Wars and Rumors

The USS Mesa Verde with 550 Marines onboard has entered the Persian Gulf on Monday for a possible operation in Iraq. It comes after President Obama ruled out sending ground troops to the militant-assaulted country. [Before he ruled them back in.] The USS Mesa Verde is a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, a ship designed to carry an expeditionary force across the sea and deploy landing craft and helicopters. … Washington already dispatched the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush to the Gulf on Saturday.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group of Islamic militants currently overrunning several large Iraqi cities, posted gruesome photos of what it boasted was a large massacre of up to 1,700 Iraqi prisoners and soldiers. The photos show ISIS soldiers marching men to roadside graves and shooting them while they lay face down in the dirt…

One of the five senior Taliban leaders transferred to Qatar in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl played a key role in al Qaeda’s plans leading up to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mohammad Fazl, who served as the Taliban’s army chief of staff and deputy defense minister prior to his detention at Guantánamo, did not have a hand in planning the actual 9/11 hijackings. Along with a notorious al Qaeda leader, however, Fazl did help coordinate a military offensive against the enemies of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan the day before. And Osama bin Laden viewed that September 10 offensive as an essential part of al Qaeda’s 9/11 plot.

Fighters from Kurdish regions are mobilizing to stop the threat of Islamist militants who are advancing across parts of Syria and central Iraq from reaching their own nearby territories.

Northern Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG, and the Kurdistan Communities Union, which controls the Kurd-dominated region of northeastern Syria, both pledged Wednesday to resist the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, as the group extended dramatic military gains

The Obama administration isn’t only giving the Taliban back its commanders — it’s giving them weapons... Miliary records and sources reveal that on July 25, 2012, Taliban fighters in Kunar province successfully targeted a US Army CH-47 helicopter with a new generation Stinger missile.

…in the eyes of the British media and foreign office Israel is at fault; astoundingly, it is apparently Israel which is responsible for inflaming the situation, not the Palestinians. Never mind the 120 rockets in four days or the 50 further rockets this evening, including 17 Grads fired at the city of Beersheva; or that since the beginning of 2011, 1,100 rocket have been fired on Israeli targets, 797since the beginning of this year; or that a staggering 5274 rockets have been fired from Gaza at southern Israel since 2006. … Never mind the fact that this current round of violence started when an Israeli Defence Force jeep was attacked by an anti-tank missile, wounding four IDF soldiers. Never mind that Hamas have hidden rocket launchers under civilian homes in Gaza, thus once again turning the Palestinian population into human shields.

For Ike, it was Lebanon’s civil war and Israel’s Sinai invasion. For Lyndon Johnson, it was the 1967 Six-Day War. For Nixon, it was the 1973 war. For Carter, it was the Iranian Revolution. For Ronald Reagan, it was Lebanon. For George H.W. Bush, it was Iraq. For Bill Clinton, it was Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. For George W. Bush, it was Iraq and Afghanistan. For Barack Obama’s first term, it was Iran and Afghanistan, again. And for Obama’s second term, I fear that it could be the full nightmare — all of them at once. The whole Middle East erupts in one giant sound and light show of civil wars, states collapsing and refugee dislocations, as the keystone of the entire region — Syria — gets pulled asunder and the disorder spills across the neighborhood.

We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother." I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.' —Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, quoted by David Hirst

Israel is bracing for terrorist attacks perfectly understandable spontaneous reactions to a video

Fixed!

Army bombs multiple terror targets in the Gaza Strip, killing up to six, as Operation Pillar of Defense commences against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets; Hamas’s armed wing warns assassination of top activist has ‘opened the gates of hell’

Israeli military experts have concluded that a conventional strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities may fail, and have been forced to change their plans accordingly…. Defense experts claim Israel have two options, either deploy special forces on the ground, or use ballistic missiles with tactical nuclear warheads….

The greatest satisfaction today over the re-election of Obama… is surely being felt in Iran. With four more years of Obama in the White House, Iran can now be sure that it will be able to complete its infernal construction of a genocide bomb to use against the Jews and the west. World War Three has now come a lot closer. … Romney lost because he refused to provide an alternative to any of this for fear of being labelled a warmonger, flint-heart or social reactionary. He refused to engage with any of the issues that made this Presidential election so truly momentous. Up against the bullying of the totalitarian left, he ran for cover. He played safe, and as a result only advertised his own weakness and dishonesty. Well, voters can smell inconsistency from a mile away; they call it untrustworthiness, and they are right. Romney lost because, like Britain’s Conservative Party, the Republicans just don’t understand that America and the west are being consumed by a culture war. In their cowardice and moral confusion, they all attempt to appease the enemies within. And from without, the Islamic enemies of civilisation stand poised to occupy the void. …

Terrorist groups have acquired a "container" to smuggle uranium undetected past the global network of sensors to prevent a dirty bomb, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has warned. [War News Updates editor comments: "When reading stories like this one, one cannot help but feel that it will only be a matter of time before a terror group is successful in a 'dirty bomb' attack."]

North Korea on Tuesday warned that the U.S. mainland is within range of its missiles, and said Washington's recent agreement to let Seoul possess missiles capable of hitting all of the North shows the allies are plotting to invade the country.