Category Archives: Russia

Russia Increasing Destruction Capabilities

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Russia to step up combat capabilities in Crimea   (Reuters) – Russia‘s top general said on Tuesday he would beef up combat capabilities this year in Crimea, the Arctic and the country’s westernmost Kaliningrad region that borders two NATO states.

The remarks by General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, are likely to deepen concern in the West over what it sees as Russia increasingly flexing its muscles since the start of the crisis in Ukraine.

NATO’s top military commander, General Philip Breedlove, said the alliance was already looking at stepping up exercises in the Baltic Sea region in response to a rise in Russian military manoeuvres there late last year.

“In 2015, the Defence Ministry will focus its efforts on increasing the combat capabilities of its units and increasing combat strength in accordance with the military development plans,” Gerasimov told Russian journalists.

“Special attention will be given to the groups in Crimea, the Kaliningrad region and the Arctic,” he was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies but gave no further details.

His remarks follow the adoption of a new military doctrine signed by President Vladimir Putin in December which underlines the need to protect Russia’s interests in the Arctic and identifies NATO expansion as an external risk.

Any military build-up on NATO’s doorstep in Kaliningrad, an exclave bordering Poland and Lithuania, would worry the Western alliance, while the Arctic’s mineral riches and energy reserves ensure that territory there is contested by several nations.

Russia deployed 14 military jets to Crimea last November as part of a squadron of 30 that will be stationed there, making clear it intends to strengthen its presence on the peninsula since annexing it from Kiev last March.

Breedlove warned at the time that Russia’s “militarization” of Crimea could be used to exert control over the Black Sea.

He said on Tuesday NATO was considering adapting a programme of military exercises in the Baltic Sea region, where he said Russian activities had changed in character and showed capabilities not seen before.

“The first series of changes will not be an increase in number but they will be to group them together … to better prepare our forces and to allow nations to work together as a NATO force, but we are looking at increasing some exercises,” he said at a NATO base at Szczecin in northwest Poland.

NATO has boosted its military presence in eastern Europe, saying it has evidence Russia orchestrated and armed the rebellion in eastern Ukraine last year that followed the overthrow of a Kremlin-backed president in Kiev.

Putin says Russia poses no threat to anyone and denies Russia has sent troops or weapons to back the separatists. ***   Beyond the usual sources of influence in Ukraine, George Soros continues to take an active role. Yet it gets much worse as civilians have died in shelling operations.

Pro-Russian separatists unleashed a series of bomb attacks Tuesday in eastern Ukraine, leveling a key airport in Donetsk, killing 12 in an attack on a passenger bus and almost certainly dooming a short-lived cease-fire, according to reports.

A senior State Department official confirmed to Fox News that the separatists destroyed the government-held airport in eastern Ukraine Tuesday afternoon.

The facility has been “flattened” and the air control tower was “decimated,” the official said. “They are now fighting over rubble.”

Maria Ivanovna, a local retiree, told The Associated Press she has become desensitized to the blasts and drew an arc with her arm to show how shells fly over her home toward the airport.

“We will survive the same way we did after World War II. Ration cards for bread; 11 ounces for children; 800 grams for factory workers and 1,200 grams for miners,” she said.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Tuesday the bus attack was “egregious” and blamed Russia for helping to arm the separatists.

“We again call on Russia to fulfill its commitment under the Minsk Agreement, which includes ceasing its substantial military support to the separatists, restoring Ukrainian sovereignty over the international border between Ukraine and Russia, releasing all hostages, and working toward the peaceful resolution of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine,” Harf said.

Across Donetsk, the city that Russian-backed separatists call their capital, explosions and the sound of shells whistling overhead are again unnerving the local population. The holiday period was spent in relative tranquility after a new truce was called in December between government troops and Russian-backed militia. But by late last week, that uneasy calm was steadily unraveling.

In the single largest loss of life so far this year, civilians traveling on a commuter bus from Donetsk were killed Tuesday afternoon by what Ukrainians say were rockets fired from a Grad launcher in rebel territory. Regional authorities loyal to Kiev said the bus was passing a Ukrainian Army checkpoint at the time, putting it in the line of fire.

