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British police have identified more than 200 witnesses and are looking at more than 240 pieces of evidence in their investigation into a nerve agent attack on a Russian ex-spy and his daughter, UK interior minister Amber Rudd said on Saturday. Ms Rudd told reporters after chairing a meeting of the government’s Cobra security committee that more than 250 counter-terrorism police were involved in the investigation, which was proceeding with “speed and professionalism”. Former double agent Sergei Skripal (66) and his daughter Yulia (33) have been in hospital in a critical condition since Sunday, when they were found unconscious on...

Amir draws a parallel with the story of Esther and the right that the Bible gives to Israel to employ a preemptive strike, which is what Israel will do if necessary. In Syria, Su-57s and other planes continue to bombard the people of Ghouta on the premise that there are rebels in the area. The recent report to the UN that North Korea has been involved in sending chemical weapons and the means to manufacture them to Syria is discussed. This report is not yet public but has been seen by the members of the Security Council and some of...

Britain would consider joining US military strikes against the Syrian government if there is evidence chemical weapons are being used against civilians, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Tuesday. Johnson said he hoped Britain and other Western nations would not stand by in the event of a chemical attack, voicing support for limited strikes if there is "incontrovertible evidence" of the Syrian's government involvement. "If we know that it has happened, and we can demonstrate it, and if there is a proposal for action where the UK could be useful then I think we should seriously consider it," Johnson told...

In recent weeks, rescue workers, aid groups and the United States have accused Syria of repeatedly using chlorine gas, which it possesses legally for uses such as water purification, as a chemical weapon against civilians in Ghouta and Idlib. France, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has struggled to wield influence on Syria. Critics who accuse Macron of inaction say he has not given a clear definition of whether use of chlorine would for him constitute a chemical attack. On Tuesday, the vice-president of the Syria Civil Defence, or “White Helmets”, volunteer force said France should stop talking...

Russia has been playing games with innocent lives by undermining the ability to get at the truth regarding who is responsible for unleashing horrendous chemical attacks in Syria The mandate of an international expert panel investigating use of chemical weapons in Syria, known as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), has expired. JIM was established by the United Nations Security Council, unanimously, in 2015 to identify “to the greatest extent feasible” individuals, entities, groups or governments perpetrating, organizing, sponsoring or otherwise involved in the use of chemicals as weapons in Syria. With its...

Israeli jets have reportedly targeted a suspected chemical weapons factory in western Syria. The Syrian National Army said four IAF warplanes hit a military site in Hama province, near Masyaf, in the early hours of Thursday morning, killing two soldiers and causing massive damage. It is believed the site was linked to the sarin gas attack in April, which UN investigators said was the work of the Syrian government. The UN confirmed the chemical attacks in Khan Sheikhoun, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians and prompted a US missile attack, were perpetrated by Assad regime forces. Israel...

Syria confirms: Israel targeted military facility killing two-Opposition forces say four Israeli planes hit plant in Masyar-Incident comes amid massive Israeli drill, weeks after outgoing air force chief admits Israel targets Hezbollah convoys. The Israeli military struck Thursday a chemical arms plant in Syria, foreign media reports claimed. The Syrian army general command confirmed in a statement the attack on what they called a military facility, and said that two people were killed and extensive damage was caused. Israel refused to comment on the reports. A Syrian military statement said that at 2:40 A.M. Israeli warplanes struck the site from...

North Korea shipments to Syria chemical arms agency intercepted: U.N. report UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Two North Korean shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for the country's chemical weapons program were intercepted in the past six months, according to a confidential United Nations report on North Korea sanctions violations. The report by a panel of independent U.N. experts, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month and seen by Reuters on Monday, gave no details on when or where the interdictions occurred or what the shipments contained. "The panel is investigating reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile...

Said the President: "For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and, at times, a policy-making arm of the Government. ... [T]his quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue."This dire warning about the propensity of the Central Intelligence Agency to go rogue came from Harry S. Truman.Truman's call to "limit the CIA role to intelligence" was published in December 22, 1963, by the Washington...

The international chemical weapons watchdog confirmed Friday that sarin gas was used in the deadly April attack on a Syria town that left more than 80 people dead. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it deployed a team within 24 hours to collect samples, attend autopsies and interview witnesses. Due to security risks, the team was not able to be on the ground in the Khan Shaykhun area where the attack took place, but traveled to a "neighboring country" to conduct its work.

The United Nations has been serving as an enabler of North Korea’s chemical program The United Nations finds itself in one embarrassing situation after the other. Here are just a handful of recent examples. The United Nations has been serving as an enabler of North Korea’s chemical program, according to a recent exclusive report by Fox News. “For more than a year,” Fox News reported, “a United Nations agency in Geneva has been helping North Korea prepare an international patent application for production of sodium cyanide—a chemical used to make the nerve gas Tabun—which has been on a list of...

