A non-UN-sanctioned US assassination drone has crashed into a refugee camp in the Somali capital Mogadishu, Press TVreports. - Refugees and soldiers in Mogadishu's Badbado camp say they watched the unmanned aircraft crash into a hut on Friday. Shortly after the incident, forces from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) closed down the refugee camp, which is in the Dharkenley district of southern Mogadishu, the Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported. Somali government officials and African Union forces found the drone after the crash and took it away. The US is using a new kind of drone, called a kamikaze drone, in Somalia. It functions both as a missile and an intelligence-gathering reconnaissance aircraft.

Listen along, and laugh out loud at the law enforcement agents bumbling away.
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Related #FFF Defacemenst:
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The Atlanticwire
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The United States, European governments and Arab states have begun discussing the possibility of exile for Bashar al-Assad despite skepticism the defiant Syrian president is ready to consider such an offer, Western officials said on Wednesday. - While talks have not progressed far and there is no real sense that Assad's fall is imminent, one official said as many as three countries were willing to take him as a way to bring an end to Syria's bloody 10-month-old crisis. Two sources said no European states were prepared to give Assad sanctuary, but one official said the United Arab Emirates might be among those open to the idea. With the White House insisting for weeks that Assad's days in power are numbered, it was unclear whether this marks an attempt to persuade the Syrian leader and his family to grasp the chance of a safe exit instead of risking the fate of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who was hunted and killed by [the CIA's] rebels last year. But with Assad showing he remains in charge of a powerful security apparatus and the Syrian opposition fragmented militarily, it could also be an effort to step up psychological pressure and open new cracks in his inner circle.

President Obama said that drones are used against “al-Qaeda operatives” engaged in “active plots against the United States.” We know from reporting by Pakistani journalists that the vast majority of suspected militants targeted are not members of al-Qaeda, nor are they involved in plots against the U.S. homeland. Many of the targets are actually anonymous, low-level militants who provide operational support to the Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan.

The Obama administration’s claim boils down to “if they die from our drones, they were al Qaeda.” There is no gray area, no question of whether they were insurgents, suppliers of insurgents, the son of an insurgent, at the same party as an insurgent, an actual al Qaeda operative, or an al-Qaeda sympathizer, plotting to attack the homeland, or just documenting the aftermath of drone strikes, etc. If we kill them, clearly they were bin Laden reincarnated. The catchall claim, which so far no public official has been properly scrutinized for, is analogous to Richard Nixon’s claim that “if the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”

Bill Van Auken: Obama publicly embraces drone killings

The administration appears not to have responded to the requests, even to claim that the data was classified. The ACLU is preemptively arguing that the “secrecy” claim is not reasonable given the many relevant public comments made by President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit today in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, complaining that the Obama Administration failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests relating to the assassinations of three US citizens in Yemen. The ACLU condemned “the government’s self-serving attitude toward transparency,” arguing that the administration publicly and loudly releases bits of information related to the assassinations but declines to provide the full story, claiming the killings were “secret.” The requests centered around the September 30 assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born Muslim cleric that the administration regularly claimed was a “terrorist,” as well as his teenage son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and US citizen Samir Khan. The ACLU sought information on the process through which the Obama Administration decides who lives and who dies, as well as on the legal rationale for “kill lists.”

PressTV: Rights group sues US for 'targeted killing' memos

One 'Wanted Militant' Slain, Rest Termed 'Al-Qaeda'. - At least 12 people, and by some accounts as many as 15, were killed today in Yemen after being attacked by US drones. The attack targeted vehicles in the nation’s contested Abyan Province. Preliminary reports indicate that one of the slain was a “wanted militant” named Abdel-Munem al-Fatahani, while local tribesmen said four of them were “al-Qaeda leaders” in the area. The targets were apparently affiliated with either the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) or the Ansar al-Sharia. Reports termed everyone suspects.

Pakistan dismissed claims made in a classified NATO report that it is aiding Taliban guerrillas in neighboring Afghanistan, a study that also said the militants may again take power in Kabul once foreign troops leave in 2014. - “For me this is old wine in an even older bottle,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said at a press conference in Kabul today. “I don’t think these claims are new. I can just disregard this as potentially strategic leak.” A report by senior NATO officers in Afghanistan says the Taliban are unbeaten and “its strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remain intact,” the London-based Times said today. The report, entitled “State of the Taliban,” was based on 27,000 interviews with detainees and has been reviewed by the newspaper, according to the Times.

During a broadcasted meeting of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA Director, panel Chairperson indicate they met Tamir Pardo in Washington this week; U.S. official: [allegedly] Iran willing to attack U.S. targets if threatened. - The clandestine Washington visit was exposed during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which was participated by CIA Director David Petraeus, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate panel. During the meeting, Feinstein asked Clapper whether or not Israel intended to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, with the top U.S. intelligence official answering that he would rather discuss the issue behind closed doors.

The Independent: Israel sets up elite command unit to strike behind 'enemy' lines

The Western-backed overthrow of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi likely provided huge stocks of heavy weapons to terrorist groups and criminal organizations operating in the Sahel region of North Africa, the United Nations confirmed January 26 in a report. Among the groups benefiting from the arms are al-Qaeda and the deadly Islamic terror organization Boko Haram, which is currently on a killing spree in Nigeria. The UN report explained that “due to the Libyan upheaval ... governments in the region are faced with the return of millions of economic migrants, the smuggling of weapons from Libyan stockpiles, terrorist activities, youth unemployment, trafficking in drugs and human beings, and a surge in criminality,” the international body summarized in a press release on its findings.

President Barack Obama readily confirmed the drone war in northwest Pakistan in an interview Monday, breaking with the protocol which normally demands U.S. officials not speak publicly about the classified program.

“I want to make sure people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties,” President Obama said in an hour long interview hosted by Google. “For the most part, they’ve been very precise, precision strikes against against al-Qaeda and their affiliates.” The claim mirrors previous attempts to downplay the civilian casualties of the drone war. John Brennan, President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, told the public back in June that zero civilian casualties have occurred as a result of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. This was an obvious lie, but the Bureau of Investigative Journalism helped prove it so in August by cataloguing their lengthy findings on civilian casualties in the drone war, counting hundreds of civilians by name who were killed in drone strikes, including at least 168 children. Investigative reporter Noor Behram, who had been on the ground in Pakistan tallying the dead, estimated that “for every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant.” A Washington Post report [has] said that the drone war in Pakistan has resulted “in an estimated 1,350 to 2,250 deaths.” But the public simply doesn’t have a good idea of how many have been killed, because “the identities…remain classified, as does the existence of the drone program itself.” [Image: Associated Press]

BIJ: Drone War Exposed – the complete picture of CIA strikes in Pakistan

Attacks by Islamist group Boko Haram have killed at least 935 people since the sect launched a violent campaign in 2009, including 250 this year alone, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. - "More than 935 people have been killed in some 164 suspected attacks” since Boko Haram launched its campaign of shooting and bomb attacks in July 2009, the New York-based global rights group. "In the first three weeks of January 2012 alone, more than 253 people have been killed in 21 separate attacks,” it said. It said 185 police and residents were killed in coordinated attacks targeting mainly police stations in Kano — the country’s second largest city — on January 20, Boko Haram’s deadliest single operation.