Leading rebel representative Denis Pushilin denied responsibility for the attack.

The warring sides are now trading accusations over who is responsible for the breakdown in the truce that led to Tuesday’s deaths.

Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that separatist attacks in recent days suggest an attempted onslaught to push back the frontline is under way. Separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko says Ukraine’s armed forces unilaterally resumed hostilities and that his fighters would respond in kind.

An AP reporter over the weekend saw a convoy of around 30 military-style trucks without license plates heading for Donetsk, suggesting that new supplies were coming in for the rebels.

NATO’s top commander, Gen. Philip Breedlove, said Tuesday that there has been a continued resupply and training of rebel forces over the holiday period.

“Those continue to provide a concern and something that we have to be thinking about,” Breedlove said.

Ukraine and the West have routinely accused Russia of being behind such consignments. Moscow flatly rejects the charges, although rebel forces are so well-equipped with powerful arms that the denials have become increasingly hollow.

In the rebel-held Donetsk suburb of Makiivka, the thrash of outgoing mortars shakes still-inhabited neighborhoods on a daily basis. Separatists have consistently denied using residential areas for cover, but there are ample witness accounts undermining those claims.

Ukrainian responses to artillery lobbed out of Donetsk are woefully inaccurate and regularly hit houses and apartment blocks, often killing people inside. The separatist military headquarters in Donetsk said Tuesday that 12 people had been killed and another 30 injured in the preceding three-day period. It did not specify who had been killed.

There is little sign of life in Makiivka these days. People rush home from work or aid distribution points and occasionally come out of shelters to exchange information about where shells are landing.

A senior U.N. human rights official said this week that developments look poised to go in one of three directions — a frozen conflict, an escalation in violence or an evolution to sustainable peace.

“In case of frozen conflict, we will more or less continue to be seeing [the same] human rights violations that we have been facing so far,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “But in case of escalation of hostilities, which is quite possible, we could also be seeing further internationalization of the conflict and far more human rights violations and suffering.”

The grimmest of outcomes appears most likely.

A hoped-for round of peace negotiations this week between the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France has been put on ice — possibly indefinitely.

Ukrainian military authorities talk like they are bracing for the long-haul and Tuesday laid out plans for a new round of mobilization.

Volodymyr Talalai, deputy head of the army’s mobilization planning, said recruits will be drawn from all regions of the country. He gave no figure for how many people will be mobilized, but said that the primary aim of the upcoming drive is to enable the rotation of forces.

Unremitting violence is radicalizing the mood. One resident of Donetsk’s Petrovsky neighborhood — one of the most intensely bombed — said she took up arms and joined the separatist army after a rocket hit a home in her neighborhood.

“A Grad landed … and people were killed and blown to bits,” she said, giving her name only as Vera. “How were we supposed to react? We are out here defending ourselves.”

Wearing a balaclava and cradling an automatic rifle, Vera said her 19-year-old son too wanted to sign up, but that she refused to let him.

“I told them I would rather go myself than let my child do it,” she said.

 

 

JC Chairman Dempsey Not Happy with WH

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Can you list those in those in the Obama administration graveyard? The White House has rarely met with any cabinet secretaries to date during the Obama administration. Then top people have moved on to private business. Like who? Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Hagel, John Podesta, Kathleen Sebilius, Janet Napolitano, Jay Carney, Robert Gibbs, James Jones, Anita Dunn, Van Jones, Peter Orzag, Larry Summers,  General McChrystal, General Carter Ham, General David Petraeus, Rahm Emanual, Christina Roemler and there are more.

Now the question is why….perhaps at least one very important reason is micro-managing. In case you need proof, read on.

Joint Chiefs chairman distances himself from Obama promise on Afghanistan

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff doesn’t entirely share his boss’s unbridled optimism about the future of Afghanistan.

President Obama last month vowed that Afghanistan never again will be a breeding ground for terrorist attacks against the U.S., reassuring troops that they accomplished their mission as official combat operations came to an end.               

 

But Gen. Martin E. Dempsey on Sunday distanced himself from that statement.

