Islamic State’s offensive on the Iraqi capital intensified as the jihadist fighters advanced as far as Abu Ghraib, a suburb only 8 miles away from Baghdad’s international airport.
The outer suburb of Abu Ghraib is also the site of the infamous prison the US military used to humiliate and torture Iraqi detainees.
There are reports by the Iraqi military that the militants are in possession of MANPAD anti-aircraft missiles. The short-range, shoulder-fired missiles can shoot down airplanes within a range of 15,000 feet.
The Iraqi military, aided by US military personnel, have so far failed in foiling the advance toward Baghdad of the Islamic State militia (also known as ISIS, or ISIL), which has expanded its control of huge swathes of Iraq and Syria despite the increase in US-led airstrikes.
A total of 60,000 Iraqi soldiers are assigned to defend the capital, alongside 12 teams of American advisors, an Iraqi officer told CBS News.
Meanwhile, undercover IS militants active within Baghdad are setting off bombs and carrying out attacks.
Swift advances have also been by the jihadist militia in Anbar, where Iraqi officials have made an open plea for military aid, warning the city will soon fall to IS.
Swift advances have also been by the jihadist militia in Anbar, where Iraqi officials have made an open plea for military aid, warning the city will soon fall to IS.
The situation in Anbar, a town due west of Baghdad, is “fragile” a US official told AFP. IS has seized army bases in Anbar province, and has been shelling the provincial capital, Ramadi, 75 miles (120 kilometers) from Baghdad.
CNN reported that Iraqi troops in Anbar are in danger of being bottlenecked, citing a senior US defense official.
CNN reported that Iraqi troops in Anbar are in danger of being bottlenecked, citing a senior US defense official.
"We do see ISIL continue to make gains in Anbar province and [are] mindful of how Anbar relates to the security of Baghdad," another senior US defense official said.
Anbar province is home to Iraq's second biggest dam at Haditha, a major source of water and electrical power.
The dam is currently controlled by Iraqi forces, and US airstrikes have targeted IS forces in the area .
It has been stated both by the US and Iraq that preventing IS from capturing the area is a key objective, as is holding Baghdad.
In Syria, IS forces are vying for control of Kobani, which they now control 40 percent. Kobani is on the Syria-Turkish border and has a Kurdish majority.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura warned Friday that if Kobani falls to ISIS, civilians there would “most likely be massacred.”
Kurdish militiamen are putting up a fierce fight to defend a Syrian town near the border with Turkey but are struggling to repel advances by the Islamic State group, which is pushing in from two sides, Syrian activists and Kurdish officials said Saturday.
The battle for Kobani is still raging despite more than two weeks of airstrikes by the US-led coalition targeting the militants in and around the town. The strikes, which are aimed at rolling back gains by the group, appear to have done little to blunt the onslaught by the extremists on Kobani that began in mid-September.
A senior Kurdish official, Ismet Sheikh Hasan, said clashes were focused in the southern and eastern parts of the town. He said the situation was dire and appealed for international help.
“We are defending (the town) but … we have only simple weapons and they have heavy weapons,” he said in a call with The Associated Press Friday evening. “They are not besieged and can move easily,” he said.
Hasan said the US-led airstrikes were not effective, and urged the international community and the United Nations to intervene, predicting a massacre if the militants seize control of Kobani. He also appealed to Turkey to open a corridor that would allow remaining civilians to leave Kobani and arms supplies to enter the town.Since the Islamic State group’s offensive on Kobani started, at least 500 people have been killed and more than 200,000 have been forced to flee across the border into Turkey.
Hasan said the Turks were now allowing only wounded civilians to cross into Turkey.
Six U.S. military planes arrived in the Ebola hot zone Thursday with more Marines, as West Africa's leaders pleaded for the world's help in dealing with a crisis that one called "a tragedy unforeseen in modern times."
"Our people are dying," Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma lamented by videoconference at a World Bank meeting in Washington. He said other countries are not responding fast enough while children are orphaned and infected doctors and nurses are lost to the disease.
