Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

Impeach John Kerry, Approving Iran’s Missiles

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Iran Expected To Use Missile Saturation

WASHINGTON [MENL] — The United States expects Iran to employ massive salvos of missiles and rockets in attacks around the Middle East.

Leading U.S. analysts, including former senior officials, agreed that Teheran has been hampered by its failure to amass an arsenal of guided ballistic missiles. They said Iran was expected to overcome this through the use of massive salvos against both military and civilian targets.

“Iran’s ballistic missile forces are currently limited by their poor accuracy, but Iran is making strides to overcome this limitation in two key ways,” the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance said. “Iran’s growing production of missiles suggests that Iran will use mass attacks and saturation to overcome missile defenses and make up for limited accuracy.”

 

Iranian Ballistic Missile Tests Not a Nuke Deal Violation

Iran’s Rouhani: Iran ‘not committed to the restrictions on its missile program’  

WFB: Iran is permitted to test-fire ballistic missiles under the parameters of the recently inked nuclear accord, according to private disclosures made by Secretary of State John Kerry to a leading U.S. senator, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Nothing in the nuclear deal prevents Iran from testing a “conventional ballistic missile,” which could be used to carry a nuclear weapon, according to series of written answers provided by Kerry to Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.).

The Obama administration’s failure to rein in Iran’s ballistic missile program has emerged as a key criticism among critics of the deal. They argue that during the 15-year duration of the agreement, Iran will be given the opportunity to perfect its ballistic missile program, which could put it much closer to an operable nuclear weapon.

“It would not be a violation of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] if Iran tested a conventional ballistic missile,” Kerry informed Rubio, according to a copy of the 86-page document obtained by the Free Beacon.

“The issue of ballistic missiles is addressed by the provisions of the new United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR), which do not constitute provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),” Kerry writes, explaining that the nuclear accord does not cover such matters.

“Since the Security Council has called upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology, any such activity would be inconsistent with the UNSCR and a serious matter for the Security Council to review,” Kerry adds.

However, Rubio and others are concerned the U.N. resolutions are not actually mandatory, meaning that Iran can decide on its own whether it wants to uphold the resolutions.

“According to the new U.N. Security Council Resolution, the prohibition on Iran carrying out ballistic missile work is not mandatory, but rather the text simply ‘calls’ on Iran not to conduct such activity for eight years,” Rubio informs Kerry. “Is that the case? What are the penalties if Iran ignores this international ‘call’?”

Kerry appears to admit this is the case but claims the U.N. resolutions will “not let Iran’s ballistic missile program off the hook.”

Kerry does not elaborate on what penalties, if any, would be issued on Iran should it move forward with a ballistic missile test, saying only that “if Iran were to undertake them it would be inconsistent with the UNSCR and a serious matter for the Security Council to review.”

 

One senior foreign policy adviser involved in the fight over the nuclear deal called Kerry’s response “terrifying.”

“The administration is admitting that it changed the old binding language against ballistic missile development to a weak non-binding ‘call’ on Iran,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak on record. “So now the Iranians are going to be working on ballistic missiles that can hit the United States, and they won’t suffer any automatic penalties.”

“Instead, the administration says our response will be to have U.N. countries like Russia and China ‘review’ Iran’s work, which is insane—those are the countries that will be selling Iran the technology in the first place,” the source said.

Kerry’s acknowledgment that Iran is spared from restrictions on testing ballistic missiles appears consistent with rhetoric from senior Iranian leaders.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in recent weeks that the Islamic Republic will not abide by any restrictions imposed by the international community.

Iran is “not committed to the restrictions on its missile program,” Rouhani said, adding that a violation of international restrictions would not impact the nuclear accord.

“We have formally announced that we are not committed to these provisions [related to missiles] mentioned in [the] U.N. resolution,” Rouhani was quoted as saying in an Aug. 29 Persian-language speech broadcast on Iran’s state-controlled television networks.

The nuclear deal states that a violation of U.N. bans on Iran’s missile program would not constitute a violation of the JCPOA.

Within the deal, “we have explained that a violation of the U.N. resolution does not mean violation of the JCPOA,” according to Rouhani, who also said Iran’s missile stockpiles have grown under his tenure as president.

If this is not enough, how about the fact that Iran works with North Korea on joint nuclear programs that include enrichment? Well, North Korea has a ‘hot-cell’ unit that is fully operational where atomic weapons operations are based.

Read on here if you can endure more terrifying news.

