing the same in Sierra Leone. The French are already in Mali and Senegal. So, they’re not sending military people there to treat these people. No, I’m sorry.

Weren’t they afraid Ebola’s going to go out of control even in the USA or EU in a massive way?

It’s already gone in the USA and the European Union. So, there it is. Which raises the question: Was this Zaire/Ebola weaponized at any of these labs? I don’t have an answer to that question. I am trying to get an answer. And therefore it is much more dangerous than the WHO and the CDC are telling everyone. The WHO and the CDC are up to their eyeballs in this. They know all about what ‘s going on. It was the WHO that ordered the original Zaire/Ebola in 1976 to be sent to Porton Down for biological warfare purposes. So this could be more dangerous than the WHO and the CDC are saying.

And you can’t believe anything they telling you because they are involved in that. But certainly I can’t say it has been weaponized. I don’t know that yet for sure. I have the Harvard genetic analysis of it. When I was in college I had very good courses in genetics, and biochemistry and population biology but I am not a professor of genetics. I have a friend who is a professor of genetics and he is going to take a look at this and try to figure out if there’s been DNA genetic engineering perpetrated or performed on the Zaire/Ebola. Is there a genetically modified organism at work, a GMO? I don’t know. But if a GMO is at work that’s a pretty good sign it’s been weaponized. But in anyway, it is far more dangerous than the CDC and the WHO are telling anyone, because it’s clearly transmitted for a certain distance – we don’t know how far – by air. Breathing and coughing and sneezing. So, anyone treating people, seems to me, are going to need not only a protective suit but probably a breathing apparatus, at minimum. And you saw what happened to that Spanish nurse and that Spanish priest that were brought in, infected with Ebola. So right now the WHO and the CDC are telling healthcare workers that in addition to suits they need breathing apparatuses. So, again, I don’t believe you can trust anything the WHO or the CDC are telling you. And I really don’t know about the European Health Agency… If they‘re believing the WHO and the CDC then, in my opinion, they ‘re not properly protecting the health of the European people. And it’s simply bizarre that the CDC and WHO are relegating the screenings to the people in west Africa. It’s just bizarre. They need to be protecting health of their own people and they aren’t doing that. I read some of the European press but I’m not sure precisely what the European Health Agency is recommending but they certainly can’t rely upon the WHO and the CDC. As for Greece, I know you have your own Health Ministry there and they cannot rely upon them at all, as well.

Some experts told recently the Forbes magazine that even ISIS could use Ebola as a biological weapon. I would like to have your comment on that.

This is total propaganda. These people are trying to distract public opinion from the fact. My opinion is that the origins of the current pandemic came out of the USA bio-warfare labs in west Africa. That’s what is going on here. ISIS has nothing to do with this. That’s just propaganda which is trying to scare and distract public attention away of what really is going on here. They doing the same thing here in USA. That’s what we need to concentrate on. Number one. And number two? We have to find out: was this Zaire/Ebola GMOed by either Porton Down or CDC or these US bio-warfare labs? It is far more dangerous than it currently appears. That’s the real issue. And I don’t have an answer to that question. It was the US government labs that research here. I’m not saying that Ebola was released deliberately by these labs. I have no evidence to that. It could have escaped. But this is really what we need to be focusing on. Not ISIS. It’s ridiculous, it’s preposterous.

What do you think should be done?

I would encourage the Greek government to convene an emergency meeting of your top health science people and to look into this on comprehensive bases and figure out what to do under these circumstances to protect the health of people of Greece. In particular they must not believe anything they are being told by the WHO and CDC. There is a need of open objective minds here about what is really going on. I think this needs to be done.

Back in 1985, I was down in Nicaragua investigating atrocities of the Contras there and all of a sudden the country was hit with an outbreak of a hemorrhaging Dengue Fever which is similar to Ebola. And it seemed pretty suspicious to me. So I met with some of the highest level officials of the Nicaraguan government and said: “you know, this very well could be US bio-warfare against Nicaragua. They did the same thing to Cuba. And my advice is you convene health care medical experts, not politicians, to look into this. And if you agree with me and that’s the result, file a complaint with the UN Security Council for violation of the Biological Weapons Convention against the USA”. And eventually that is what they did. Here I am not recommending the Greek authorities to file a complaint against the USA. What I am recommending is the same thing I did to the Nicaraguans. That you need to convene some of your top experts geneticists, doctors, etc.

And don’t get anyone in this group who has ever done any type of research for any agency of the US government. They are completely unreliable. Get Greeks experts completely independent of the US government or the British government. It’s funny here in the USA when the media want to get experts on this, all the experts they talk to are people who have done biological warfare work for the USA. And they are up to their eyeballs on this Ebola. And doing research on this Ebola. Of course they’re not going to give you proper advice. So, find this experts and make sure they never done any research for USA or Britain on any of this stuff but are qualified and can give you a qualified opinion of what is really going on and how dangerous this stuff is. And then aim to protect the health of Greek people. You definitely don’t have to wait for the European Union in Brussels to do it for you. I’m not telling Greece what to do. I’m just telling you how to do it. And this should be done immediately. It should have been done already. But ok, better late than ever.

Francis A. Boyle is a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law. He was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. He served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia – Herzegovina at the World Court. Professor Boyle teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign. He holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University.

He is also the author of “Biowarfare and Terrorism”. The book outlines how and why the United States government initiated, sustained and then dramatically expanded an illegal biological arms buildup.

Read the Greek version of the interview here.

KNOW US

GET INVOLVED

PROMOTE

Archives