Alpha Conde of Guinea said the region's countries are in "a very fragile situation."
Ebola is "an international threat and deserves an international response," he said, speaking through a translator as he sought money, medicine, equipment and training for health care workers.
The fleet of planes that landed outside the Liberian capital of Monrovia consisted of four MV-22 Ospreys and two KC-130s. The 100 additional Marines bring to just over 300 the total number of American troops in the country, said Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Williams, the commander leading the U.S. response.
Williams joined the American ambassador to Liberia, Deborah Malac, at the airport to greet the aircraft.
As vehicles unloaded boxes of equipment wrapped in green-and-black cloth, the Marines formed a line on the tarmac and had their temperatures checked by Liberian health workers.
Meanwhile, British authorities said they would introduce "enhanced" screening of travelers for Ebola at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and Eurostar rail terminals.
Elsewhere, University of Maryland researchers announced that the first study of a possible Ebola vaccine in Africa was underway. Scientists say three health care workers in Mali received the experimental shots developed by the U.S. government.
Mali has not had any cases of Ebola, but it borders the outbreak zone. Researchers say early safety tests should be done in Ebola-free countries to avoid complicating factors. If the vaccine appears to be safe, larger trials could be done in the outbreak zone early next year.
The U.S. military is working to build medical centers in Liberia and may send up to 4,000 soldiers to help with the Ebola crisis. Medical workers and beds for Ebola patients are sorely lacking.
British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said his country would provide more than 750 troops to help build treatment centers and an Ebola "training academy" in Sierra Leone. Army medics and helicopters will provide direct support. Britain will also contribute an aviation support ship.
British troops are expected to arrive next week in Sierra Leone, where they will join military engineers and planners who have been there for nearly a month helping to construct medical centers.
The German military, which has already been flying material such as protective clothing from Senegal to the worst-hit countries, planned to start a wider deployment of aid in mid-November. The military is expected to set up a clinic for 50 patients.
Sierra Leone officials finally released a shipping container filled with medical gear and mattresses that had been held up at the port for more than a month.
In Guinea, where the first Ebola cases were confirmed back in March, Doctors Without Borders warned on Thursday of a "massive" influx of cases in the capital.
The aid group's center in Conakry received 22 patients on Monday alone, including 18 from the same region 50 kilometers east of the city, the group said, adding that its facilities were reaching their limits.
An interactive map plotting the airline flights originating in Monrovia, Liberia, makes clear why international health officials are concerned Europe is the next place where the Ebola virus could spread.
Already, one case of Ebola has been confirmed in Spain, and theIndependent newspaper in the United Kingdom is reporting scientific analysis concluding there is a 75 percent chance Ebola will hit France by Oct. 24 and a 50 percent chance it will hit Britain by the end of the month..
The interactive air-travel map shows Europe is the most common transit point for international travelers traveling from Liberia to the U.S.
Flights from Monrovia, Liberia, easily connect with international flights to Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, Bologna, Rome and London.
Flights from Brussels regularly connect to New York’s JFK, Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago in the United States along with destinations such as Tel-Aviv, Montreal, Toronto and New Delhi.
How easy is it for someone from Liberia that is already infected with Ebola to leave the country by air?
As demonstrated by the case of Thomas Eric Duncan – the Liberian infected with Ebola who died this week in a Dallas hospital – the authorities in Monrovia screening departing passengers have no way to know if someone claiming to have had no contact with Ebola-infected individuals is lying.
Furthermore, since the disease can take up to 21 days to incubate before symptoms manifest, a person infected with Ebola could easily pass through security in Monrovia undetected.
How easy is it to depart from Monrovia to travel internationally?
Three flights a day depart Monrovia for Casablanca, the main connecting airport for European flights.
One flight each day flies non-stop from Monrovia to Brussels.
As the interactive map demonstrates, there are direct flights connecting Casablanca with New York’s JFK International Airport, just as there are flights from Dakar, Senegal, to Dulles International in Washington, D.C., as well as to JFK.
