HELMAND, Feb. 16 - Yet again five military tanks of the US troops were destroyed in separate incidents in Nad Ali district of Helmand, on Monday. According to the report, three tanks of a huge U.S military convoy of the tanks while traveling from Shorab to the center of this district were struck by landmine explosions in Dasht area while the latter two were targeted in by bombings in Lowi Mandah area of this district. The detonations occurred within an hours destroying all five tanks with U.S soldiers dead who were on board. In fact, 14 tanks of the U.S troops have been eliminated in separate incidents in different parts of Nad Ali most of them in Marjah through Monday. AntiWar: US-Led Invasion ‘Bogged Down’ in Marjah. USA Today: Roadside bombs taking bigger toll in Afghanistan. BBC: Afghanistan blast kills UK bomb expert in Helmand. TimesOnline: Hidden enemy delays advance in Marjah.

[Editor's Comment:] They came to kill & maim for Empire. They got what they deserved. We certainly hope the Afghans can manage to kill as many of the occupants as it takes to get the rest of them out. No more, no less, until the cost/benefit estimate becomes unfavorable to the attacking nations. This occupation is a war crime in itself. The "Security" Council is under US and Zionist control. Its "mandates (ISAF) are illegitimate and based upon lies. -Neither Osama bin Laden nor the Taleban had anything to do with 9/11, which was and inside job, a Mossad operation.

"Coalition forces" continued to violently advance into Taliban-held areas in the violent southern Afghan province of Helmand yesterday on the third day of a major offensive aimed at breaking the insurgents' Afghans' control over hundreds of thousands of local people their own country. PressTV: US-led blitz kills 5, wounds 2 Afghan civilians. Veterans Today: GORDON DUFF: AFGHAN LEADERS CALL SURGE, “IMBECILIC AND TRAGIC”. AntiWar: NATO Confirms Kandahar Air Strike Killed Five Civilians. The Independent: Civilians killed as Operation Moshtarak tightens screw. HuffPo: U.S. Forces Kill Children, Other Civilians in Marjah, Afghanistan, with "Precision" Weapons [with an Al Jazeera VIDEO].

Abdul Ghani Barader, believed to have been born in the central Afghan province of Oruzgan in 1968, is the most trusted lieutenant of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the supreme leader of the Taliban, and has been ultimately responsible for the execution of the insurgents' military and political strategy since being appointed to the position in 2002. The effective chairman of the so-called Quetta Shura, the leadership council of the Taliban which is named after the southwestern Pakistani city near or in which it is thought to be based, Mullah Barader is also known to be close to Osama bin Laden. PressTV: Taliban rejects US report on top commander.

9/11 was a master plot, concocted by a handfull of Israelis and dual passport Americans and carried out by the resources of the Mossad. Larry Silverstein leases a nearly worthless dinosaur WTC building complex (worthless due to the asbestos the buildings were stuffed with and needed to be cleaned up, the cost of which may have rivaled the value of the buildings themselves) weeks before 9/11, makes sure it is over insured against terrorist acts and hires an Israeli security firm. From that moment on the coast is clear to let a team of demolition experts from the Israeli army led by Peer Segalovitz into the WTC buildings. These charges plus detonators had been prepared at the premises of the Urban Moving Systems company, a Mossad front. During the weeks before 9/11 these prepared charges were loaded into vans, driven into the basements of WTC Twin Towers next to the elevator shaft, unloaded into the elevator, and lifted onto the roof of the elevator through the opening in the elevator ceiling. Next the elevator moved from floor to floor while charges where being attached to the columns as displayed in this video from 0:22 onwards. The detonators of these charges were radiographic controlled and finally detonated from WTC7 on the day of 9/11. EclipTV: The government doesnt want 9/11 public trial -VIDEO.

Nobel laureates sign on to "harsher" Iran sanctions – and more. Is there nothing that is safe from debasement by the propaganda machine of the U.S. and Israel? A full-page ad in the Sunday New York Times of Feb. 7 provides the answer. Sponsored by Elie Wiesel’s modestly named Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity and signed by 44 Nobel laureates, 35 of them in the physical sciences, it urges brutal and lethal actions against Iran. Global Research: Europe's Five "Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States": The "Official" Nuclear Weapons States: Five countries, the US, UK, France, China and Russia are considered to be "nuclear weapons states" (NWS), "an internationally recognized status conferred by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)". Three other "Non NPT countries" (i.e. non-signatory states of the NPT) including India, Pakistan and North Korea, have recognized possessing nuclear weapons. Israel: "Undeclared Nuclear State": Israel is identified as an "undeclared nuclear state". It produces and deploys nuclear warheads directed against military and civilian targets in the Middle East including Tehran. Iran: There has been much hype, supported by scanty evidence, that Iran might at some future date become a nuclear weapons state. And, therefore, a pre-emptive defensive nuclear attack on Iran to annihilate its non-existent nuclear weapons program should be seriously contemplated "to make the World a safer place". The mainstream media abounds with makeshift opinion on the Iran nuclear threat. Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Turkey: "Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States": But what about the five European "undeclared nuclear states" including Belgium, Germany, Turkey, the Netherlands and Italy. Do they constitute a threat? While Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities are unconfirmed, the nuclear weapons capabilities of these five countries including delivery procedures are formally acknowledged.