North Korea's Nodong missiles

North Korea ‘hot cell’ unit could mean better, larger nuclear bombs: U.S. experts

‘Hot cell’ facility
ISIS also raised a red flag over what appeared to be a new “hot cell” facility under construction at Yongbyon, that could be dedicated to separating isotopes from irradiated material produced in the reactor.

“The signatures visible through an historical analysis of satellite imagery are consistent with an isotope separation facility, including tritium separation,” the think-tank said.

Tritium is a key component in the design of more sophisticated thermonuclear weapons with far greater yields than those made only of plutonium and uranium.

North Korea has carried out three nuclear tests — in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

The first two were plutonium devices, while the third was believed — though not confirmed — to have used uranium as its fissile material.

“Whether North Korea can make nuclear weapons using tritium is unknown although we believe that it remains a technical problem North Korea still needs to solve,” ISIS said. Read more here.

UK Paying Muslim Moles for Terror Clues

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Here is a tip, the United States is quietly doing the same thing.

3,000 terror suspects plotting to attack UK

MI5 and anti-terrorism police are monitoring more than 3,000 homegrown Islamist extremists willing to carry out attacks in Britain, security sources have told The Times.

MI5 pays UK Muslims to spy on terror suspects

UK intelligence agency has paid up to £2,000 for reports on alleged radical activity

MI5 is paying Muslim informants for controversial short-term spying missions to help avert terrorist attacks by homegrown Islamist extremists.

Individuals across the UK, including in Manchester and London, are being employed on temporary assignments to acquire intelligence on specific targets, according to sources within the Muslim community. One said that they knew of an informant recently paid £2,000 by the British security services to spy on activities relating to a mosque over a six-week period.

However, the use of payments to gather intelligence prompted warnings that the system risked producing information “corrupted” by the money on offer.

The initiative is being co-ordinated under the government’s official post-9/11 counter-terrorism strategy, specifically the strand known as Pursue, which has an official remit to “stop terrorist attacks in this country and against our interest overseas. This means detecting and investigating threats at the earliest possible stage.”

A source, not from Whitehall but with knowledge of the payments, said: “It’s been driven by the [intelligence] agencies, it’s a network of human resources across the country engaged to effectively spy on specific targets. It’s decent money.”

They did not divulge the number of informants receiving government funding or how much of the agency’s national security budget is allocated to such transactions. However, the use of payments to gather information prompted calls for caution from senior figures in the Muslim community, who warned that such transactions could produce tainted intelligence.

Salman Farsi, spokesman for the East London Mosque, the largest in the UK, said: “We want our national security protected but, as with everything, there needs to be due scrutiny and we need to ensure things are done properly.

“If there’s money on the table, where’s the scrutiny or the oversight to ensure whether someone has not just come up with some fabricated information? Money can corrupt.”

Farsi said that lessons should be learned from the government’s central counter-radicalisation programme, called Prevent, which was introduced following the 7 July bombings, but despite tens of millions of pounds spent and hundreds of initiatives has been criticised for failing to achieve its goals.

“When they started dishing out money, everyone was willing for a bit of money to dish the dirt, make up stuff. There’s good work to be done, but quite frankly you don’t need to send in informants to mosques to find out what’s going on. We need a fresh approach, genuine community engagement,” said Farsi.

Details of the network of informants paid by the security services follows the first live interview with a head of MI5 – director general Andrew Parker – in the 106-year history of the agency, an opportunity that he used to call for more up-to-date surveillance powers.

Days earlier, on Tuesday, the home secretary, Theresa May, met major internet and telecoms companies to seek their support for a new surveillance bill, prompting speculation that the government is preparing a choreographed campaign to revive its controversial snooper’s charter legislation.

Parker, the director-general of MI5, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, warned that terrorist plotting against Britain is at its most intense for three decades with six attempts foiled in the past 12 months.

Subsequent reports suggested MI5 and anti-terrorism officers are monitoring more than 3,000 Islamist extremists willing to carry out attacks in Britain. Numbers have escalated since 2013 with the rise of Islamic State in Syria, with more than 700 Britons believed to have joined jihadi groups in the region and 300 thought to have returned to Britain.

Scotland Yard last month revealed that suspects were being held at a rate of more than one a day while a record number of terrorism arrests were made in the past year, eclipsing the previous peak after the 7 July bombings.