“You’d have to ask the president how he could say that,” Gen. Dempsey said on “Fox News Sunday” when asked how the president could be sure Afghanistan won’t again become a safe haven for terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.

Mr. Obama made the remarks during a Christmas Day address to troops stationed in Hawaii. The president long has cast the Afghanistan War as a worthy fight and one critical to U.S. foreign policy moving forward, as opposed to the Iraq War, which he has characterized as a mistake.

“Because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the armed forces, Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country. We are safer. It’s not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again,” Mr. Obama told the troops.

Gen. Dempsey made clear that he believes the new government in Afghanistan will be a cooperative partner with the U.S. He also said he believes Afghan security forces have shown encouraging signs that they are willing to defend their country.     

 

But he stopped short of endorsing Mr. Obama’s blanket vow.

“I personally think there will be pockets inside of Afghanistan that change hands from time to time because that’s the history of the country,” he said. “But I think that we’re in a very good place in Afghanistan in terms of giving them a chance to do exactly what the president said. But we’re going to have to keep an eye on it.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Gen. Dempsey also addressed accusations — some from numerous former Pentagon officials — that the White House micromanages the Defense Department.

The charges have come from, among others, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who unexpectedly resigned in November.

Gen. Dempsey said he believes the Pentagon’s relationship with the White House should be measured by whether he has access to the president and whether top administration officials listen to what he has to say.

“The metric we should be focused on is access and whether my advice influences decisions,” Gen. Dempsey said. “Whether someone wants to characterize the desire, the almost insatiable appetite for information about complex issues as micromanaging, they can have at it. But for me, the metric is access and advice.”

Still, he acknowledged the criticism in a tongue-in-cheek way when first asked the question.

“If you’re asking me if I’m being micromanaged, I don’t know. I’d better go check with the White House before I answer that question,” he said.  *** But what is the issue with Afghanistan you ask?

KABUL—Adherents of Islamic State this weekend declared their intention to step up operations in Afghan territory where the Taliban have long held sway, raising the prospect of battling jihadist groups and rising terrorism in the region.

In a 16-minute video released over the weekend and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Afghan and Pakistani militants pledged their allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and unveiled the movement’s leadership structure in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“It’s very significant,” said a Western official who has seen the video. “I think they want to say: ‘This is serious—we are here.’ ”

The activity of new extremist groups could complicate efforts by the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to start peace talks with the Taliban insurgency in a bid to end the violence. The groups’ arrival also comes as U.S.-led troops formally ended combat operations in December.

In the video, the Pakistani and Afghan militants publicly reveal the name of their regional leader for the first time: Hafez Sayed Khan Orakzai. Footage shows Mr. Orakzai standing in front of a black-and-white Islamic State banner, flanked by men in black wearing balaclavas and carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles.

The video begins with a procession of men on foot and horseback waving Islamic State flags and ends gruesomely, with the beheading of a man the group says is a Pakistani soldier.

Mr. Orakzai was one of the six commanders of the Pakistani Taliban—formally known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan—who switched allegiance to Islamic State in October.  Shahidullah Shahid, the Pakistani Taliban’s former spokesman, also appears in the video, delivering introductory remarks to a crowd of militants. Mr. Shahid introduces local commanders who will be responsible for territory located on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

“We are gathered here with commanders from 10 units,” Mr. Shahid says. “They all want to pledge their allegiance to the caliph of all believers, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

In the video, both Messrs. Shahid and Orakzai speak Arabic, the language of the Quran, instead of their native Pashto.

While the military reach of Islamic State has thus far been limited to parts of Iraq and Syria, the defection of Afghan and Pakistani militants to the group raises fears that a new front line could emerge in South and Central Asia.

The rise of Islamic State could pose a challenge to the Afghan Taliban, a movement loyal to its elusive spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who hasn’t been seen in public since December 2001.

The Taliban movement is fragmented and, in the absence of visible leadership, some of its members have begun to look to Syria and Iraq for guidance and inspiration. A United Nations report released in December noted “a distinct increase in the activities and the visibility” of extremist groups such as Islamic State in 2014, and said that Afghan militants were beginning to defect to the group.

