SYRIA UPDATE

New batch of displaced Syrians return from Jordan camps through Nassib crossing

A new batched of displaced Syrians returned from camps in Jordan through the Nassib-Jaber border crossing.

SANA’s reporter at the crossing said a number of families arrived through the crossing on Wednesday and headed to their homes in the areas liberated from terrorism.

https://sana.sy/en/?p=156360

Syrian Army Repelled Large Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Attack In Idlib De-Escalation Zone: Russian Military

According to the Russian military, about 150-200 militants supported by 15-20 vehicles equipped with machine guns attacked SAA positions in the areas of Abu al-Duhur and Abu Sharja. They also employed at least one suicide vehicle borne explosive device. The militants overrun the first line of defense and penetrated about 1.5-2 km deep into the SAA-controlled area.

Then, the military deployed reinforcements with support of artillery units SAA troops repelled the advance and forced militants to withdraw from the recently captured positions.

According to pro-SAA sources, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham members suffered significant casualties.

https://southfront.org/syrian-army-repelled-large-hayat-tahrir-al-sham-attack-in-idlib-de-escalation-zone-russian-military/

Jordan Opens Main Border Crossing With Syria, Upgrades Diplomatic Ties

“Today is a celebration for us and I wanted to be among the first to cross the border,” said Syrian businessman Mohammed Hisham, who resides in Jordan.

Jordanian taxi driver Imad Sariheen called the reopening of Jaber a source of “great happiness for all of us” which will help ease “economic hardships” caused by the closure of the crossing.

“Our conditions have worsened over the past years. Our work (driving taxis) was halted because of the closure of the border between Jordan and Syria,” he added.

https://southfront.org/jordan-opens-main-border-crossing-with-syria-upgrades-diplomatic-ties/

ISIS Ambushes Syrian Soldiers Near Al-Tanaf

A military source told SouthFront that four Syrian soldiers and officers were killed in the ambush. The casualties were reportedly serving in the Sixth Regiment of the army’s Border Guards.

Last week, the SAA killed two ISIS fighters in the area of al-Hublah between al-Tanaf and the Damascus desert. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said that the two terrorists were trying to reach residential areas south of the historical city of Palmyra in eastern Homs.

According to the available information, hundreds of ISIS fighters and commanders are currently hiding between the Damascus desert, al-Tanaf and Homs desert. These fighters, most of whom are foreigners, are highly-experienced and well-equipped.

https://southfront.org/isis-ambushes-syrian-soldiers-near-al-tanaf/

ISIS Defense In Euphrates Valley Collapses Following Months Of Battles

According to Kurdish sources, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) liberated the towns of al-Baghuz al-Fawqani and Shajlah on January 23. The remaining terrorists are currently besieged inside the very last positions of ISIS in the town of Murashida, which is currently under attack.

https://southfront.org/isis-defense-in-euphrates-valley-collapses-following-months-of-battles-map-video/

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>>4877620

Syrian War Report – Jan. 23, 2019: Syria Threatens To Strike ‘Tel Aviv Airport’

Image

https://southfront.org/syrian-war-report-jan-23-2019-syria-threatens-to-strike-tel-aviv-airport/

Missiles and weapons left behind terrorists found in Damascus Countryside

The seized weapons included various types of RPGs, anti-tank missiles , including 14 LAW missiles, Western –made sniper rifles and more than 2,000,00 rounds of machineguns and rifles, in addition to a satellite transmitter and a number of machinegun binoculars.

https://sana.sy/en/?p=156368

Israel must stop 'spontaneous' Syria strikes: Russia

"The practice of spontaneous strikes on the territory of a sovereign state, in this case Syria, must end," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday, according to Russia's TASS state news agency.

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/01/23/586592/Russia-Zakharova-Syria-Israel-stop-attacks

Authorities seize antique picture before being smuggled on borders with Iraq

The picture, dating back to the Roman era, was extracted from the archaeological site of al-Salihiya in the western countryside of Boukamal.

https://sana.sy/en/?p=156379

Clashes Between SDF And Local Tribesmen Erupt In Western Raqqa

Local sources said that the victim Ahmad al-Zaban, who is a member of the prominent al-Bukhamis tribe, was killed because he rejected to joined the SDF’s ranks. Last year, the US-backed began imposing its forced conscription law in the Arab areas under its control.

