From PressTV
US, allies to re-energize military campaign in Syria: Mattis
The United States is going to “re-energize” a multi-lateral military campaign that it has been leading in Syria, says US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, contrasting his boss President Donald Trump’s pledge to pull out troops from Syria.
“We are not withdrawing,” Mattis said at a hearing session of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
“You’ll see a re-energized effort against the middle Euphrates River Valley in the days ahead and against the rest of the geographic caliphate,” the Pentagon chief told the panel, referring to Syrian territories that remain under terrorist control.
Since September 2014, the US and its allies have been pounding purported terrorist positions across Syria without coordination with Damascus or a mandate from the United Nations.
The airstrike has failed to yield any meaningful results and has on many occasions worked to the disadvantage of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
However, Syria has been able to force Daesh and other terrorist groups from large parts of Syria with support from Iran, Russia and Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Mike Pompeo confirmed as secretary of state, reportedly going to Israel early on
Mike Pompeo on Capitol Hill, April 18, 2018. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. Senate handily confirmed CIA director Mike Pompeo as secretary of state as reports said one of his first tours in the job would be to Israel.
The 57-42 vote on Thursday was stronger than expected for Pompeo. Democrats had robustly opposed his nomination over remarks Pompeo made as a Kansas congressman that appeared to generalize about Muslims and terrorism, as well as his hawkish position on Iran, which closely mirrors that of President Donald Trump.
A number of liberal Jewish groups, including the American Jewish World Service, the National Council of Jewish Women and J Street, had joined calls on the Senate to reject Pompeo. The Anti-Defamation League stopped short of opposing his nomination but said senators should ask him tough questions about his past comments.
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From PressTV
Syria reasserts sovereignty over occupied land
Syria has reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967, saying the territory must be completely restored.
“Syria’s sovereign right over the occupied Golan, till the line of June 4th 1967, is non-negotiable,” Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari was quoted as saying by Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
Al-Jaafari stressed that Syria’s occupied territory should be completely returned. He made the remarks on Thursday at a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the situation in the Middle East.
The Israeli regime staged a full-scale war against Arab territories in 1967, occupying the West Bank, Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms, and the mountainous Syrian region of Golan Heights.
The Syrian envoy noted that the “odious” Israeli occupation of Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese territories, its forced displacement of their people, confiscation of properties, and construction of settlements on occupied lands relied “on Takfiri Zionist creed,” and was equal to “terrorism.”
Damascus says Israel and its Western and regional allies are aiding the Takfiri terrorist groups, which are operating inside the Arab country. Tel Aviv has also carried out sporadic strikes against the Syrian forces and allies amid their advances against terrorists.
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From PressTV
UN envoy calls for action before new Israeli war engulfs Gaza
The United Nations’ top envoy to the Middle East has called on the international community to help prevent another war in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli military forces continue to brutally crack down on peaceful anti-occupation rallies near the border.
Nikolay Mladenov, the world body’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, told the UN Security Council on Thursday that Gaza had turned into “a powder keg” and that the world “must do everything possible to prevent another war” between Israel and the Palestinians.
Such a military confrontation, he said, might go on to include other countries in the region.
Protests along the Gaza border since March 30 have led to clashes with Israeli forces, who have killed at least 38 Palestinians and injured hundreds of others.
The rally, dubbed the “Great March of Return,” will last until May 15, which coincides with the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe) on which Israel was created.
Israel has already launched several wars on the besieged Palestinian coastal sliver, the last of which began in early July 2014. The military aggression, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians. Over 11,100 others were also wounded in the war.
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From PressTV
Syria, Russia present witnesses of ‘staged’ gas attack
Russia says the recent suspected chemical weapons attack in the Syrian town of Douma was a “provocation” that Moscow had warned about in advance.
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Alexander Shulgin, made the remarks during a press conference in The Hague on Thursday.
He said the only evidence for the alleged gas attack was a “sloppily staged” video shot by a pseudo-humanitarian organization in a bid to “touch hearts,” adding that the same strategy had been used in previous false flag attacks in Syria.
Western states blamed the Syrian government for the suspected chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburb town of Douma on April 7.
One week after the incident, the US, Britain and France launched a coordinated missile attack against sites and research facilities near Damascus and Homs with the purported goal of paralyzing the Syrian government’s capability to produce chemicals.
Syria has rejected the accusations of possessing chemicals. It surrendered its chemical stockpile in 2013 to a mission led by the OPCW and the UN.
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From PressTV
Syrian forces gain ground in militant-held Damascus district
Syrian troops have advanced against Takfiri militants in a southern Damascus neighborhood as they press ahead with a counter-terrorism military campaign in the region.
Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that the army had wrested control of networks of tunnels and blocks of buildings in the al-Hajar al-Aswad district on Thursday.
During the operation, the report said, dozens of terrorists were killed and their weapons and equipment were destroyed.
Syrian forces have been carrying out complicated operations to dismantle and cut off the supply and communication lines between terrorists in the Damascus suburban area, the report added.
SANA further noted that the Syrian army’s campaign will continue until the liberation of all southern Damascus neighborhoods from the grip of terrorist groups.
Over the past few months, Syrian forces have made sweeping gains against anti-Damascus militants who have lately increased their acts of violence across the country following a series of defeats on the ground.
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From PressTV
Syria shot down 46 US missiles: Russia
The Syrian air defense was able to successfully shot down 46 cruise missiles that the US, France and the UK fired at it on April 14, a senior Russian military commander says, rejecting American claims that all of the missiles hit their targets.
On April 14, US President Donald Trump along with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Theresa May authorized a joint missile attack against alleged chemical weapons manufacturing sites inside Syria.
The attack, carried out without a UN mandate in response to what the US and its allies insisted was a chemical attack by the Syrian government, saw 105 cruise missiles being fired at targets in Damascus and Homs.
“The reconnaissance and air defense systems’ recording data we have obtained, the work at the scene and polls of eye-witnesses show that the Pantsyr, Osa, Strela-10, Buk, Kvadrat and S-125 surface-to-air missile systems protecting the Syrian capital and the nearby Duvali, Dumayr, Bley and Mezze airfields of the Syrian Air Force destroyed 46 cruise missiles,” the Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Department chief Colonel-General Sergei Rudskoi said on Wednesday.
According to Rudskoi, the flight paths of the missiles and the capabilities of the Syrian air defenses, which mostly depend on Russian technology, shows that they were destroyed in five interception areas located to the west and the east of capital Damascus.
The missiles were supposed to target a research center in Damascus, the headquarters of the Syrian Republican Guard, an air defense base, several military aerodromes and a number of army depots.
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From PressTV
Israel vows to destroy Russian s-300 missiles in Syria if warplanes are targeted
Israel’s minister of military affairs says it will destroy Russian S-300 air defense systems in Syria if they down Tel Aviv regime planes over the war-torn nation.
“What’s important is that defense systems being supplied by Russia to Syria aren’t used against us,” said Avigdor Liberman during interview with the Ynet news site on Tuesday.
“One thing needs to be clear: If someone shoots at our planes, we will destroy them. It doesn’t matter if it’s an S-300 or an S-700,” he added.
He added that relations with Russia were still good and that coordination between Tel Aviv and Moscow would continue.
“They understand that we won’t get involved in internal Syrian matters and that we won’t allow Iran to entrench itself [in Syria],” he added.
On Monday, Russia’s Kommersant business daily reported that Moscow might start supplying S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile systems to Syria on a free-of-charge basis in the near future and within the framework of military assistance to the Arab country.
From PressTV
Israel reassured of US military presence in Syria: Source
The Israeli regime has been reassured that the American forces would not immediately leave Syria, a diplomatic source of the Zionist regime reportedly suggests.
According to Israel’s Arutz Sheva 7 news website, the reassurance came via a visit by a top US general.
General Joseph Votel, the head of the US military’s Central Command (CENTOM), arrived in occupied Palestine on Monday to meet with top military officials from Israel, including the chief of staff of the US military, for that purpose.
General Votel, the head of US forces in Syria, was dispatched after about month from US President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US forces would leave the war-ravaged country “very soon.”
“We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS. We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon,” said the president in an Ohio speech. “Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon. Very soon, we’re coming out. We’re going to have a hundred percent of the caliphate, as they call it. Sometimes referred to as land, taking it all back. Quickly, quickly.”
The US and its allies have been running a military campaign against purported terrorist targets in Syria since September 2014 without a mandate from the UN or Damascus, while backing militants fighting to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
From PressTV
‘US planning long-term stay in Syria, taking up position on east of Euphrates’
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the US has no intention of leaving Syrian soil, but on the contrary it is seeking to strengthen its foothold on the eastern bank of the Euphrates.
US President Donald Trump raised eyebrows last month after claiming that his country would withdraw from Syria “very soon.”
However, top US Defense and State Department officials reacted by adopting a totally different stance, arguing that the US should not leave anytime soon as the “mission is not over.” Also, reports emerged later showing that Trump’s advisors had apparently dissuaded him.
“The US pledged that their only aim was to repel terrorists from Syria, to defeat” the Daesh terror group, Lavrov told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday.
“Despite all their claims, despite President Trump’s claims, the US is actually positioning itself on the eastern bank of the Euphrates and has no intention of leaving.”