Members of the Afghan Taliban who joined Islamic State include Mawlawi Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost and Mawlavi Abdul Qahir, according to Mr. Shahid and the U.N. Mr. Muslim Dost, who was once imprisoned in the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the most prominent former member of the Afghan Taliban known to have joined the movement. Mr. Qahir, a former Taliban commander, was named a unit commander in the video.

Tensions between the Taliban and groups affiliated with Islamic State in Afghanistan have already turned violent. In the southwestern province of Helmand, local officials and residents say the Taliban are battling militants dressed in Islamic State’s signature black uniforms. The new group of fighters, they say, is led by a former Taliban commander, Mullah Raouf Khadim.

Mohammad Jan Rasoulyar, the deputy governor of Helmand, said the fighting started several days ago in the district of Kajaki, where the government has no control. About 30 fighters, including some women, have moved from Kajaki to the neighboring district of Sangin, according to Abdul Raziq Sarwani, a local police commander in Sangin.

The fighting in Helmand suggests that the Islamic State label could increasingly become attractive to local Taliban commanders disillusioned with their leadership. Two journalists based in Helmand who have spoken to locals in Kajaki said Mr. Khadim set up the new armed group after he was fired by the Taliban leadership.

“He established his own armed group in Kajaki and asked Taliban fighters to join him. He says Mullah Omar isn’t alive anymore, and that if he is alive he should join his own group,” one of the reporters said.

Afghan officials have previously raised the alarm on attempts by Islamic State to seek a foothold in Afghanistan, pointing to propaganda material that had been distributed in parts of Afghanistan.

While new information is adding weight to claims that Islamic State is beginning to have an active presence in the region, an Afghan security official played down the extent of its presence.

“We have some reports that show their interest in Afghanistan, but they have no base here,” the official said.

In this deeply conservative country, extremist ideology still thrives. On Friday, hundreds of men took to the streets in a district in the southern province of Uruzgan in support of the men who carried out the deadly attack on the office of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, local officials said.

The demonstrators also condemned Mr. Ghani for extending his condolences to the people of France, officials added.

 

 

 

 

Threat to NATO via Russian Aggression

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Poland to Seek NATO Response to Russia’s Military Exercises

(Reuters) – Poland expects the NATO alliance to step up its military exercises around the Baltic Sea after a flurry of activity by Russian warships and jet fighters in the area last month, Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak told Reuters in an interview.

Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, Oct. 14, 2014

“What happened in December was indeed rather unprecedented,” Siemoniak said. “We will definitely want the Baltic Sea to be taken into account to a greater extent, and I think that in terms of military exercises planned by NATO, there will be such a reaction,” he said. The interview was conducted on Monday but authorised for release by the ministry on Thursday.

The Atlantic alliance has already increased the frequency of air patrols in the region, part of a revival of Cold War tensions sparked by Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its support for Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits anti-submarine ship Vice Admiral Kulakov, Sept. 23, 2014

Siemoniak said Moscow did not have an exit strategy, and that NATO and the European Union, which has imposed sanctions on Russia together with the United States, should brace themselves for years of conflict.

“We shouldn’t talk about lifting the sanctions too soon,” he said, adding that they were the most effective tool at the West’s disposal.

The French government in November put on hold a contract to supply Mistral warships to Russia after coming under pressure from NATO allies.

Asked if French-based companies such as Airbus and the Thales could suffer as they bid for contracts in Poland’s $41 billion army modernisation programme, Siemoniak said: “I’m counting on France‘s decision (not to deliver) being permanent, so the problem has been solved. It seems that Russia has also accepted that.”

Siemoniak also denied that a U.S. Senate report, which in December made clear by implication that Poland had allowed the CIA to run secret detention facilities on its soil, had damaged the relationship between the two allies.

Polish officials have expressed disappointment that the published version of the report contained enough detail to implicate Poland, putting it at risk of reprisal attacks.

“I think that, at the moment, the cooperation between our intelligence agencies is the best in history,” Siemoniak said, “so the publication of the report has not made it more difficult.”