During the protests in al-Mansoura, the locals and members of the al-Bukhamis tribe clashed with the SDF’s security forces and burned their center. This forced the group to withdraw from the town.

https://southfront.org/clashes-between-sdf-and-local-tribesmen-erupt-in-western-raqqa/

WMD Take Two: Chemical Weapons Claims in Syria

Interesting read

https://www.globalresearch.ca/wmd-take-two-chemical-weapons-claims-syria/5666284

President Putin: fight against terrorism in Syria will continue

Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed on Wednesday that the fight against terrorism in Syria will continue until eliminating it completely, adding that the withdrawal of US troops from Syria will be a positive step towards the achievement of stability in the country. “Our stance is firm and we have to work according to UN resolution 2254, based on the respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria, ” Putin added.

https://sana.sy/en/?p=156399

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Pakistan’s Choice, The US Afghan Campaign: Totally Out-maneuvered by The Taliban

US Afghan Campaign continues to totter along undefined paths towards an as yet undetermined end state. The US is now not the only power dominating the strategic environment in Afghanistan; the Afghan Taliban/Haqqani Network (TTA/HN) have staked competing claims too. The aims, objectives and end states desired by both the main antagonists however remain patently divergent.

The US now seeks peace in the region with the help of Pakistan with KSA, UAE and Qatar in attendance.

US exit strategy is primarily predicated upon an early departure from Afghanistan leaving behind a “friendly” multiparty Afghan Government including representatives from the National Unity Government, (NUG). It would want to retain some influence and oversight in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Region, the South-Central Asian Region and the Greater Middle East Region by maintaining two military bases, one each at Bagram and Shorabak. The TTA/HN strategy on the other hand aims at acquiring sole and total control of Afghanistan post US withdrawal. It has completely sidelined the NUG and wants to represent the Afghan nation all by itself. It wants to deal with the NUG from a position of obvious strength once the US and its allies have departed from Afghanistan.

The TTA/HN has totally out-maneuvered the US in all aspects of the Afghan Campaign, military as well as diplomatic. It has not only fought the US-led foreign forces and the ANDSF to a stalemate on the battlefields but has also forced them to sue for peace. It has wrested the initiative and is negotiating from a clear position of strength in the peace process. It is now dictating its conduct including the location and duration of the parleys, its agenda and its participants, determinedly keeping the NUG out of the loop. The TTA/HN has emerged dominant in Afghanistan and wants to be the sole representatives of the Afghan nation in this decisive phase of US Afghan Campaign. For it, perhaps, Afghan-led, Afghan owned means TTA/HN led and TTA/HN owned! It will not share the spoils of victory, power that is, in the post US period with any one, least of all with those (NUG) that it considers as collaborators of the occupying forces.

Having realised the futility of trying to win a military victory the US is now willing to negotiate, literally wriggle its way out. It wanted Pakistan to bring the TTA/HN to the negotiating table. Pakistan delivered. Now it wants Pakistan to get it to talk to the NUG too. It is like not only bringing the horse to the water but making it drink too – a literal impossibility. That may be the limit of Pakistan’s influence on the TTA/HN which it must respect in this critical stage of the Afghan War. Talking to the NUG is anathema to the TTA/HN and Pakistan must not force them to a decision they do not like and lose its credentials with them in the process.

And that is where the peace process is currently stalled.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/pakistans-choice-the-us-afghan-campaign-totally-out-maneuvered-by-the-taliban/5666260

Pope Francis On Trump's Border Wall: Fear Of Migrants Is 'Making Us Crazy'

"It is the fear that makes us crazy"

A border wall with Mexico is the result of our craziness stemming from an irrational fear of migrants, according to Pope Francis.

Speaking with reporters aboard the papal plane while en route to Panama, the Holy Father was asked about Trump's proposed border wall, the funding for which has prompted the longest government shutdown in history.

"It is the fear that makes us crazy," Pope Francis said, reports Reuters, after reportedly calling the border wall a "folly."

The Roman Pontiff's comments come on the same day that President Trump declared that a new theme of the Republican Party will be building the wall to lower crime. Trump tweeted on Wednesday: "BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL! This is the new theme, for two years until the Wall is finished (under construction now), of the Republican Party. Use it and pray!"

BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL! This is the new theme, for two years until the Wall is finished (under construction now), of the Republican Party. Use it and pray!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2019

Pope Francis has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump's stance on immigration since he first announced his candidacy. During the 2016 campaign, Francis famously showed more hostility to the candidate promising a pro-life/pro-religious agenda than he did to the pro-abortion Hillary Clinton. At one point, the Pope suggested that President Trump is not even Christian for seeking to build walls.

"A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel," said Pope Francis of President Trump's policies.

The Pope never described Hillary Clinton in such a way, even as she had a representative of NARAL brag about her abortion at the DNC. When asked about how people should vote in the election, the Pope said they should "vote their conscience" and not pro-life.

This past November, as the migrant caravan from Honduras made its way toward the U.S. Southern border just in time for the midterm elections, Pope Francis showed support for migrants and even expressed appreciation for their need to "pile up."

