by TERENCE STRONG

The city of Raqqa is the dark heart of the so-called Islamic State of Da’esh, the Sunni Muslim death cult in Syria. It still pumps and spills blood within its decimated houses of rubble as its hard-core believers continue to hold on.

They are Chechen vets, former al-Qaeda fighters and Iraqi Ba’athists who supported Saddam Hussein. And they are in no mood to give up the dying dream of being at the centre of an extreme Islamic Caliphate that would stretch halfway across the world from the UK to the Philippines.

After all, they have had three years to prepare and dig in with secret tunnels, booby-traps and car-bombs, all surrounded by a soft bubble-wrap human shield of several hundred thousand civilians in the built-up central neighbourhood.

Pitched against them for the past two months are the US-backed Syrian Democratic Force (SDF), a Kurdish-led coalition of Arab, Assyriac and Yazidi fighters.
In there somewhere, of course, are advisers from the British SAS.

Recently the SDF claim to have secured the northern half of the city, but the confusing front-line continues to ebb back and forth. Everyone knows the final push will be long and hard to win. That bloody victory will have to be achieved by scarcely-trained teenagers of YPG – part of the SDF – who make up in enthusiasm and blind courage what they lack in any kind of military expertise.

America is happy to fire them up with rhetoric, military technology and brand new Humvees that still have their protective plastic film sheaths on.

So leading the attack on Islamic State are thousands of untrained young Kurdish fighters, including deadly and fearless girl snipers who are apparently taking a deadly toll on the Christian world’s historic anti-Christ enemy.
They will need all the spiritual help they can get, and no doubt deserve.

#SDF #Kurds #YPG #Syria #Raqqa #USA #CIA #IslamicState #Daesh #alQaeda #SAS #MI6

BY LAWYERS for BRITAIN

“A deeply troubling and wrong-headed decision”

When it comes to using the prerogative for “less Europe”, there are implied limitations which do not seem to exist for “more Europe”

On 3rd November 2016 the Divisional Court handed down its judgment in R (Miller) -V- Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2016] EWHC 2768 (Admin). The court has, to the surprise of most informed observers, decided that it is outside the prerogative powers of the Crown for notice to be given under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union to withdraw from the European Union.

In reaching this decision, the judgment has overturned the accepted understanding about the respective power of the Crown on the international plane to accede to and withdraw from international treaties, and the powers of Parliament to alter the internal law of the United Kingdom.

The European Communities Act 1972 was a constitutional innovation for the United Kingdom. It linked international treaties directly to the internal law of the United Kingdom by giving the European Treaties and supranational legislation made under them so called “direct effect.” That means that they have force in UK internal law – and therefore alter the content of the law – without recourse to Parliament.

The judgment argues that this feature of the 1972 Act means that the Crown has no power to withdraw from the EU treaties, because doing so would have the effect of altering domestic law, which only Parliament can do.

This argument is illogical and does not hold water. There are many acts which the government can carry out on the international plane under the European treaties which have the effect of altering UK domestic law, and in doing so either confer rights on people or deprive them of rights. Whenever the UK representative on the Council of Ministers joins in passing into law a directly applicable EU Regulation then the Crown in using the prerogative power to alter internal UK law without that alteration of the law going through Parliament. This is simply a consequence of the direct effect machinery of the 1972 Act.

So why should it be OK to have “more Europe” through exercise of the prerogative power, but wrong to have “less Europe” as a result of Article 50 being invoked and the direct effect parts of EU law ceasing to apply within the UK? Nothing in the wording of the 1972 Act supports such a distinction.

There is a further reason why this decision flies in the face of the obvious intention of Parliament. The Lisbon Treaty, which inserted Article 50 into the Treaty on European Union, was given effect in UK law by the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008. That Act therefore made the Article 50 power available for use by the Crown but did not specify that its exercise would need the approval of Parliament. That Act however explicitly provides for Parliamentary control over certain prerogative acts under the EU treaties, including Article 49 on Treaty revision. But notably, the statutory scheme of Parliamentary control of prerogative power does not extend to notifications under Article 50.