No Go Zones Are Old News Finally in Debate

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After the Paris attack(s), 4 since December, the dialogue has morphed to no-go zones as designed by Islamists in many towns, states and Western cultured countries.

Do you ever wonder why Muslims pray on the public streets and not in the mosques? It is an ‘in your face’ action.

Just in France there are more than 700 of them, more on that later as France is aware of them and is allegedly working to reclaim them. In a raw language translation from French to English:

The security policy that I hear lead must be resolutely turned towards the territories and their inhabitants,”he recalls in preamble to circular addressed to the whole of the prefects of France, responsible of the implementation of these areas from the start.
“It‘s to respond closely to the concerns of our citizens, often among the poorest“, insists Manuel Valls, former Deputy Mayor of Evry (Essonne). The prefects of these fifteen first ‘test zones”must, by mid-September, to make known the precise contours and the objectives of security, – number of two or three maximum – meet. Here, the decline in burglaries or the fight against drug trafficking, then occupations of buildings halls or the flights in the snatch. “It is to bring decision-making at the level of stakeholders in the field, supports a close associate of the Minister of the Interior. The contours of these areas can be adapted at any time because we must be as reactive as offenders. »
Focus on hotspots
Alain Bauer, criminologist – former adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy and also very close to Manuel Valls-, this new device could be likened to “experiments already carried out in the United States and the Canada. “In the years 1990-2000, the Americans and Canadians found that a real effective policy against crimes was to focus on a series of hot spots (hot spots in English).“ It comes then to deploy police forces highly mobile and adaptable in a coherent territory. There, for the first time in France, it approximates this spirit there. We leave the Theology for pragmatism. »
Specifically, this device will be based on an “operational cell” led by the prefect, associated with the Prosecutor of the Republic – if the latter wishes-, to coordinate all of the security forces in the area concerned. Police, CRS, gendarmes, investigators of the judicial police and intelligence services will be thus mobilized. A ‘coordination cell’ second of the various partners (municipal policies, associations, Education…) it will be, overseen by one or more local elected representatives. This cell, which must be the narrowest possible for greater efficiency, aims to drive all prevention actions against delinquency, such as the implementation of measures aimed at preventing the recurrence of minors.
Remains unknown: how will have the ZSP? “Even if the future creations of posts will be deployed, as a priority, on these areas, we will mobilize existing resources,” stressed the Ministry of the Interior, which is “not deprive certain sectors for the benefit of this new feature. Without waiting for the results of the experiment, Manuel Valls already plans to deploy “a quarantine to other priority areas of security” by summer 2013.
For a list of the no-go zones just in France click here, there are 751 of them throughout the country. My friend Steve Emerson at the Investigative Project explained on Sean Hannity last night how not only France but all of Europe has passed the point of diminishing returns to reclaim their own sovereignty. He is right and this has been fact for years, but it IS coming to America unless we advance this debate and immigration.
What is chilling is the entire Obama administration through the U.S. State Department has been coaching Muslims overseas through embassies including France.

SCOTT SAYARE, New York Times 

BONDY, France — The residents of this poor, multiracial Paris suburb say they have been abandoned. For 30 years, they say, the French authorities have written off Bondy and neighborhoods like it, treating their inhabitants as terminal delinquents and ignoring their potential.

This, residents note, is not the approach taken by the U.S. Department of State.

“We’re waiting for the president of the Republic, for his ministers,” said Gilbert Roger, the mayor of Bondy. “And we see the ambassador of the United States.”

The U.S. Embassy in Paris has formed a network of partnerships with local governments, advocacy groups, entrepreneurs, students and cultural leaders in the troubled immigrant enclaves outside France’s major cities.

Begun in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks as part of an effort to bolster the image of the United States within Muslim communities across the globe, American outreach in these hard neighborhoods — often referred to collectively as the “banlieues,” or suburbs — has grown in scale and visibility since the election of Barack Obama.

France is home to between 5 million and 6 million Muslims, Europe’s largest Muslim population, and the banlieues have long been considered potential incubators for religious extremism. But anti-American sentiment, once pervasive in these neighborhoods, seems to have been all but erased since the election of Obama, who has proved a powerful symbol of hope here and a powerful diplomatic tool.