A survey conducted by the Israeli Knesset channel shows that 75 percent of Israeli Jews are in favour of deporting Israeli-Arab citizens to a future Palestinian state as part of any deal between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Almost seven hundred people representing a sample of the Jewish public in Israel were asked if it could be justified to demand the deportation of Arab citizens of the Zionist state as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Twenty-five percent rejected the idea outright; of the 75 percent who agreed with deportation, 28 percent said all Arabs should be deported, 19 percent preferred deportation only from certain areas, while 28 percent said that deportation should be based on a “loyalty test”.

The British Equality and Human Rights Commission has warned that the use of full body scanners at airports may breach human rights laws. In a letter to Transport Secretary Lord Adonis, the commission wrote Tuesday that serious concerns existed about the invasion of privacy by the new technology. While acknowledging the government's need to take urgent steps to protect the public from terrorist threats, the commission's head, Trevor Phillips said there was an apparent lack of safeguards to ensure scanners were operated fairly and without discrimination. The Independent: Airport body scanners 'may be unlawful'.

[Editor's Comment:] There is no "fair" way of operating these machines. It simply is unethical & repugnant to use them. All we have to do when challenged is to say: No, I will not comply.

More trouble looms for the IPCC. The body may need to revise statements made in its Fourth Assessment Report on hurricanes and global warming. A statistical analysis of the raw data shows that the claims that global hurricane activity has increased cannot be supported. JoNova: Scandinavia-gate : Yet again, we have a situation where the data doesn’t match the full-gloss coloured graphs produced by the PR agency for global warming called the IPCC. Frank Lansner and Nicolai Skjoldby have started a new blog Hide The Decline, and posted that Scandinavian data shows clearly that temperatures got markedly cooler from 1950-1970, before they began rising again, and even after the warming, they only appear to be back where they were. But, all the IPCC graphs minimize the cooling. It would be reasonable to conclude from the data that the temperature today in Scandinavia is roughly similar to that of the 1930’s. But, you’d never know this from looking at the IPCC graphs. Climate Realists: Report: Gore has been located! 'We found Al Gore!'

In the latest brazen anti-whaling stunt at sea, a protester boarded a Japanese whaling vessel under the cover of darkness and attempted to stage a citizen’s arrest on the skipper while sailing in frigid Antarctic waters on Monday. Now the Japanese are getting revenge, saying they may press charges against the activist, who remains in custody on board the whaling ship.

As we celebrate President's Day, one prisoner asks President Obama to exercise his clemency power to commute the remaining 10 years of her 27-year sentence, which she received for a first time, non-violent drug offense. Hamedah Hasan, who is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a formal commutation petition today and included a letter addressed directly to President Obama.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says the US is acting as a military dictatorship in the Middle East by killing countless number of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran's top diplomat made the comments in response to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who said Iran is “moving toward a military dictatorship. Mottaki described Clinton's remarks as "modern deceit," and added that "We are regretful that the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton … tries to conceal facts about the stance of the US administration trough fake words. This (Clinton's remark) is aimed "at diverting the attention of the public in the region (away from their problems) to unreal and incorrect topics," he added.

The British Embassy in Tehran has been gathering intelligence on Iran for the United States and Israel, a senior Iranian lawmaker says. Deputy Head of the Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Esmail Kowsari told Fars news agency that “the US and the Zionist regime have been receiving intelligence [on Iran] through the British Embassy [in Tehran].” He added that the British Embassy's interference in Iran's domestic affairs was not confined to security but included political and cultural issues as well.

[You Tube HERE, Gulf News HERE. (This is a longer version.)] Police in the Gulf state announced that they were hunting for 11 suspects, including a woman, for the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a top Hamas commander, who was found dead in his Dubai hotel room on January 20. Six of these suspects were travelling on British passports and three were carrying Irish passports, including the woman. The other two entered Dubai with German and French passports. “We have no doubts that it was 11 people holding these passports, and we regret that they used the travel documents of friendly countries,” said Lieutenant-General Dhafi Khalfan, Dubai’s chief of police. Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli Prime Minister, in a speech at the weekend, alluded to a report in The Times on Saturday that Mossad was waging a covert war of assassinations across the Middle East, targeting Hamas and Iranian officials. Uruknet: The Rising Phoenix of Israel's Assassination Policy. MEM: Dubai Police identifies Six Britons among 11 suspects for the killing of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh: Evan Dennings of Irish nationality, Gail Folliard of Irish nationality, James Leonard Clarke of British nationality, Jonathan Louis Graham of British nationality; Michael Bodenheimer of German nationality, Paul John Keeley of British nationality, Michael Lawrence Barney of British nationality; Peter Elvinger of French nationality, Kevin Daveron of Irish nationality, Melvyn Adam Mildiner of British nationality, Stephen Daniel Hodes of British nationality. PressTV: UK Embassy spying for US, Israel: Iran MP.

More than 60 years after the end of the Second World War, the name "Unit 731" still has the power to generate shock, revulsion and denial in Japan. The Imperial Japanese Army's notorious medical research team carried out secret human experiments regarded as some of the worst war crimes in history. Its scientists subjected more than 10,000 people per year to grotesque Josef Mengele-style torture in the name of science, including captured Russian soldiers and downed American aircrews. The experiments included hanging people upside down until they choked, burying them alive, injecting air into their veins and placing them in high-pressure chambers.