Washington and its allies have been launching attacks on Syria since 2014, claiming they seek to root out Daesh. The mission, which does not have the Syrian government’s approval or a UN mandate, is still underway despite the collapse of the terror group late last year.
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From PressTV
Israel targets Syrian artillery in Golan Heights, cites alleged mortar fire
The Israeli military has targeted a Syrian army artillery position in the Golan Heights after claims that a mortar shell exploded close to the occupied territory.
Israeli forces claimed on Monday that the mortar had apparently been fired during fighting between Syrian government forces and militant groups, and finally landed near the border fence in the northern part of the region.
“A mortar shell fell adjacent to the security fence in the northern Golan Heights,” the Israeli army said in a statement.
In response, Israeli forces “targeted one artillery piece in the area from which the fire originated, in the northern Syrian Golan Heights.”
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria after the 1967 Six-Day War and later occupied it in a move that has never been recognized by the international community. The regime has built dozens of settlements in the area ever since and has used the region to carry out a number of military operations against the Syrian government.
During the past few years, Israel has frequently attacked Syrian military targets in the Golan Heights in what is considered an attempt to prop up terrorist groups that have been suffering heavy defeats against Syrian government forces.
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From PressTV
Syria hands unexploded US cruise missiles to Russia
Syria has handed over to Russia two unexploded cruise missiles it discovered in the aftermath of the recent attack by the United States, Britain and France, Syrian sources say.
“Two cruise missiles that did not detonate during the US missile strike on Syria overnight on April 14 were found by the Syrian military. Both are in rather good condition. These missiles were handed over to Russian officer the day before yesterday (April 17),” a source in the Syrian Defense Ministry told Russia’s TASS news agency on Thursday.
The Syrian military sent the missiles over on board a plane on Wednesday, the source added. The Russian Defense Ministry had yet to confirm the report.
On April 14, US President Donald Trump along with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Theresa May authorized a joint missile attack against alleged chemical weapons manufacturing sites inside Syria.
The attack, carried out in response to what the US and its allies insisted was a chemical attack by the Syrian government, saw 105 cruise missiles being fired at targets in Damascus and Homs.
It was not clear whether the discovered missiles were American Tomahawks or Scalp/Storm Shadow, codenames for a cruise missile jointly developed by France and the UK.
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From PressTV
Russia: German chlorine, UK smoke bombs found in Syria’s Ghouta
Russia says Syrian government forces have found containers filled with toxic chlorine gas from Germany and smoke grenades manufactured in Britain in Syria’s recently-liberated Eastern Ghouta region.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that the seizure of the Western-made chemicals and weapons undermined “the faith in humaneness” of some countries’ leadership.
“In the liberated areas of Eastern Ghouta, Syrian government troops have found containers with chlorine – the most horrible kind of chemical weapons – from Germany, and also smoke grenades produced … in the city of Salisbury, the UK,” she said.
Zakharova also referred to the alleged chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburb town of Douma on April 7, which Western states blamed on the Damascus government.
She stressed that the images and videos of the incident, which had been circulated on social media, were “100-percent fake.”
One week after the suspected Douma gas attack, the US, Britain and France launched a coordinated missile attack against sites and research facilities near Damascus and Homs with the purported goal of paralyzing the Syrian government’s capability to produce chemicals.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Scottish man who taught dog to do Nazi salute crowdfunds over $185,000 for appeal
(JTA) — The Scottish man who was found guilty of a hate crime and fined $1,100 for teaching his girlfriend’s dog to do the Nazi salute has raised tens of thousands of dollars for his appeal.
Mark Meechan, 30, who was convicted last month, taught the pug, named Buddha, to respond with the Nazi salute when prompted by statements such as “Heil Hitler” and “gas the Jews.” Meechan posted videos of the dog performing the trick on YouTube.
Meecham said at his sentencing on Monday that he would appeal his conviction, saying it sets a dangerous legal precedent against freedom of expression.
As of Thursday, he already had raised over $185,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to help cover the costs of his appeal, over $40,000 more than his original goal.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Parents of Palestinian teen burned alive by Jewish extremists sue his killers for $1.5 million
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The family of a Palestinian teen burned to death in a revenge attack by three Jewish extremists is suing his killers in a civil lawsuit.
The parents of Mohammed Abu Khdeir are seeing $1.5 million in damages.
The criminal case against the three Jewish extremists, including two minors, ended earlier this year after all of their appeals were exhausted, clearing the way for the civil lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit filed Tuesday, “There is no doubt there is no adequate compensation for such a needless and outrageous loss of a young man’s life. This was done with the respondents’ malicious intent to harm the deceased. They displayed indifference and cynicism in the face of the most horrible outcome of all — the death of the deceased in suffering and agony. They also did not spare the parents of the deceased, who were left with nothing after the death of their son.”