Many suggest the Americans’ warm reception is a measure of these communities’ sense of abandonment. Others say it is the presence of Obama in the White House. Whatever the case, the United States is now more popular in the banlieues than at any time in recent memory, say French and American officials.

Much of the embassy’s outreach is meant to dispel “mistruths” about the United States, the ambassador, Charles H. Rivkin, said in an interview, adding: “It’s easier to hate something you don’t understand.”

With an annual public affairs budget of about $3 million, the Paris embassy has sponsored a variety of urban renewal projects, music festivals and conferences. Since Obama’s election, the Americans have helped organize seminars for minority politicians, coaching them in electoral strategy, fund-raising and communications.

The International Visitor Leadership Program, which sends 20 to 30 promising French entrepreneurs and politicians to America for several weeks each year, now includes more minority participants, and Muslims in particular. The embassy began a similar program for French teenagers.

Rivkin, 48, an entertainment executive and the youngest American ambassador to France in nearly 60 years, has taken a strong interest in the banlieues. Earlier this year, he thrilled a group of students in Bondy when he arrived with the actor Samuel L. Jackson, one of several entertainment industry contacts he has called upon in France. In Los Angeles, Rivkin cultivated ties between the family media and hip-hop worlds; in Paris, he has hosted local rappers at the Hotel Rothschild, his official residence.

Officials insist the outreach is not meant solely to curry favor for the United States; the Americans also see an emerging group of political and business elites in these neighborhoods. The embassy is “trying to connect with the next generation of leaders in France,” Rivkin said. “That includes the banlieues.”

Few French leaders speak in such hopeful terms.

Residents “have the sense that the United States looks upon our areas with much more deference and respect,” said Roger, the Bondy mayor. For electoral reasons, he said, French politicians exaggerate the violence and criminality here.

Ministerial excursions to the banlieues often entail a crushing police presence and vows to crack down on crime. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who as interior minister pledged to clean up one of these cities with a high-pressure hose, typically spends his time here consulting with law enforcement officials.

Although often criticized as not serious about stemming the violence, poverty and unemployment that plague the banlieues, the French government commits $5 billion annually to these cities, according to Fadela Amara, the secretary of state for urban policy. Since 2003, she said, the state has pledged more than $16 billion to a nationwide urban reconstruction program.

Residents and local politicians say this is nowhere near enough, although they add that money alone will not solve the problems.

“Do you know what it means to give recognition in the suburbs?” asked Aziz Senni, 34, the founder of a taxi service and an investment fund dedicated to spurring economic development in the banlieues, where he was raised. “It’s worth as much as gold.”

A Moroccan-born Muslim, Senni traveled to the United States in 2006 as a participant in the visitor program. He was effusive in his praise for the outreach and the optimism it has spread. “Never has France had this type of approach,” he said.

Senni spoke of feeling “stigmatized” by French leaders. A law banning the full facial veil, a government-led “debate on national identity” and a recent proposal to revoke French nationality from certain criminals “of foreign origin” have been widely felt as attacks on immigrants and Muslims here.

“The emerging elite in the suburbs doesn’t see itself in the way it’s being treated by French society,” said Nordine Nabili, 43, who directs the newly opened Bondy branch of a journalism school, ESJ Lille; he hosted Rivkin and Jackson there in April.

“You’re the future,” Jackson told the students.

Nabili said: “I don’t think people tell them that enough.” He worries the Americans may be raising hopes too high, however. Beyond good feelings, he said, “there really needs to be a true policy.”

Rivkin called such concerns unfounded. “From my vantage point, this embassy has not been peddling false dreams,” he said. “Anything is possible, if you put your mind to it and work hard enough.”

Widad Ketfi, 25, was among the students who met Rivkin and Jackson earlier this year. “We won’t be disappointed,” she insisted. The American attention is proof that “these young people are succeeding,” she said, that “we’re not invisible.”