Another phenomenon of migrants - let's think of the caravan that goes from Honduras to the United States - is to pile up . The migrant usually tries to go in groups. Sometimes it has to go alone, but it is normal to pile up, because we feel stronger in migration. And there is the community. In football there is the possibility of a 'free agent,' that can move according to the opportunities, but from you there is no possibility, the 'free agent' from you fail. Always the community. Always in the community, because your vocation is precisely for migrants who pile up. Feel migrants. Feel, yes, migrants facing needs, migrants before the Lord, migrants among you. And for this the need to pile up.

In the same speech, Pope Francis focused on how nations need to foster the virtue of welcoming strangers or risk their own demise.

"It's easier to welcome a stranger than to be welcomed, and you have to do both," said Pope Francis. "You must teach, help welcome the stranger, and give all the possibilities to the nations that have everything or enough to use these four words that you have said. How to welcome a foreigner."

Such a policy, Pope Francis says, is a social good because migrants "build a country."

https://www.dailywire.com/news/42558/pope-francis-trumps-border-wall-fear-migrants-paul-bois

https://youtu.be/ZlAitx2xpB8?t=729

Microsoft Incorporates NewsGuard’s Hard Left-leaning News Filter

Corporate and neocon-backed startup NewsGuard is one step closer to its vision of bringing its “unreliable” news rater to every screen after Microsoft makes it an integral part of its Edge mobile browser.

Rather than having to download an app as before, Edge users on Android and Apple devices can now just click one button to enable its “green-red rating signal if a website is trying to get it right or instead has a hidden agenda or knowingly publishes falsehoods or propaganda.”

Among the green-rated websites: Voice of America, CNN, Buzzfeed, the Guardian, New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as left-leaning upstarts such as Vice News and Refinery 29. Ones that are given the red warning label of “failing to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability”: RT and Sputnik (obviously enough) and the right-wing Daily Mail, Breitbart and the Drudge Report, in addition to hundreds of other non-mainstream news websites such as Wikileaks.

Not only does the integration ensure that NewsGuard is present on every browser, and is easier to use than to ignore, but by making it a fundamental Microsoft-provided feature, the company gives it inherent level of trustworthiness, something akin to a bundled anti-virus feature, only this time the virus targets your brain, not your computer or iPod.

‘Totally transparent’

None of this is the slightest bit alarming if you believe that NewsGuard is an absolutely fair arbiter of what constitutes real news or propaganda.

Its pride of place is its “Nutrition Labels” which ape the precision of a list of calories, carbs, and saturated fats to give a supposedly scientific assessment of media reliability on nine different criteria. Among them: doesn’t repeatedly publish false content, avoids deceptive headlines, gathers and presents information responsibly, handles the difference between news and opinion responsibly.

https://www.rt.com/news/449530-newsguard-edge-browser-media-integrated/

Guantánamo Prisoner Says Judge Used Pro-Government Rulings to Curry Favor With the Justice Department

Defense attorneys for the accused mastermind of the USS Cole bombing asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday for a fresh start to his trial, alleging that a glaring instance of judicial misconduct tainted their client’s military tribunal.

Lawyers for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri asked the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to take the extraordinary step of vacating decisions made under Air Force Col. Vance Spath, the military judge who was in charge of Nashiri’s case between 2014 and Spath’s retirement from the military last year.

They argued that Spath presided over the case with an undisclosed conflict of interest, noting that for years, he was angling for an appointment with the Justice Department while advancing Nashiri’s case on terms favorable to the prosecution team.

In November, the Miami Herald revealed that Spath had applied for a job with the Justice Department in 2015 to work as an immigration judge. At the same time, he was presiding over Nashiri’s case, in which Justice Department lawyers were part of the prosecution team seeking the death penalty.

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been an outspoken supporter of Guantánamo’s military commissions. In 2017, he called the prison “a very fine place” to put new terror suspects, and he reportedly intervened last year to scuttle a plea deal that would spare 9/11 defendants the death penalty.

According to defense filings, in the years after he applied for an appointment with the Justice Department, Spath touted his “aggressive trial schedule,” while accusing Nashiri’s defense lawyers of creating “constant roadblocks, recalcitrance, and disobeyance of orders.”

Michel Paradis, a Defense Department counsel representing Nashiri, told the three-judge panel that Spath had “angled for an appointment from the Attorney General at the same time the Attorney General and Department of Justice had substantial interest in [Nashiri’s] case,” and that “he traded on the fact that he was the judge in this capital case for his own personal gain.”

Paradis also said that Spath had used one of his rulings favorable to the Justice Department in Nashiri’s case as a writing sample for his application. Spath ultimately got the job and was sworn in as an immigration judge in September.

Military judges are appointed to oversee cases by the Defense Department, and do not have the same lifetime tenure that federal judges enjoy.

https://theintercept.com/2019/01/23/guantanamo-military-commision-abd-rahim-nashiri/

>>4878161

>>4878031

Baker this is the patsy set up for the USS cole bombing