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From PressTV
UN rights chief blasts Israeli carnage amid new rallies
The United Nations top human rights official has strongly condemned Israel’s use of “excessive force” on Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip, which has led to the deaths of dozens of them over the past month.
On March 30, the Gazans began holding the “Great March of Return” rally in support of their right to return to their homelands. The protests have continued despite a ferocious Israeli crackdown which has left more than 40 Palestinians dead.
In a statement on Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said Israel had to stop the practice and hold to account those responsible for the many deaths and injuries.
In the past four weeks, 42 Palestinians have been killed and over 5,500 injured along the fence in Gaza, with no reports of Israeli casualties, the statement added.
“The loss of life is deplorable, and the staggering number of injuries caused by live ammunition only confirms the sense that excessive force has been used against demonstrators – not once, not twice, but repeatedly,” Zeid said.
On Friday, Israel sent reinforcements to the co-called buffer zone, as reports said Palestinians were preparing to join yet another anti-Israeli rally in the area.
From PressTV
Pay for US military presence in Syria or lose Washington support: Saudi to Qatar
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir says Qatar must pay for the US military presence in Syria if it wants to sustain Washington’s support.
“Qatar has to pay for US military presence in Syria and send its military forces there, before the US president cancels US protection of Qatar,” Jubeir said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) on Tuesday.
He made the remarks hours after US President Donald Trump urged wealthy Middle Eastern countries to increase their spending in Syria in a bid to contain Iran after the collapse of the Daesh terrorist group in the Arab country.
“Very rich countries are in the Middle East. They have to make major contributions. They have not been doing it as they should. A major topic that we discussed a little while ago: They have to step up tremendously — not a little bit, but tremendously — their financial effort,” Trump said in a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Jubeir further claimed if the US withdraws its 11,000 military personnel from al-Udeid Air Base southwest of Doha, Qatar “would fall there in less than a week.”
Last week, the top Saudi diplomat expressed Riyadh’s readiness to send troops to Syria as part of a potential wider deployment led by the US.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Opinion
Why Israel is investing in Diaspora Jewish education
Millions of Jews, mainly in North America, are drifting away from Judaism, writes Israel’s minister of education and Diaspora affairs. (David Whelan/Flickr Commons)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — For decades, world Jewry helped Israel. Organizations gathered and sent funds to the feeble, small state; our Air Force and Navy were formed and trained by Jewish volunteers from around the globe.
As we celebrate our 70th Independence Day, we should thank the previous generations while shifting to a new era, one in which we reverse the roles and Israel spends more time and resources helping the Jews of the world.
Since its inception, Israel has played two roles: First, it is the country of all of its citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike. Second, it is the nation state for all Jews, citizens or not. The Law of Return, which offers immediate citizenship to any Jew interested in living in Israel, is the best example of this idea. As the Jewish homeland, Israel has always felt a sense of responsibility toward the Jews of the world and has acted, often quietly, to safeguard those in need — simply because they are Jews.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
German music industry ends top award over rappers with anti-Semitic lyrics
Farid Bang and Kollegah speaking at the Echo Awards show in Berlin, April 12, 2018. (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
(JTA) — One of Germany’s top music prizes is being discontinued after it was awarded earlier this month to two rappers with a song containing anti-Semitic lyrics.
The executive board of Germany’s Music Industry Association, or BVMI, announced on Wednesday that it had decided to discontinue the Echo Awards, the German Deutsche Welle news service reported.
“The Echo brand is so badly damaged that a complete new beginning is necessary,” BVMI said in a statement. “Echo will be no more.”
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Trump was late to Michael Cohen’s son’s bar mitzvah — and bragged about it
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, near the Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue in New York City, April 13, 2018. (Yana Paskova/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Times are tough right now for Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.
Cohen has been portrayed as the ultimate loyal servant to Trump, but reports have conveyed that the president has never treated him well during his years of service. In the wake of an FBI raid on his office, home and hotel room earlier this month related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign, some have speculated on whether or not Cohen could turn on the president and divulge damning information.
The Wall Street Journal piled on the embarrassment with a new deep dive into the Trump-Cohen relationship published on Thursday. Hidden among the article’s cringe-worthy details — including how Cohen sat patiently waiting in his office after Trump’s inauguration for a call to join the president’s team of advisers in Washington, and how he afterward said “Boss, I miss you so much” on a phone call — is the fact that Trump showed up late to Cohen’s son’s bar mitzvah in 2012, delaying the entire ceremony.
But that’s not even the most painful part — once Trump got there, he embarrassed Cohen in front of his guests, according to the Journal writers:
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