Entire VA System Broken, Moment of Reckoning

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Eric Shinseki could not fix it, Robert McDonald cant fix it, $60 billion cant fix it. The culture, the bureaucracy and leadership is at issue, either take it out of all government hands or put it into the Department of Defense. It may save a life or it may or it may restore a life.

Either way, a solution is at hand, the WILL to do it must be reckoned today.

VA Needs ‘Systemwide Reworking,’ Independent Report Finds
Congressionally mandated independent review of Veterans Affairs health-care system identifies widespread problems

WSJ: A sweeping independent review of the Department of Veterans Affairs health-care system made public Friday shows the multibillion-dollar agency has significant flaws, including a bloated bureaucracy, problems with leadership and a potentially unsustainable capital budget.

More than a dozen assessments—from analysts including Mitre Corp., Rand Corp. and McKinsey & Co.—show that the Veterans Heath Administration, the health-care arm of the department known as VHA, is still plagued by long-standing issues, including unsustainable costs in the future and a system that veterans find tough to navigate.

The assessments, weighing in at more than 4,000 pages total, were mandated by the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, commonly known as the Veterans Choice Act, a more than $16 billion emergency funding measure passed last summer in the wake of a systemwide scandal at the VA that led to the resignation of a number of top officials, including then-Secretary Eric Shinseki. They appear to restate, more thoroughly, many issues that have been previously identified. The assessments will be used by the Commission on Care, also mandated by the act, which is tasked with presenting the VA and Congress a comprehensive reform plan in early 2016.

“The report bears out collectively what I have seen individually, what I have seen in my role as chairman over the past nine months,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R., Ga.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “There is a huge focus on some glaring deficiencies that need to be addressed.”
Mr. Isakson said the VA suffers especially from a system saddled with a number of different departments that can’t effectively talk with each other, as well as a number of vacancies in leadership positions that need to be filled, though he said the department has been working to correct a number of issues.

“VA is undergoing a radical transformation,” the department said in response to the findings, pointing out a number of efforts to address problems highlighted in the assessments. “VA will work with Congress, veterans service organizations, veterans, and other stakeholders on the recommendations outlined in the Independent Assessment Final Report. VA will especially work closely with Congress on those final report recommendations that specify specific congressional action needed to implement.”

The assessments found VA care outperformed non-VA care by many measures but also showed a system that needs even more change.

“The independent assessment highlighted systemic, critical problems,” the report said. “Solving these problems will demand far-reaching and complex changes that, when taken together, amount to no less than a systemwide reworking of VHA.”

With an annual budget of some $60 billion, 1,600 health-care sites and 300,000 employees, the VHA says it is the largest integrated health-care system in the U.S. Last year, nearly 6 million veterans were treated in the system.

The reports portray the VA as a huge operation that has become difficult to steer and permeated by a bureaucratic system plagued by mismanagement and inconsistent care from hospital to hospital.

“It’s pretty bad for VHA, it’s pretty stinging,” said a senior staff member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “There’s nothing in here that has surprised me, but seeing it all in one place is probably the hardest thing.”

“They’ll push out a directive and they won’t follow-up to see how it’s implemented,” the congressional staffer said, adding that a large number of leadership positions in the organization remain unfilled or staffed by interim employees.

The report shows that the central office has grown 160% over the past five years, yet key leadership positions down the chain remain empty. More than half of the executives in the organization are eligible for retirement and could leave at any time, which could create even more leadership gaps.

The lengthy and critical reports come as the VA faces questions over whether it should allow more veterans to go outside of the system to receive private care. Recently, according to the assessments, health care obtained outside of the VA accounts for about 10% of VHA expenditures. The Veterans Choice Act of last year was built in large part around funding this type of care.

Questions about further privatization were highlighted recently when Ben Carson, a leading Republican presidential candidate and physician, suggested the VA make a push toward privatization and elimination of the VHA, its health-care delivery arm.

Earlier this week, a number of major veterans groups sent an open letter to Mr. Carson stressing the need to keep the VHA solvent.

The assessments released Friday unfavorably compared the VA’s management style to a number of private health-care providers like Kaiser Permanente.

Sen. Isakson said the Veterans Choice Act, which allows veterans more leeway in seeking care outside the VA, was an emergency measure and not something meant to steer the VA down a privatized path. “The Choice program, contrary to what everyone thought, was not a sinister program to privatize the VA.”