There has a been a long string of attempted challenges to the use of the prerogative power to extend EEC or EU powers, all of which have been rejected by the courts, sometimes in peremptory terms. However, when the prerogative is used to achieve “less Europe” in order to implement the decision of the British people which an Act of Parliament empowered them to take, it is suddenly found that there are implied limitations on the prerogative power which prevent it being used for this purpose.

We welcome the decision of the government to appeal from this judgment. We hope that the Supreme Court will apply the law in a more orthodox and logical way, allowing the government to fulfil its promise to the British people to implement their clear decision.
Martin Howe QC
Thomas Sharpe QC
Clive Thorne
Francis Hoa

COMMENT

Dixie Hughes:

The true title of the legal case that ended in the High Court on Thursday, in which three judges ruled that 650 individuals had the right to frustrate the wishes of 17.4 million voters; should have been “Parliament v the People”
By the European Referendum Act 2015, Parliament temporarily resigned its authority into the hands of those from whom it is derived: the electorate. This was voted for by 544 MPs to 53, on 9th June 2015.
The vast majority of MPs are of the Remainian ilk; but only the SNP members, possibly due to their referendum-losing heritage, actually voted against allowing the “Will of the People” to be expressed. It is arguable that they have some case for interfering with Brexit; the 544 have not the shadow of a justification for doing so.
The 544 include the Remainian rump that was so supremely confident that the People would give the “right” answer, they nodded the Bill through.
It also included the Brexit MPs who wisely kept shtum.
The Bill was approved by the House of Lords on 14th December 2015; Remainiacs again too slow to spot their chance; and the European Union Referendum Act received Royal Assent three days later.
The government pledge to be bound by the referendum result was repeated in the controversial Remainian pamphlet, announced on 6th April 2016 and delivered to every home in the UK a week or so later.
The wording used was; “This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.”
The sending-out of that pamphlet, containing that pledge, was debated in the House of Commons; though many MPs voiced objection to the pamphlet, not one MP or Peer called for that pledge to be denied or removed.
While the 2015 Referendum Act did not specifically state that the referendum was binding, the purpose of the referendum was billed by all sides as the place at which the decision on the UK’s membership of the European Union would be made.
There would have been no point in calling a referendum if its result was not intended to be respected.
The government could have hired focus groups.

Over past decades, there has a been a long string of attempted challenges to the use of the prerogative power to extend EEC or EU powers, all of which have been rejected by the courts, sometimes in peremptory terms.
However, when the prerogative is used to achieve “less Europe” in order to implement the decision of the British people, which an Act of Parliament empowered them to do, it is suddenly found that there are limitations on the prerogative power which prevent it being used for this purpose.
So why should it be OK to have “more Europe” through exercise of the prerogative power, but wrong to have “less Europe” as a result of Article 50 being invoked and the direct effect parts of EU law ceasing to apply within the UK?

But there is another crucial point.
When Bills are presented in Parliament they are accompanied by a “Briefing Paper;” an outline; so even the dimmest Lib-Dem MP will know what he’s voting for or against.
The European Union Referendum Bill 2015-16 was no exception.
By invoking the Bill’s briefing paper in their ruling, the High Court referred to a paper that in one crucial respect undermines that ruling.
This is from the relevant section in that briefing paper, entitled, ‘Types of Referendum:’
“It [the referendum] does not contain any requirement for the UK Government to implement the results of the referendum, nor set a time limit by which a vote to leave the EU should be implemented. Instead, this is a type of referendum known as pre-legislative or consultative, which enables the electorate to voice an opinion which then influences the Government in its policy decisions.”
Anyone spot what the High Court missed?
The wording does not say that the result of the referendum is designed to influence PARLIAMENT, it says it is designed to influence “the GOVERNMENT.”
The reason why it says that is that it was widely understood that parliament had indeed transferred its sovereignty to the people, and that it would then be up to the Government (not Parliament) to take the process further, and implement the will of the people.
In other words, on 9th June 2015, MPs actually voted specifically for the Government to take action; to use the Royal Prerogative.
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By Terence Strong

As the race for the American presidency hots up to boiling point prior to the November election, you may be hearing more and more references to the Benghazi Attack in Libya in September 2012.
[These events were around a year after the setting of my new thriller (code-named WoW) during the uprising and overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi.]

