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A U.S.-backed Syrian-Kurdish militia, a number of Arab rebel groups and an Assyrian Christian group in Syria have formed a coalition to build a democratic representation for a number of moderate parties within Syria, according to a statement seen by Reuters on Monday. The new alliance, which is calling itself the Democratic Forces of Syria, includes the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that beat back the Islamic State (ISIS) with the support of U.S. airstrikes in the Syrian-Kurdish border town of Kobani earlier this year. The YPG continues to battle the radical Islamist group in areas of northeastern Syria and...

Britain and its western allies should be prepared to enforce a no-fly zone inside Syria to protect refugees even if Russia vetoes a UN resolution, the Labour co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Syria has said. Jo Cox, working in conjunction with the former Conservative international development secretary Andrew Mitchell, is pressing the British government to develop a new comprehensive diplomatic political and military strategy focused on protecting Syrian civilians against attacks both by Isis and Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

Hala Jaber ‏@HalaJaber 45m45 minutes ago Let's shave... Photo apparently showing left over beards shaved off by rebels running 4m #Syria. 38 retweets 17 favorites

إبراهيم الحسيني ‏@homsian Many reports indicate that #Russia|n troops are building a base in the well known Krak des Chevaliers west of #Homs

America's power is being tested to a greater extent, than in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961. Russia is attacking the Al-Qaeda linked terrorist organization, the Free Syrian Army, which is a so-called ally of America. China indicated that it will join the military strikes against the anti-Assad forces, because China considers Assad as an ally: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/100915-774990-china-joining-russia-to-humiliate-us-weakened-by-obama.htm China is now ready to fight to defend its unilateral control of the Spratley Islands in the South China Sea. Does America have enough military power to defeat a combined force of Russia and China?

On Friday, we reported the latest provocation in what has truly become a very dangerous, if largely pointless, staring contest between Beijing and Washington over China’s reclamation of land in The South China Sea. Responding to suggestions that the US was set to sail warships around the islands Beijing has constructed atop reefs in the Spratlys, China served noticed that it would “never allow any country to violate China's territorial waters and airspace in the Spratly Islands, in the name of protecting freedom of navigation and overflight.” This was simply a formalized version of the more concise phrasing the PLA...

Syrian Kurdish Leader: Moscow Wants to Work With Us A senior Kurdish leader is in Washington seeking support and expressing ambivalence about Russian intervention. Oct. 9, 2015 | 12:12 p.m. EDT By: Barbara Slavin, Washington Correspondent for Al-Monitor A Syrian Kurdish leader in Washington this week seeking greater US military support says that Russia has also offered to collaborate with Syrian Kurds in its current offensive against Muslim terrorist groups. Ilham Ehmed, a senior member of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), told Al-Monitor in a brief interview Oct. 8 that "Russia says it wants to work with us" to combat...

U.S. military cargo planes gave 50 tons of ammunition to rebel groups overnight in northern Syria, using an air drop of 112 pallets as the first step in the Obama Administration's urgent effort to find new ways to support those groups. Details of the air mission over Syria were confirmed by a U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly because the details have not yet been formally announced.

Iraqi officials claim that their air forces struck the convoy of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as well as a meeting of other ISIS leaders in western Iraq yesterday. The US is skeptical that Baghdadi got hit, and ISIS sources flat-out deny it, but the Iraqis insist that they at least hit the self-styled caliph in the air strike. Reuters reports that the Iraqis claim they got eight ISIS leaders at the meeting, at least: Eight senior figures from Islamic State were killed in an air strike while meeting in a town in western Iraq, but the group’s reclusive leader Abu...

Agence France-Presse Monday 12 October 2015 01.22 EDT Russian police foil 'terror attack' on Moscow after making arrests in city A group of people said to be planning an attack on Moscow have been taken into custody, anti-terrorism forces said, and 4kg of explosives seized Russian police have arrested a group of people they said were planning a terror attack on Moscow, the country’s anti-terrorism committee said. “After a series of investigations by the security services, a group of individuals was arrested in the west of Moscow suspected of planning a terrorist attack on the capital,” the committee was quoted...

Hitting Back 10.12.151:03 AM ET Written by Austin Bodetti, David Axe Syria Rebels Plan Suicide Attacks on Russians The Homs Liberation Movement, a Free Syrian Army faction close to al Qaeda, plans to infiltrate the Syrian military to find where the Russians are—and blow them up. After more than a week of Russian aerial attacks, Syrian rebels plan to hit back with double agents and suicide bombers. “First, we will endure the violent aerial bombardment, then move to weaken Russia by all means available, such as recruiting agents in the ranks of the regime to provide us with the movements...