<p>His friends call him Abu Amin, 'the father of honesty'. At 43, he is one of Iraq's most highly decorated intelligence officers: a special forces veteran who organised killings behind Iranian lines during the first Gulf war, who then went on to a senior post in the unit known as 'M8' - the department for 'special operations', such as sabotage, terrorism and murder. This is the man, Colonel Muhammed Khalil Ibrahim al-Ani, whom Mohamed Atta flew halfway across the world to meet in Prague last April, five months before piloting his hijacked aircraft into the World Trade Centre.</p>

Get ready for more red-lining from Bashar al-Assad. Despite claims from Russia and the Syrian dictator himself that he fully disarmed his chemical-weapons program, a high-ranking defector tells the UK Telegraph that Assad still has hundreds of tons of those munitions stockpiled for use by his military. General Zaher al-Sakat says that includes sarin gas, the munitions used against a village in Idlib province that provoked a military strike from the US in reprisal (via Guy Benson): President Bashar al-Assad continues to retain hundreds of tonnes of his country’s chemical stockpile after deceiving United Nations inspectors sent in to dismantle...

An Iraqi military officer says Islamic State militants have launched a gas attack in a newly-liberated area in western Mosul.

Sean Spicer has spent the past two days apologizing for saying that Adolf Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons. Unfortunately for MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, that led to people remembering he’d said said the exact same thing back in 2013. In an August 27, 2013 appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Matthews seemed displeased with Obama’s “red-line” policy in Syria and offhandedly mentioned that Hitler “didn’t use chemical weapons.” “We didn’t use [chemical weapons] in World War II, Hitler didn’t use them,” Matthews said at the time. “But we don’t use chemical weapons. That’s no deal.” Matthews then pondered what could stop a...

Update 2:  The Pentgaon has admitted to mistakenly killing 18 Syrians in an airstrike on April 11th... U.S.-LED COALITION AIR STRIKE IN SYRIA MISTAKENLY KILLED 18 SYRIAN DEMOCRATIC FORCES PERSONNEL ON APRIL 11 -PENTAGON - CENTCOM says strike near Taqbah accidentally killed 18 Syrian Democratic Forces fighters on April 11. Had been identified as ISIS position. pic.twitter.com/vUXC8ueek7— Erin Cunningham (@erinmcunningham) April 13, 2017   Update 1: Russia has reportedly dispatched drones to the area to confirm Syria's reports. The Russian military said that it has no information confirming the reports of death as a result of the US-led coalition's...

The Obama administration claimed that it negotiated with Syria and Russia to eliminate "100 percent" of Syria's chemical weapons. After President Barack Obama's 2012 "red line" warning to Syria about using chemical weapons, Syria launched a chemical attack in August 2013. But U.S. military action was avoided by the alleged Russian/American/Syrian diplomatic accomplishment, achieved without "firing a shot." Here's what we were told: President Obama, on April 28, 2014: "We're getting chemical weapons out of Syria without having initiated a strike." Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., crowed on June 1, 2014: "We're getting the chemical weapons out of Syria." And Sen....

Alan Dershowitz, a prominent Harvard Law School professor and liberal author, slammed the Democratic National Committee as hypocritical for politicizing White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s Hitler gaffe while ignoring its own problem with anti-Semitism. Mr. Dershowitz said on “CNN Tonight” that he’s willing to give Mr. Spicer “a pass” after the press secretary initially suggested during a briefing Tuesday, which also marked Passover, that Adolf Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons during WWII. “What happened here is the guy screwed up,” Mr. Dershowitz said, according to a clip published by Real Clear Politics. “He apologized, and he apologized from his...

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley gave a speech today in which she sharply criticized Russia, saying it was “long past time” for them to stop covering for the Assad regime in Syria. “To my colleagues from Russia, you are isolating yourselves from the international community every time one of Assad’s planes drop another barrel bomb on civilians and every time Assad tries to starve another community to death,” Haley said. “People, not just in the West but across the Middle East and the world are speaking out against Assad’s brutality,” she said. She continued, “It is long...

Press Secretary Sean Spicer went on CNN to fight for his job after favorably comparing Adolf Hitler with Bashar al-Assad at today's White House briefing. Spicer had said unlike the Syrian strongman, the 1940s Nazi dictator 'didn't even sink to ... using chemical weapons,' leaving reporters in disbelief and causing some critics to call for his head. 'I apologize, it was a mistake to do that,' Spicer said to the network's Wolf Blitzer, whose own parents survived the Holocaust. Blitzer's paternal grandparents were killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz.