Tampa, Florida -- On November 4th 2016 Green Berets Matthew Lewellen, Kevin McEnroe, and James Moriarty assigned to 5th Special Forces Group based out of Ft. Campbell, KY approached the Prince Faisal Airbase in Jordan in their vehicle along with one Jordanian military officer. They were assigned the IA mission, meaning inter-agency, as a part of the CIA’s Timber Sycamore covert … [Read more…]
General Cirilito “Lito” Sobejana joined the Golan Heights United Nations mission in 2013 as the Chief of Staff of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) responsible for ensuring that Syria and Israel do not violate the Agreement on Disengagement that they signed at the end of the 1973 Yom-Kippur War. For Sobejana and his Philippine peacekeepers, it was far from their … [Read more…]
Not content with the dumpster fire of a book deal recently cancelled with Milo Yiannopoulos, Simon and Schuster has signed a book deal for Bana Alabed's story. Presumably, the book deal is with her English speaking parents as the seven-year-old girl who became the public face of the Syrian civil war could not enter into a legal agreement nor could she write the Tweets she … [Read more…]
When I watched the documentary "White Helmets" I was somewhat less impressed than the Oscars apparently were. This week, the White Helmets documentary took home an Oscar for best documentary in the short subject category. The documentary is about a group of Syrians who wear white protective helmets and rescue civilians from bombed out buildings. As near as I could tell, … [Read more…]
Several Syrian Islamist factions including al Qaeda's former branch in the country said on Saturday they were joining forces, as clashes between jihadists and more moderate rebels raged on in northwestern areas. An online statement issued by the Islamist factions announced the formation of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Liberation of the Levant Committee). It said the alliance … [Read more…]
A powerful jihadist group has crushed a Free Syrian Army rebel faction in northwestern Syria, in an attack that threatens to deal a critical blow to the more moderate wing of the Syrian rebellion and derail new Russian-backed peace talks. The Jabhat Fateh al-Sham jihadist group, formerly known as the Nusra Front, launched an attack on a number of FSA groups in northwestern … [Read more…]
Danny Makki is a journalist and fixer who works within Syria. I met him on my recent trip to Damascus and thought that this recent article he wrote from the front lines of Deir al-zour would be of interest to our readers. Danny also works on a track type two initiative between Syria and the U.K. and holds a M.A in Middle East Politics from the School of Oriental and African … [Read more…]
Did al-Qaeda orchestrate a mass chemical attack on Damascus’ water supply? Did the Syrian government bomb its own water station? The final battle to oust control of a key water facility from insurgents is now underway and the fog of war is thick as civilians attempt to ration this most basic element of survival. Over four million people in the greater Damascus area spent … [Read more…]
I was in my senior year of high school when 9/11 happened. Al-Qaeda was behind the attack, and we were now at war. I joined the Army and served in American special operations units in Iraq and Afghanistan. There, I got to see the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other jihadi militants up close, confirming beyond any shadow of a doubt that these guys are scumbags. I got out of the Army in … [Read more…]
Now that Aleppo is all but wrapped up from a military point of view, we can buckle up and get ready to do it all over again in Idlib and Raqqa. This isn't a mistake, but rather part of a strategy. You may have noticed that whenever the Syrian regime, the Kurds, or others pushed Al-Nusra out of their strongholds that they would flee to their de facto Caliphate capital in … [Read more…]
A recent CIA briefing given to the Senate indicating that the Russian intelligence services sought to manipulate US elections to favor President Elect Donald Trump has ignited a firestorm across the political spectrum, however, it also signals something far more perilous: a brewing civil war between the incoming president and what will be his primary source of strategic … [Read more…]
A "senior al-Qaeda leader" in Syria was killed last week by a US air strike, according to the Pentagon. The killing of Egyptian Abu Afghan al-Masri took place near Sarmada, located in Syria's Idlib province, on November 18, Pentagon spokesperson Peter Cook told reporters on Tuesday. Cook said that Masri had originally joined al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and later moved to its … [Read more…]