Robert McDonald, who took over as VA secretary last summer, has been praised by many in Congress as well as most major veterans groups for his efforts to reform the VA and his willingness to listen to patients and workers. But he has also been criticized for things like moving too slowly in firing underperforming employees and not supporting efforts to create an environment where employees can point out wrongdoing in the department. Mr. McDonald has said multiple times in the past that he is forcing out bad actors as quickly as possible.

“As a general matter, the president has made it a priority to ensure that America’s veterans are getting the kind of health care and benefits they have so richly earned,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday, saying he had not seen the substance of the report.

Mr. Earnest said that some of the reforms at the VA have already begun to show progress in improving care.

“But the president, Secretary McDonald and other senior officials at the VA are not going to rest until we have accomplished our goal of making sure that all our veterans are getting the kind of care that they deserve, on time,” Mr. Earnest said.

On Thursday, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal watchdog tasked with protecting government employees, especially whistleblowers, sent a letter to President Barack Obama criticizing what they said was the VA’s reluctance to take disciplinary action against officials responsible for inadequate patient care.

“I have identified recent additional cases in which the VA confirmed serious misconduct brought to light by whistleblowers, yet failed to appropriately discipline responsible officials,” said Carolyn Lerner, the head of the office. Her office criticized the VA for punishing whistleblowers while not punishing those who engaged in misconduct.

“Over the past year, the Department of Veterans Affairs has worked closely and in good faith with the Office of Special Counsel to correct deficiencies in the department’s processes and programs to ensure fair treatment for any whistleblower who raises a hand to identify a problem, make a suggestion or report what may be a violation in law,” the department said in a statement.

Access to VA care has increased dramatically since the mid-1990s, the report said, as changes in policy opened up the system to include not just combat-wounded veterans but many others who have served. Former Secretary Shinseki pushed to have veterans take advantage of their benefits and increased access to those like Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

Although the VA has other departments, including a benefits arm, the VHA accounts for nearly 90% of the department’s discretionary budget and employee base. While the total population of veterans in the U.S. peaked around 1980 at 30 million and has declined since then, according to the report, demand for VA care has been steadily increasing as greater numbers of vets take advantage of benefits. The number of enrollees and patients isn’t expected to peak until 2019.

Castro to the Pope: Return Guantanamo Bay

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Text of Raul Castro’s speech after Pope Francis’ arrival

U.S. embargo ‘is cruel, immoral and illegal,’ Cuban president says

HAVANA –

Cuban President Raul Castro praised Pope Francis’ critiques of the global economic system, saying it has “globalized capital and turned money into its idol.”

In a lengthy speech welcoming the pope at Havana’s international airport Saturday, Castro said Cuba’s communist government has “founded an equitable society with social justice.”

Here is a translation of Castro’s speech:

Your Holiness,

The people and government of Cuba welcome you with profound affection, respect and hospitality.

We feel particularly honored with your visit. You will see how deeply we love our homeland, for which we are capable of the greatest sacrifices. We have always followed in the steps of the heroes of our America, who bestowed upon us their honor, courage and generosity. It is from them that we have learned to exercise Marti’s axiom that homeland is Humanity.

The memorable meeting we had last May in Vatican City offered an opportunity to exchange ideas on some of the most important issues related to the world we live in.

The peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean have decided to move forward with integration, in defense of our independence, sovereignty over natural resources and social justice.

However, our region still shows the greatest disparity in wealth distribution. In this continent, legitimate governments working for a better future are facing numerous attempts at destabilization.

We have closely followed your statements. The apostolic exhortation known as “The Joy of Gospel” related to social issues, and the encyclical “Praise Be To You” related to the future and care for the planet and humanity, have moved me to a profound reflection. They shall be references for the next Summit on the Post-2015 Development Agenda to be held at the United Nations this month, and the 21st International Conference on Climate Change scheduled for December in Paris.

An increasing global impact has resulted from your analysis on the causes of these problems and the call to safeguard the planet and the survival of our species; to cease the predatory action of the wealthy nations and the big transnationals; and, to remove the dangers threatening us all due to the depletion of resources and the loss of biodiversity.

As his Holiness has rightly indicated: “Humanity should become aware of the necessity to change life styles as well as production and consumption patterns.”

At the UN Conference on Development and the Environment held in Rio de Janeiro in1992, Fidel Castro, leader of the Cuban Revolution, raised the necessity to save humanity from self-destruction; to make a better distribution of wealth, knowledge, science and technology in order to attain a sustainable development; and “to make hunger, and not nan, disappear.”