Atheistocracy By Lowell Ponte FrontPageMagazine.com | March 16, 2004 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND WAS BORN because King Henry VIII was religiously forbidden to marry as he wished. The United States today and much of the rest of the former British Empire is today predominantly Protestant, not Roman Catholic, because of this schism caused by one man’s divorce and re-marriage. But today the Church of England, with 70 million Anglican Communicants worldwide, may be on the verge of breaking apart over the issue of who may marry whom. If the Anglican and closely related Episcopal churches accept, perform or sanctify same-sex...

Russian warplanes pounded Syrian rebels unaffiliated with Islamic State on Sunday, insurgents said, helping Moscow's ally Bashar al-Assad reclaim territory and dealing a fresh setback to the strategy of Washington and its allies. President Vladimir Putin - who has infuriated Assad's enemies in the United States, Europe, Turkey and the Arab world by bombing the rebels to protect him - reached out to one of the Syrian leader's fiercest opponents by meeting the powerful defense minister of Saudi Arabia. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the 4-year-old conflict, said the Syrian military and its Lebanese Hezbollah...

The chances of escalation from a proxy war to outright war just went to 11 on the Spinal Tap amplifier of sabre-rattling. A day after British and NATO pilots were reportedly given the green light to take drastic action against Russian fighter jets if they come under threat during missions over Iraq, Interfax reports that the Russian Defense Ministry has demanded clarification. Senior defence sources say it is just a matter of time before our fighters are involved in a deadly confrontation with Russian jets. The Chinese, it appears, are wholeheartedly behind Putin's efforts, judging by the following puff-piece from...

Dr. Ben Carson has joined the growing chorus of outrage over Russian President Vladimir Putin's military muscle flexing, telling Newsmax TV a no-fly zone should be created along the Turkish border. A sophisticated missile defense system should also be put in place to keep Russia's fighter jets in check, according to Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon seeking the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. "Vladimir Putin has expansionist ideas. He wants to really re-establish a worldwide Soviet influence," Carson told Newsmax TV's Steve Malzberg in an interview aired Thursday. "He was very unhappy with the dissolution [of the Soviet Union]. Now he's...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has declared in a little-noticed TV interview that the United States should go to war against Russia, merely to block a flood of Muslim immigrants that can otherwise be stopped by a few European border guards. Rubio wants to create a “No Fly” zone over Syria to prevent the Syrian air force from bombing rebel and civilian targets. Any Russian sortie into the no-fly-zone would be “no different than any other adversary,” Rubio said Oct. 5 in a CNBC interview. His urge to shoot down Russian aircraft is a sharp break in the nation’s national security...

Recent reports indicate Russia is bolstering its arsenal of missiles, submarines and bombers — a move that violates the New START arms treaty. THIS is what we know! According to the Washington Free Beacon, Russia’s nuclear arsenal how has over 100 nuclear warheads above the limit set by the treaty. Since the treaty was launched, Russia has deployed 111 new nuclear warheads, bringing its total number of deployed warheads to 1,648. That treaty limit is 1,150 warheads — a number that must be reached in 2018. Comparatively, the numbers of U.S. nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers have fallen dramatically and...

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Islamic State registered significant gains on Friday in the area of northwestern Syria that Russian warplanes have been bombing, taking six villages near Aleppo and threatening to cut off an important route north to the Turkish border. Late in the day, there were reports that rebels had reasserted control in one village. The Kremlin has said its military had entered Syria to fight the Islamic State, but the Russian forces have concentrated much of their firepower on insurgent groups aligned against President Bashar al-Assad, including the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, and relatively secular...

Sometime this week, President Obama is scheduled to sign an executive order to meet the Oct. 15 “adoption day” he has set for the nuclear deal he says he has made with Iran. According to the president’s timetable the next step would be “the start day of implementation,” fixed for Dec. 15. But as things now stand, Obama may end up being the only person in the world to sign his much-wanted deal, in effect making a treaty with himself. The Iranians have signed nothing and have no plans for doing so. The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)...

Russia would not deploy ground troops to Syria, where it has been conducting air strikes against what it says are ISIS targets, President Vladimir Putin said Sunday. “We are not planning on doing this (conducting a ground operation), and our Syrian friends know about this,” Putin said in an interview broadcast on state-run Rossiya-1 television channel. He also said Russia does not want to get involved in an inter-religious war in Syria. He also explained that Russia does not see a difference between Sunni and Shiite groups.