Syrian President Bashar Assad was en route to attend Eid al-Fitr prayers, but state television shows political leader unharmed. ■ Syrian rebels said on Thursday they targeted President Bashar Assad's motorcade heading to a Damascus mosque to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, but state television showed him unharmed and the government denied he had been attacked. ■ The Tahrir al-Sham rebel brigade, a unit of the [so-called] Free Syrian Army, said it fired several artillery shells towards Assad's convoy in the heart of the capital and that at least some hit their target. If confirmed, the attack would be one of the most direct against Assad in two years of conflict which have pitched mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against the Alawite president. Video footage distributed by the Tahrir al-Sham "rebels" [mercenaries] showed smoke rising from what it said was the Malki district, where Assad and his close aides have homes. Other activists also reported rocket fire into the area. ■ Syria's government denied the reports. "The news is wholly untrue," Information Minister Omran Zoabi said.

The Central Intelligence Agency 's second-in-command that there are now more foreign fighters from the West pouring into Syria to fight alongside al-Qaeda affiliated groups.
■ Speaking to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Michael Morell warned that the violence in Syria was likely to spill across borders into Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. The CIA Deputy Director doubted the U.S. administration's plans to arm the "Syrian opposition" fighters who include al-Qaeda-affiliated members. Morell considered that the crisis in Syria is "probably the most important issue in the world today" and that it is also now poses "the greatest threat to U.S. national Security". [BS!]
■ Meanwhile, a United Nations report said the crisis in Syria has seen the emergence of a strong al-Qaida presence drawing from al-Qaida in Iraq attracting hundreds of recruits from outside Syria. The al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra constitutes along with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham the core of backbone of the armed terrorist groups that are shedding the Syrians' blood. Despite the fact that the US has put Jabhat al-Nusra on its list of terrorist organizations, the US is still offering all forms of support, including arms, to the terrorist groups.

● An article published in a Journal of Chemical Physics, signed by no less than nine experts, analyzing the results of studies on particles taken from the 9/11 event at the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001 makes the most shocking conclusion: "highly energetic pyrotechnic or explosive material" was discovered.
● [The] document published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal 2009, volume2, title "Active Thermal Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe", authored by Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley and Bradley R. Larsen, makes for interesting reading.
● In the introduction, the team states that it was intrigued by the fact that "the collapses of the three tallest WTC buildings were remarkable for their completeness, their near free-fall speed, their striking radial symmetry..." After a substantial study was made (and the work has been copied and pasted at several sites around the Internet so that it will not be hastily taken down and buried), the following conclusions are made:
● Elemental iron was not found in pre-strike samples, but was present in the post-strike samples of materials, leading the scientists to conclude that the post-ignition materials contain the ingredients of thermite; the small size of iron oxide particles "qualifies the material to be characterized as nano-thermite or super-thermite" and is "very likely a form of super-thermite" due to the temperatures at which the materials react; the conclusion is that a thermite reaction took place;, then "We note that it is likely also an energetic material, in that the total energy release sometimes observed in DSC tests exceed the theoretical maximum energy of the classic thermite reaction".
● And now, the final statement: "Based on these observations, we conclude that the red layer of the red/gray chips we have discovered in the WTC dust is active, unreacted thermitic material, incorporating nanotechnology, and is a highly energetic pyrotechnic or explosive material".
● Could we expect the United States of America to now launch a full, open and comprehensive investigation into what happened? However well-meaning Washington declares it is, the hearts and minds of humankind need acts and not words. The acts, since the year 2000, have written a horrific epitaph for Washington and a deep political grave for its leaders. What was that about "change"?

SlideShare: Active Thermal Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe

David Seaman: Barack Obama made his sixth appearance on "The Tonight Show" earlier this evening, and he lied to host Jay Leno - as well as every American viewer watching the program. It wasn't a small lie, or a miscommunication. It was a wholesale denial of the NSA's domestic spying violations, pumped into the homes of millions of viewers. It was a work of political propaganda and dishonesty.

● The US launched its fifth and sixth drone strikes in two weeks against Yemen on Wednesday and Thursday morning, killing seven alleged Al Qaeda militants in the first strike and at least three in the second. Wednesday’s attack targeted members of a Bedouin tribe in Shabwa province. Thursday’s hit a car allegedly carrying Al Qaeda members in the Erq Al Shabwan area of the Abeidah Valley in Mareb. On Tuesday, five missiles from US drones struck a vehicle traveling in Mareb Province, killing as many as six people.
● The US has carried out the drone strikes in rapid succession on orders from the Obama administration, ending a seven-week hiatus of strikes against Yemen. It is becoming increasingly clear that the global terror alert announced last Friday is bound up with foreign as well as domestic objectives.

The Guardian: US embassy closures used to bolster case for NSA surveillance programs

■ On Sunday, McClatchy reported that the decision to close U.S. embassies and issue a travel warning last week was prompted by an intercepted communication between Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri and Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the Yemen-based head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
■ The McClatchy report helped "clarify" why the U.S. government was taking such extreme caution overseas and included information about the much-discussed terror threat that at least two news organizations, CNN and the New York Times, held back at the government's request.
■ CNN's Barbara Starr acknowledged on air that the network withheld the names attached to the intercept, while the New York Times -- which noted holding back information in a Friday night report -- explained the decision in an article Monday.

● At around 1:30am my family and I were awaken by the sound of loud and aggressive banging at our front door. The Aggressive nature of the banging frightened us so I walked into the guest room that looks over the front of our house and was shocked when I saw 3 large Dekalb County Sheriff SUV's with large flood lights pointed at our house and windows. ● The New Yorker’s Sarah Stillman has a heartbreaking story out on an appalling police tactic — civil forfeiture, which lets local police departments make tons of money from taking supposed criminals’ property. Civil forfeiture is largely a product of the war on drugs. In 1984, Congress passed an omnibus crime bill that gave local police departments a cut of the assets seized during drug raids and other investigations. Through civil forfeiture, cops can take property they believe was obtained illicitly before you’re convicted of any wrongdoing in a court of law. The people whose assets have been seized then have to go to court to try to get it back, which may cost more money than the property itself. In many cases, civil forfeiture affects poor minorities who have little recourse. ● Head over to The New Yorker for a more in-depth look at why local police departments have grown so dependant on taking people's property»