The current international system is unfair and immoral. It has globalized capital and turned money into its idol. It makes people become simple consumers, and instead of disseminating knowledge and culture, it alienates them with behavior patterns and reflexes promoted by means that serve only their owners’ interests, that is, the transnational media corporations.

The deep and permanent crisis falls harshly on the Third World countries, albeit in the industrial world it also affects the disenfranchised, the minorities, the young unemployed and the helpless elders as well as those seeking refuge from starvation and conflict. What immigrants and the poor are going through stands as an offense to human conscience. They are the outraged of the world claiming for their rights and the end to such injustice.

Your Holiness,

In your remarks to the world meetings of Popular Movements held in October last year at Vatican City and in July this year at Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia, you reiterated the necessity to practice solidarity and to struggle together against the structural sources of poverty and inequality; for man’s dignity and his right to the land and to work; and for a roof to give him shelter.

It was to conquer such rights, among others, that the Cuban Revolution was undertaken. Those were the same rights that Fidel advocated in the historical defense argument known as “History Will Absolve Me.”

It is to build a society with more justice and solidarity that we have made extraordinary efforts and taken the greatest risks ever since the revolutionary victory.
And, we have done while blockaded, slandered, and attacked; and paying a high toll in human lives and economic damages. We have founded an equitable society with social justice and extensive access to culture, attached to traditions and to the most advanced ideas of Cuba, Latin America, the Caribbean and the world.

Millions of people have recuperated their health thanks to Cuban cooperation: 325,710 collaborators have provided services in 158 countries; today, 50,281 Cuban healthcare workers are providing services in 68 nations; thanks to the “Yes, I Can” educational program, 9,376,000 people have left illiteracy behind in 30 different countries, while more than 68,000 students from 157 countries have graduated in Cuba.

We keep advancing with determination in the updating of our economic and social model to build a prosperous and sustainable socialism focused on human beings and the family, and with the free, democratic, conscious and creative involvement of the entire society, particularly young people.

Preserving socialism is tantamount to securing independence, sovereignty, development and the well being of our nation. We are firmly determined to face every challenge and build a just and virtuous society with high ethical and spiritual values. As the honorable priest Félix Varela indicated, “We want the future generations to inherit from us the dignity of man, and to remember what it takes to recover it so that they fear losing it.”


Regional unity, identity and integration should be defended. The Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Peace Zone, signed by heads of state and government at the 2nd Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States held in Havana in January 2014, establishes a set of commitments of crucial importance such as: the peaceful solution of controversial issues in order to definitely remove the use, and the threat of the use, of force in our region; the prevention of direct or indirect interference in the domestic affairs of any other state and respect for the principles of national sovereignty; the equality of rights and free determination of the peoples; the promotion of friendly relations and cooperation among themselves and with other nations; and, full respect for the inalienable right of every state to choose its political, economic, social and cultural system as an essential premise to ensure peaceful coexistence among nations.

Concerning Cuba, the purposes and principles consecrated in the United Nations Charter are fully valid. Only respect for them can ensure international peace and security, which at the moment are increasingly challenged.

We found extremely interesting his Holiness remarks during the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the nuclear strikes on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The existence of nuclear weapons threatens the very survival of human beings and constitutes an affront to the ethical and moral principles that should guide relations among nations. The use of such weapons would bring about the obliteration of human civilization; therefore, advocating disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, is not only the duty but also the right of all peoples in the world.

Your Holiness,

We have expressed our appreciation for your support to the United States-Cuba dialogue. The reestablishment of relations has been a first step in the process toward normalization of the relationship between the two countries, which will demand resolving problems and correcting injustices. The blockade, which causes human damages and privations to the Cuban family, is cruel, immoral and illegal, and it should cease. The territory usurped by the Guantanamo Naval Base should be returned to Cuba and other issues resolved, too. Such fair claims are shared by the peoples and the overwhelming majority of governments in the world.

This year we are celebrating the 80th anniversary of uninterrupted relations between the Apostolic Holy See and Cuba. These relations are good and continue to favorably develop on the basis of mutual respect.

Relations between the government and the Catholic Church in Cuba are developing in a gratifying atmosphere, the same as with every denomination and religious institution represented in the country that promote moral values recognized and enhanced by our nation. We exercise religious freedom as a right consecrated in our Constitution.

We attach full meaning to the presence of his Holiness in our homeland. We feel that it will be a transcendental and enriching experience for our nation that he meets with our industrious and educated people, our selfless and generous people that treasure profound convictions and patriotic values, and are willing to continue their heroic resistance and build a society capable of ensuring the full development of men and women, with dignity and justice.