The disease of ignorance leaves us vulnerable to many other plagues, including literal plagues like the Ebola virus. When we take the establishment at its word concerning the threat of Ebola outbreak, we make ourselves vulnerable.When people assume that the worst could never happen to them, history shows us that it inevitably does.
The recent discovery of an Ebola infected patient in Dallas, Texas has led to reasonable concern from the general population, but mainstream media efforts along with CDC and White House spin have subdued any practical response by the citizenry. The constant droning voice of the establishment claims there is nothing to be worried about; that even if there was an outbreak in the U.S., it would be quickly squashed by highly prepared medical response teams.
First and foremost, the existence of just one Ebola infected person within America's borders indicates a likelihood of others, or the possibility of others in the near future unless policies and procedures are changed.
Secondly, the establishment also has no intention of giving the general public accurate information as to the behavior and dangers of Ebola. Those I have spoken with in the medical field including some who work within major city hospitals have related to me that the CDC has not been honest in its assessment of the probability of outbreak. For example, the CDC is consistently reminding the public that Ebola is not an “airborn” disease, and this is technically true as far as the science indicates. However, they forget to mention that it is indeed a “droplet born” disease, meaning, it can travel through the air carried in an infected cough or sneeze. The tight quarters of an airplane make for a perfect petri dish, with droplets and particulates passing back and forth through the same space and oxygen for hours at a time. The spread of Ebola is nowhere near as containable as the CDC claims.
The one legitimate function of government, any government, is to protect the right of the people to pursue their own life, liberty, and happiness. I think stopping the invasion of mortal viruses would fall into this category. The one job our government is MANDATED to do, and it refuses to do it. Why?
I have made the point many times in the past and I'll make it here again; when a catastrophe takes place, or a crisis is imminent, ask yourself, who ultimately benefits? I believe that the lack of strong prevention response from our government, an inadequacy which is obvious to all of the health care workers I have talked with and to anyone who has the sense to do their own research, could be absolutely deliberate. I believe the spread of Ebola may be desired by certain power brokers, and here is why:
The Perfect Cover Event
I have been warning for quite some time that the banking establishment in particular is well aware that an economic collapse of incredible proportions is coming. In fact, they have done everything in their power to make one possible. This collapse, according to my research, is designed to clear the way through monetary carpet bombing for a new international Bretton Woods-style agreement which will plant the foundation of a truly global economic system centralized and controlled by a highly select few elites. Needless to say, the internationalists would prefer not to take the blame for such a calamity.
Regional or widespread war, terrorism, cyber attacks, etc, are all useful vehicles to conjure mass confusion, and can also be used as scapegoats for the eventual downfall of our economy. That said, a viral pandemic truly surpasses them all in effectiveness. All other tragedies could easily be tied to the first “domino” or “linchpin” (as Rand Corporation calls it) of Ebola transmission, but the strategy goes deeper than this...
During a viral outbreak, government becomes mother, father, nurse and protector. No matter how abusive they are, most people will still look to them for safety and guidance, primarily because they have no knowledge of disease. What they do not understand, they will fear, and fear always drives the ignorant into the arms of tyrants. One should also take into consideration the fact that most globalists lean towards the ideology of eugenics and promote the concept of population reduction. A pandemic would fulfill this desire nicely...
Amidst even a moderate or controlled viral scenario, stocks and bonds will undoubtedly crash, a crash that was going to happen anyway. The international banks who created the mess get off blameless, while Ebola, an act of nature, becomes the ultimate scapegoat for every disaster that follows.
Expect that forced vaccinations will take place, especially as a prerequisite for receiving treatment from CDC or FEMA hazmat facilities. Expect that these facilities will become nothing more than obscure prisons for the sick where people quietly die. Expect that every American will be required to be tested and screened, with biometric data carefully stored, beginning with airport travel (once the virus is already entrenched). The options are endless for abuse in terms of totalitarian health laws when the public thinks they could end up bleeding from every orifice and dying of liver failure.
