Thousands Of Radicals Poised To Fight Assad
At least 5,000 global jihadists are positioned near Syria’s borders with Turkey and Lebanon attempting to infiltrate Syria to aid the opposition fighting Bashar Assad’s regime, a senior Syrian government official told to this column.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Syrian military hopes to entirely quell the opposition by the start of Ramadan on July 19. Russian advisers in Syria seem to have a more realistic timeline of September to beat back the opposition, the official noted.
The Syrian plan is for Assad to remain in power and to hold an international conference with participation from Iran aimed at rebuilding Syria, the official said.
While Russia continues to arm Syria, countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been arming and financing the opposition, with the U.S. saying it is providing “non-lethal” aid, including communications assistance. Reports have claimed the U.S. is coordinating arms shipments to the rebel forces.
The claim of global jihadists attempting to infiltrate Syria is just the latest report of al Qaeda-linked groups fighting alongside the U.S.-supported Free Syrian Army.
It Wasn’t AIDS, Says Chief PA Official
Despite claims to the contrary, a confidential medical report released to the Palestinian Authority from the French hospital at which Yasir Arafat died did not list AIDS in the late PLO leader’s bloodstream, according to the PA’s chief negotiator.
“I’ve seen the French report. And it excluded AIDS. I can confirm that to you,” said the PA’s Saeb Erekat on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s WABC Radio. “I think people in this region jump to conclusions. The reasons [of death] are unknown to us,” he said.
The PA last week agreed to exhume Arafat’s body amid new allegations he was poisoned with the radioactive element polonium-210.
Asked whether the French report listed any radioactive material associated with Arafat’s death, Erekat stated, “I reviewed the report of the French hospital at that time and it said that we had investigated everything possible. It wasn’t on it.”
Erekat said Arafat’s body could be unearthed within days. “President Arafat’s body can be exhumed the minute we declare the religious and the family procedures, which we are doing. Could be in the next few days.”
He went on to call for an “international investigation, a credible committee that could take the matter from A to Z. That’s very, very essential.”
Asked whether it’s possible Arafat’s close circle was involved in any alleged assassination, Erekat replied: “I think we need to know who gave the orders, who provided drugs, who were the elements to carry out the assassination if it’s an assassination.”
Landing On… Asteroids
What does President Obama have in common with former presidential candidate Ross Perot, director James Cameron, Google’s Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt?
All personalities are involved in attempts to land on asteroids in highly costly efforts that have experts conflicted about the possibilities of success and whether the ultimate benefits outweigh the expenses.
Cameron, Page, Schmidt and Perot are behind a private company, Planetary Resources, that is planning to not only land on an asteroid but mine it for resources. The company seeks to launch the first in a series of space telescopes into low-Earth orbit in an attempt to find asteroids to potentially mine for profit.
Their dreamy plan may be aided by Obama’s new directives to NASA. The president has reorganized the country’s space agency with the goal of landing on an asteroid.
His new directives were immediately slammed by famed astronauts Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan, who both told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing that Obama’s space plans would harm NASA.
One of Obama’s key advisers on the asteroid scheme was White House science adviser John Holdren. Landing on an asteroid, Holdren argued, and giving it a well-timed nudge “would demonstrate once and for all that we’re smarter than the dinosaurs and can avoid what they didn’t.”
FrontPageMag.com noted that Holdren has endorsed “surrender of sovereignty” to “a comprehensive Planetary Regime” that would control all the world’s resources, direct global redistribution of wealth, oversee the “de-development” of the West, control a World Army and taxation regime, and enforce world population limits.