On behalf of this noble people I offer you the warmest welcome.

Thank you.

More Facts on Migrants in Europe

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SoS, John Kerry had a meeting with Hammond, the UK Foreign Minister. Among many topics, Syria was discussed:

Hammond: We have, of course, talked primarily this morning about the situation in Syria and the migration crisis that is affecting Europe, and we’ve talked about how to move forward with our partners in response to recent developments in Syria to tackle the growing threat from ISIL and to ensure that we’re joined up between our actions in Iraq and our actions in Syria.

Kerry:

With respect to Syria, obviously, we spent a significant amount of time and we covered a lot of territory today. As the foreign secretary said, we talked about Yemen, where we urged the parties to get to negotiations. We talked about Libya, where hope that the work of Bernardino Leon will bear fruit. But obviously, there are challenges, and we call on the house of representatives to return to that process and to recognize this is a critical moment. And ISIL and other extremist groups take advantage of a vacuum, and a vacuum is what is left if there is not an agreement. So we need for the sake of the 6 million citizens of Libya, where there is great opportunity and significant wealth available to be able to help that country bind its wounds and move forward. We hope that they will make the right choices in the days ahead.

With respect to Syria, the foreign secretary and I agreed completely on the urgency of nations coming together in order to resolve this war that has gone on for much too long. And it is clear that the challenge to continental Europe, but to everybody, of the migrant population of refugees seeking a better life cannot be properly addressed just by addressing the numbers of refugees coming into a country or providing more support to them; it has to be addressed by dealing with the root cause, which is the violence in Syria and the lack of hope and possibility of a future that so many people in that region feel as a consequence of the violence that’s taking place.

The full meeting readout is here.

*** Deeper facts:

In part: DailyMail, includes photo essay

Four out of five migrants are NOT from Syria: EU figures expose the ‘lie’ that the majority of refugees are fleeing war zone 

  • Some 44,000 of the 213,000 refugees who arrived in Europe were from Syria
  • A further 27,000 new arrivals on the continent came from Afghanistan
  • Britain received one in 30 of all the asylum claims made by new applicants
  • David Cameron has offered to take in 20,000 refugees but none from the EU

Only one in every five migrants claiming asylum in Europe is from Syria.

The EU logged 213,000 arrivals in April, May and June but only 44,000 of them were fleeing the Syrian civil war.

Campaigners and left-wing MPs have suggested the vast majority of migrants are from the war-torn state, accusing the Government of doing too little to help them.

‘This exposes the lie peddled in some quarters that vast numbers of those reaching Europe are from Syria,’ said David Davies, Tory MP for Monmouth. ‘Most people who are escaping the war will go to camps in Lebanon or Jordan.

‘Many of those who have opted to risk their lives to come to Europe have done so for economic reasons.’

The figures from Eurostat, the EU’s official statistical agency, show that migration from April to June was running at double the level of the same period in 2014.

The number of Afghans lodging asylum claims is up four-fold, from 6,300 to 27,000. Another 17,700 claims were made by Albanians, whose country is at peace.

A further 13,900 applicants came from Iraq which, like Syria, is being torn apart by the Islamic State terror group.

Sample individual stories: From Voice of America

One is a sixth-grader who braved walks through Balkan forests to join his brother in England; another fought the Taliban while serving Afghan forces in Helmand; a third spent years working in Turkey to cover a human smuggler’s fee.

They are Afghanistan’s latest diaspora, refugees of raging war and shrunken economic prospects, swept up in the largest flood of migrants Europe has seen in more than 70 years.

Until their numbers were eclipsed by refugees from the Syrian war last year, Afghanistan had produced more refugees than any other nation thanks to more than three decades of intractable conflict.

While the majority of prior Afghan refugees made new lives in Pakistan and Iran, United Nations data say nearly 80,000 Afghans are now officially seeking asylum in Europe — the highest rate in 20 years.

Their exodus has only increased as a resurgent Taliban wages its bloodiest offensive in 14 years.

Drawn by the promise of a better life, many tapped into their life’s savings and money from family already in Europe to pay smugglers to spirit them across six countries. The less well-off risked the journey alone.

VOA Afghan Service anchor Ahmad Fawad Lami traveled to Hungary and Serbia where he caught up with many Afghan refugees just as Austria briefly opened its border.

These are just a few of their stories. A must read.

Dawa Jaan Sahil