So what happened and why is it so important?

In the months following Gaddafi’s death there were intelligence reports of steadily increasing instability and danger to American personnel in Libya, but no significant steps were taken to improve security.
On 11 September there was a co-ordinated attack against two separate US government “consulate” facilities in Benghazi by fighters of the Islamic militant group called Ansar al-Sharia.
It has been reported by a number of unsubstantiated sources that the diplomatic presence in Libya was a sham with no real political role to play.
Its real function was as CIA cover to smuggle sophisticated Gaddafi-regime weapons to the anti-Assad rebels in Syria, where another “Arab Spring” uprising had also kicked off (as today we know all too well).
An American diplomatic compound was attacked at 2140 hrs by rioters with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, supported by 14.5mm AA guns and mortars. During the assault US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and Foreign Service information manager Sean Smith were killed.
In the early hours of the next morning, the terrorists opened up with a mortar attack on a CIA annexe a mile away which killed two CIA contractors and wounded ten others.
Although the attacks were initially described as “spontaneous” by the US administration, subsequent investigations suggested that the attacks were premeditated, although looters and opportunists may have also taken
part.
Before his death Ambassador Stevens tried three times before getting through to Deputy Chief of Mission Greg

Hicks in Tripoli to warn they were under attack. Hicks immediately notified all US agencies and prepared for immediate initiation of a pre-existing Emergency Response Plan.

At AFRICON, General Carter Ham attempted to mount a rescue operation,
but was ordered to “stand down.” This is critical, as by 2230 hours an unarmed drone had been deployed and was above the seized compound and streaming live feed to all Command and Control agencies, so everyone in the US Administration knew what was happening as it happened.
Much has been made by many – including testimony of three “whistle-blowers” – of the fact that no effort was made by American air assets to save the situation, abandoning the US ambassador and later the brave ex-SEALs who fought to their deaths.
The US Obama Administration claims “there were simply no military assets that could be brought to bear in time to make a difference”, mainly due to the unavailability of tanker support for fighter aircraft.
But, according to retired air ace Colonel Phil “Hands” Handley, that simply isn’t true. Handley insists that two squadrons of F16Cs were in readiness just across the Mediterranean at the Aviano Air Base in Italy. He has explained in great technical detail how when AFRICON alerted the 31st TFW Command Post there, the Wing Commander could have ordered the launch of two F16s and advised the Command Post at NAS Sigonella to prepare for hot pit refuelling and quick turn-round of the jets.
Leaving Sigonella around 0110 hours with full fuel, those aircraft would have covered the 377 miles to Benghazi by 0150 hours. Time enough, Handley claims, to strafe and break up the mobs before their second attack.

Why didn’t that happen? Some believe that some of the recently-disclosed Wikileak emails hold the answer.

They suggest that Ambassador Stevens was actually sent to the Benghazi consulate on an urgent mission to retrieve American-made Stinger surface-to-air missiles that had been secretly supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional permission or oversight.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had brokered the deal previously through Stevens and a private arms dealer.
Some of those shoulder-fired Stingers had emerged in Afghanistan and had been used to bring down an American Chinook helicopter the previous July. Luckily the missile hadn’t been properly armed so the target was not destroyed, but still had to land.
Subsequently the missile serial number was traced to a batch supposedly stored in Qatar by the CIA. It is assumed that is when President Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton panicked and ordered Ambassador Stevens to rush to Benghazi and negotiate the return of the Stingers.
It was a desperate mission that would explain the seemingly inexplicable “stand down” rescue order given to USAF and multiple commando teams that would have been put on standby.
Apparently it was Clinton’s State Department – not the CIA – that authorised the transfer of some Stingers to the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is generally recognised that General Petraeus would never, ever have risked their possible use against commercial aircraft.
In fact, it was when Petraeus point blank refused to testify that the Benghazi killings were the result of a “spontaneous uprising” of Libyan locals over a YouTube video, that the President threw the general “under a bus.”
It appears that the Taliban enemy in Afghanistan was aware that the Administration had aided and abetted their own enemy without Congressional approval and began pushing for the release of five Taliban generals in return for their silence.
What bizarre deal made the State Department think it was smart to provide the Taliban covertly with Stingers is not yet established.
But it may explain the reluctance to launch a Benghazi rescue mission in Libya and have to answer questions if US Air Force fighters had been shot down by Stingers provided by Clinton’s own State Department.