Meanwhile Back in Syria, Destruction

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Extremists destroy 13th century Muslim tomb in Syria

Nusra Front Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda have blown up the 13th century tomb of a revered Islamic scholar in southern Syria, Syrian state news agency SANA and monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported.

The mausoleum of Imam Nawawi is in Nawa in Deraa province near the Jordanian border, a town captured by groups fighting the Syrian government in November.

The Nusra Front follows the same puritanical interpretation of Sunni Islam adopted by the Islamic State group that has also destroyed shrines in areas of eastern and northern Syria that it controls. They see tombs as sacrilegious.

Investigators confident that chlorine gas was used in 3 Syrian villages

UNITED NATIONS — Chemical weapons investigators concluded “with a high degree of confidence” that chlorine gas was used as a weapon against three opposition-controlled villages in Syria last year, affecting between 350 and 500 people and killing 13, according to a report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

The third report by a fact-finding mission from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons didn’t apportion blame but said 32 of 37 people interviewed “saw or heard the sound of a helicopter over the village at the time of the attack with barrel bombs containing toxic chemicals.”

The investigators said 26 people heard the distinctive “whistling” sound of the falling barrel bombs containing toxic chemicals and 16 visited the impact sites and saw the bombs or their remnants. They said 29 people smelled “the distinctive odor of the gas cloud” released after the bombs hit the ground, mainly describing it “as intense, chlorine-like, similar to cleaning material used to clean toilets, but much stronger.”

The report includes a description of 142 videos and 189 pieces of material obtained by the investigators as well as photos of impact sites and the inner chlorine cylinder from a barrel bomb.

The mission was established by the OPCW on April 29 to establish the facts surrounding allegations of the use of chlorine “for hostile purposes” in Syria. Chlorine gas is readily available and is used in industry around the world, but it can also be used as a weapon.

The U.N. Security Council has been intensely involved in the issue of alleged chemical weapons use in Syria. After an August 2013 sarin gas attack near Damascus in which the U.S. says more than 1,400 people were killed, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution backed by the U.S. and Russia on Sept. 27, 2013, ordering Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile to be destroyed. U.N. investigators could not find enough evidence to assess blame for the sarin attack. Syria’s declared chemical weapons stockpiles have since been destroyed under international supervision, but questions remain about whether it may still be hiding deadly chemical agents.

Chlorine gas is not listed as a chemical weapon. But eight council members, including the United States, said in a Dec. 30 letter accompanying the OPCW report that the 2013 resolution also states that any use of chemical weapons threatens international peace and security and must be condemned.

The 15 council members discussed the fact-finding mission’s report behind closed doors Tuesday, and diplomats said the U.S. and other Western nations who signed the letter along with Jordan urged Security Council action in response to the findings. But Russia, Syria’s closest ally, insisted that the report on chlorine attacks was an issue for the OPCW, which polices the Chemical Weapons Convention, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because consultations were private.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad told an OPCW meeting on Dec. 1 that his government has never used chemical weapons or chlorine gas during the country’s four-year civil war, which has claimed over 200,000 lives and displaced one third of the country’s population. He said terror groups “have used chlorine gas in several of the regions of Syria and Iraq.”

But U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power tweeted that “only Syrian regime uses (helicopters).” She also tweeted that the Syrian “Regime must be shown it is not enough to destroy declared CW (chemical weapons); must stop dropping chemical-laden explosives on civilians.”

The investigators interviewed 14 people from the village of Talmenes in Idlib governorate about barrel bomb attacks on April 21 and April 24. At two houses that were hit, a 7-year-old boy, a teenage girl, and the matriarch of a family died from exposure to chlorine gas, they said. Domestic animals including cows, goats and sheep also died at both houses.

Fourteen people from the village of Al Tamanah, also in Idlib, were interviewed by the mission’s investigators about five incidents in April and May – all but one at night. Eight members of two families who had sought refuge in the village died shortly after separate attacks involving the toxic chemical, the report said.

Investigators said they interviewed nine people from Kafr Zita in Hama Governorate in northern Syria and were told that the village had been the target of hundreds of attacks with conventional weapons and 17 attacks using toxic chemicals between April and August.