Imagine if some Americans decide they don't like being poked, prodded, tagged and bagged by the establishment. Imagine they decide to fight back, Ebola be damned. An already uphill battle becomes an epic struggle when a large percentage of the population thinks you are a monster that wants to hasten the spread of Ebola. Not that the ignorant count for much in the grand scheme of history, but waking at least some of them up in the future to the bigger threat (the globalists) is hard to do when all they can see is devilish microbes. Those who plan to combat the rise of the internationalists, as I plan to, should accept now the likelihood that the only people we will have on our side tomorrow are the people we have been able to wake up today. Martial law will be welcomed by the rest.
An international response is almost guaranteed during a major pandemic. Sovereignty will be tossed in the dirt. UN and WHO teams and perhaps even troops could accompany an aid package to the U.S. Think of the glorious propaganda, as globalists tell stories of how they “saved humanity” by surpassing the barbaric practices of national and individual sovereignty, defeated the Ebola virus (after millions of deaths, of course), and out of the ashes, the “phoenix” of global governance was born. If they succeed, imagine what the history books will say for the next several centuries.
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Kotel (Western Wall) and Holy Sites, decried the Arab attempts to wreck the week-long Sukkot holiday by launching violent riots against police and Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.
Speaking to Arutz Sheva, the rabbi argued that the Arab rioters are intentionally trying to prevent Jews from reaching the site on Sukkot, one of the three Jewish pilgrimage holidays that in ancient times required Jews to travel to the Temple in Jerusalem, a practice maintained by many.
"The Arab leadership's feigned ignorance in the face of these acts of violence by young rioters is shocking," said Rabbi Rabinowitz. "How can they deny the reality that the Temple Mount and the (Al-Aqsa) mosque has been turned into a terror base?"
Indeed, on Friday police prepared for riots by limiting access for Muslims over concerns that ongoing riots would be further inflamed, particularly after Hamas called for that violence the night before saying "we will fight till the last drop of blood."
"If someone harms the holiness of the site it's the rioters manipulating the sensitivity and holiness of the location to harm the gentle fabric in the Old City, throwing rocks and molotov cocktails from the mosque," emphasized the rabbi.
The Jordanian Waqf (Islamic trust) that holds de facto rule over the site has banned Jewish prayer at the site, while at the very least turning a blind eye to constant violent rioting. According to the rabbi, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is not being treated as a holy site by the Waqf - rather it is a political trump card.
"We have never heard of a 'holy site' being a site of violence," said Rabbi Rabinowitz. "These activities demonstrate that the Temple Mount for them is a platform for a political struggle and not a religious matter."
Speaking to Arutz Sheva, the rabbi argued that the Arab rioters are intentionally trying to prevent Jews from reaching the site on Sukkot, one of the three Jewish pilgrimage holidays that in ancient times required Jews to travel to the Temple in Jerusalem, a practice maintained by many.
"The Arab leadership's feigned ignorance in the face of these acts of violence by young rioters is shocking," said Rabbi Rabinowitz. "How can they deny the reality that the Temple Mount and the (Al-Aqsa) mosque has been turned into a terror base?"
Indeed, on Friday police prepared for riots by limiting access for Muslims over concerns that ongoing riots would be further inflamed, particularly after Hamas called for that violence the night before saying "we will fight till the last drop of blood."
"If someone harms the holiness of the site it's the rioters manipulating the sensitivity and holiness of the location to harm the gentle fabric in the Old City, throwing rocks and molotov cocktails from the mosque," emphasized the rabbi.
The Jordanian Waqf (Islamic trust) that holds de facto rule over the site has banned Jewish prayer at the site, while at the very least turning a blind eye to constant violent rioting. According to the rabbi, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is not being treated as a holy site by the Waqf - rather it is a political trump card.
"We have never heard of a 'holy site' being a site of violence," said Rabbi Rabinowitz. "These activities demonstrate that the Temple Mount for them is a platform for a political struggle and not a religious matter."
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