by Terence Strong

Both American and British Special Forces have been supporting anti-Assad forces in Syria this year, in particular the rebel faction known as the New Syrian Army (NSA).

The British 22 Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) has been deploying small UKSF teams from Jordon to provide direct support to the rebels, including forward air control to co-ordinate strikes from allied aircraft.

New equipment is in play to replace traditional Supercat HMT400s and Land Rover Defenders. The new kid on the block is a militarised variant of the Toyota 4 x 4 pickup. Made by Jordan Light Vehicle Manufacturing, under licence from the Jankel Group, the Al-Thalab (or Fox) comprises a 79 series Land Cruiser chassis mounted with an open tubular superstructure.

This Long Range Patrol Vehicle (LRPV) is designed to travel 1,200 klicks without replen and sports a commander’s GPMG swing-mount and an aft-facing mount for a Grenade Machine Gun launcher.

As the stranglehold of Turkish forces is currently tightening around the city of Raqqa in Syria, which is the de facto capital of the Da’esh (or Islamic State) terror sect’s caliphate, word is emerging of a daring precursor assault by Britain’s elite SAS.

Rewind to the end of last year:

The sun is setting over the rubble-strewn wasteland that is the town of Raqqa.
Momentarily its rays glint on the wings of a loitering vulture , or is it a wraith, a figment of too much heat, too little water? So high, unseen, no sound to be heard from the ground far below.

An acrid smell of gunpowder now lingers permanently in the musky desert air from the constant air attacks on the city. It mixes with the more fragrant aromas of cooking, simple dishes as supplies of everything are running out, as womenfolk prepare evening meals. They are prepared by ghosts, women who are rarely seen in public. When they are, they are indistinguishable in their long, black burkas and invariably chaperoned by a male member of their family.

A beaten-up mini-bus makes its way into the town centre carrying a party of just such women.

There are CCTV camera at every junction and random checkpoints can appear anywhere at any time. It is so easy to break strict Da’esh rules: a woman not properly covering her hair, a man shaving his beard. Being lashed in public is a strong incentive to give up smoking or listening to music.

The mini-bus turns a corner and is confronted by a group of black-clad Islamic State militia armed with AK47s and manning a checkpoint. It is near to the civic building that has been commandeered as the ISIS Main Headquarters.

A fighter flags down the van, waves his weapon. The bus slows and the driver winds down his window. He is a thin man with a pointy ferret-like face.

He is sweating. It is humid and he is scared. He waves his papers at the fighter, who looks at them, pretending he can read.

The fighter is angry, probably with himself for being badly educated. ‘Where are you going?’

The driver jerks his thumb over his shoulder. There seven women seated in the back, one other in the passenger seat beside him. All are dressed from head to foot in black burkas. Only the eyes of the women are visible, although most still turn their heads away in a show of modesty.

‘To ISIS Headquarters,’ the driver replied. ‘These are the wives of our leaders. It is the birthday of one of them today. There will be a celebration tonight. Al-Baghdadi himself is expected.’

At the mention of the ISIS leader’s nom de guerre, the fighter takes a backward step. Momentarily he speculates about one woman who holds his gaze for a moment. She has blue eyes, sexy long lashes. Then he quickly changes his mind and waves them through.
The driver breathes again, engages first gear and nearly stalls in his haste to get away.
After a couple of turnings he pulls over. The woman in the front passenger seat shakes her head and indicates to move a little farther up the deserted street, to a dark space between two bomb-scorched trees. There the mini-bus stops, its engine left to grumble noisily.

None of the women speak. The one next to the driver produces a pair of small but powerful binoculars from beneath her burka and focuses on the road.

Nowadays there is little commercial traffic in Raqqa; there is no business to speak of, just subsistence trade, so little reason to do anything or go anywhere. That’s if petrol is even available to you
.
So it was easy to pick up the convoy of three sand-coloured pick-ups coming towards them.

‘On time,’ the woman said. ‘Our man and two escort vehicles. Good intel.’
The driver managed a nervous laugh and scratches his beard. ‘I never let you down yet.’
The woman focused on the middle vehicle as it drove past. ‘That’s our target. In the back.On his own.’

The driver has produced his own binoculars now. ‘That is him,’ he confirmed.
‘Let’s go,’ the woman said.

The mini-bus jolted forward, bumped its way onto the crumbling carriageway and followed the last of the convoy of pick-ups speeding in the direction of Sharksa Mosque.
To everyone’s surprise, the chase was over almost before it has begun. Unexpectedly the IS convoy pulled over, just beyond the Clock Roundabout. IS henchmen pile out of the pickups and form a defensive circle around their leader as he entered a large building.
Once he has disappeared, his henchmen relax. It didn’t look as though they were expecting their leader to come out again any time soon.

The mini-bus had pulled over, again the woman in the front passenger seat was watching through binoculars. ‘I think we’ve got him. Can you read the co-ordinates?’
‘Roger that,’ said a woman in the back.

‘Transmitting,’ another woman began. ‘Tango Sierra Five to Polythemus. I have hostile Target Black 20…’

High and far away the AWACS missile control aircraft of the US Air Force received the transmission and forwarded it to the controller of the Reaper drone that had earlier been mistaken for a vulture by a farmer on the outskirts of Raqqa.

The Reaper jerked visibly as the instruction arrived and it changed direction, moving in a gigantic circle and increasing its speed.

At their position near the Clock Roundabout, the eight women and the driver of the mini-bus did not see the approach of the Reaper or the release of its Hellfire missiles.
They did, however, witness the blinding pulse of light as the Hellfires struck the building which the ISIS commander had just entered. The mini-bus shook as the ground beneath it vibrated under the impact, causing the building to explode and its inhabitants to be instantly vaporised.

‘Let’s go,’ the front passenger said. ‘Pronto!’

The driver needed no encouragement. He jerked the gear lever into first and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The front wheels spun out a cloud of dust in their eagerness to get away. The driver hurtled his passengers through the city streets as the IS fighters responded quickly to the attack.

Reaction was much faster than the attackers had anticipated.

The town of Raqqa went into immediate lockdown. Radio traffic was instantly jammed, airwaves clogged. Within minutes the word was out of the attack. Gunmen were on the streets stopping everyone. Anyone out and about was being lined up against the nearest wall, accused of helping foreign spies. The infidel enemy was sending women spies to do their fighting, rather than men.

That was when the group of three IS gunmen confronted the escaping mini-bus. Strung out across the road, the gunmen ordered the women to exit their transport.

‘Allah akbar!’ their leader yelled excitedly. ‘Get out with your hands up! You shall walk to heaven with no heads to see your God or hear His voice!’

The driver dropped down from the mini-bus and obediently slid open the side door to allow the women to descend one by one.

And, one by one the women descended to form an orderly line.
The ISIS gunmen were bemused, hardly believing they had actually caught these suspect women who appeared so calm and harmless.

At that point the burkas were thrown aside and all hell broke loose. Two four-man bricks of the SAS opened fire with a hail of bullets from concealed AKs. One gunman died instantly and the other two turned and ran for their lives, throwing aside their weapons.
The women climbed back into the mini-bus and made good their escape.

To this day there is speculation that this was an operation mounted by “The Increment”, specifically on the orders of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) .
“The Increment” is otherwise known as E Squadron SAS. Not the SAS, but of the SAS. Former veterans recruited from various branches of British Special Forces and working together to perform incredible military feats.

Likened by some irreverently to Jesus Christ and His Apostles.

#Syria # Raqqa #22SAS #SASR #NewSyrianArmy SupercatHMT #LandRoverDefender #Jankel #AlTHALAB #Daesh #IslamicState

by CHRIS BAIRD

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about June 23rd, and people want to know the facts. Here are some of them.

We are not voting to leave the European Economic Area (EEA) or the World Trade Organisation (WTO). That means all of the UK’s trade and benefit agreements will remain unchanged should we leave, until such a time that the UK decides to renegotiate them for any reason.

We are not voting to leave NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) meaning our security agreements remain unchanged. Should we suffer an act of hostility from a non-NATO member, then NATO countries are obliged to come to our assistance. This does not change.

We are not voting to leave the United Nations (UN), G8 or G20 top world financial groups, meaning Britain will have the same voice on the world stage as it does today.

We are certainly not voting to leave Europe. The UK will still, geographically, be recognised as part of Europe.

Importantly, “non-political” organisations aligned to Europe will still extend membership to the UK (i.e. sports governing bodies, and so on).

We are not voting to stop recognising Interpol, Europol and neither are you voting for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) to stop dealing with other intelligence services in the fight against terrorism and global organised crime.

We are not voting against being able to travel to Europe – contrary to the belief of some fools recently on TV.

The UK has always maintained stricter border and passport controls than many other EU members. This will not change. We will still use a passport to go on holiday and we will still be allowed entry to countries in Europe. We may even get the chance to skip queues by using the non–EU queues at the airport (the only point so far that is my opinion, and not necessarily a fact).

The UK economy will benefit to the tune of £billions in the first year after we leave.

Medical and science research will not simply stop. The UK pays into the EU to then get money back in the form of funding. Now the UK will be in control of this money and can choose to support whatever UK based medical, science, art or other research it chooses.

Farming will not lose money because of EU funding being cut. The UK negotiated a rebate of some monies that the UK pays to the EU, in order to subsidise UK farmers. Instead of asking for our money back, we can give it straight to farmers. No change there.

We are not voting against human rights. The EU Convention on, and European Court of Human Rights are not part of the EU. Until parliament passes a new “Bill of Rights” for the UK, these will still apply, as will other precedents already passed down to UK courts from Brussels.

We are not voting to kick anyone out of the UK or block access to anyone. Neither are we voting to stop recruiting valuable European workers into organisations like the NHS.

The UK is already outside of the “Schengen Zone” and so migrant workers must enter the UK with a valid passport both now and after June 23rd. That will not change.

British border authorities maintain full control of who comes and goes. Should someone have the skills to apply to work in the NHS,for example, they will still be permitted travel and given an opportunity to apply for a job.

A points-based assessment, like that applied in the US, Canada and Australia, may come into effect. However, I believe the UK is more likely to negotiate freedom of labour movement though, in exchange for freedom of goods movement.

We are not voting to move jobs nor production out of the UK. The EU actually helped fund the move of Ford Transit production from the UK to Turkey. Yes, the EU helped give UK jobs to people in Turkey by giving Ford a loan of £80m on very generous terms.

What we are mostly voting for is UK sovereignty.

We are voting to stay in or leave a political union of leaders and representatives that British people did not elect. We are voting against a Commission of unelected, elite men who no one at all voted for and yet make life-changing decisions on our behalf.

We are simply voting to bring sovereignty back to Westminster, and that is all.

If you worry about that because you don’t like the current Conservative government, look at the reality. Their majority in parliament is very slim. They have been blocked on big decisions already. You are therefore not giving sovereignty to David Cameron, but to the UK house of elected representatives. Do not be fooled by the fear campaigns that are simply run by the wealthy, who need EU money to thrive. Think about your future, your country’s future and your children’s future.