Jason Ditz: Boko Haram – An Overview on America’s Latest‘Threat’ [The CIA's latest "Islamist" outfit]

The Justice Department on Monday charged a former Central Intelligence Agency officer with disclosing classified information to journalists about the capture and brutal interrogation of a suspected member of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah — adding another chapter to the Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks. - The Justice Department on Monday charged a former Central Intelligence Agency officer with disclosing classified information to journalists about the capture and brutal interrogation of a suspected member of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah — adding another chapter to the Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks. Mr. Kiriakou, who was released on a $250,000 bond after appearing in federal court in Alexandria, Va., on Monday, was a leader of the team that captured Abu Zubaydah, and he came to public attention in late 2007 when he gave an interview to ABC News portraying the suffocation technique called waterboarding as torture, but calling it necessary. (It later emerged that he significantly understated the C.I.A.’s use of the technique.) His lawyer did not return a call for comment on Monday.

LA Times: Ex-CIA officer charged with disclosing classified information

At least five people have been killed in two strikes carried out by a US assassination drone in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan, Press TV, reports. - Security officials said on Monday that the American drone targeted a vehicle and a house with two missiles, killing five people at Degan village near Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan on the Afghan border. The death toll is expected to rise, and the rescue operation is underway in the area, local residents say. The US resumed its assassination drone operations in recent days after it halted the CIA-operated strikes in November 2011, when 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in NATO attacks on two Pakistani military border checkpoints in Mohmand agency.

US authorities say former Liberian leader Charles Taylor worked for its intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the Boston Globe reports. - The revelation comes in response to a Freedom of Information request by the newspaper. A Globe reporter told the BBC this is the first official confirmation of long-held reports of a relationship between US intelligence and Mr Taylor. Mr Taylor is awaiting a verdict on his trial for alleged war crimes. Rumours of CIA ties were fuelled in July 2009 when Mr Taylor himself told his trial, at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in the Hague, that US agents had helped him escape from a maximum security prison in Boston in 1985. The CIA at the time denied such claims as "completely absurd". [!]

Norway's head of intelligence Janne Kristiansen has handed in her resignation because she said too much during a parliamentary hearing. - Justice Minister Grete Faremo told reporters that a "potential breach of confidentiality is a very serious matter". According to a transcript, Ms Kristiansen told the hearing that Norway had agents working in Pakistan. Reports say Pakistan has asked Norway to explain her remarks. Ms Kristiansen resigned late on Wednesday night after meeting the justice minister. A ministry spokesman told the BBC News website that the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) chief had "drawn her own conclusions".

The Washington Post: Head of Norway’s intelligence service resigns after disclosure gaffe
Montreal Gazette: Norway security chief quits in Pakistan agents row
The Foreigner: Norway PST director resigns

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast has said that Iran has documents that prove certain Western countries’ support for terrorists and plans to release them in the future. - Mehmanparast made the remarks during his regular press briefing on Tuesday in reply to a question about the diplomatic efforts that Iran has made to pursue the issue of the assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, a graduate of Sharif university in chemical engineering and an official at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, who was killed in Tehran on January 11. Commenting on the assassination, he said, “The true faces of the self-proclaimed advocates of human rights and the campaign against terrorist are revealed in such scenes, and we are seeking to release documents showing certain Western countries’ support for terrorists.” “We expect the self-proclaimed advocates of human rights and the campaign against terrorism to show how serious they are about dealing with terrorism and condemning it,” he added.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan with his son, Alireza.

Killing our enemies abroad is just state-sponsored terror – whatever euphemism western leaders like to use.

On the morning of 11 January Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, the deputy head of Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, was in his car on his way to work when he was blown up by a magnetic bomb attached to his car door. He was 32 and married with a young son. He wasn't armed, or anywhere near a battlefield.

Since 2010, three other Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in similar circumstances, including Darioush Rezaeinejad, a 35-year-old electronics expert shot dead outside his daughter's nursery in Tehran last July. But instead of outrage or condemnation, we have been treated to expressions of undisguised glee. "On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear programme in Iran turn up dead," bragged the Republican nomination candidate Rick Santorum in October. "I think that's a wonderful thing, candidly."

Deutsche Welle: Iran makes arrests in scientist's death
Fars News Agency: Students Urge UN to Study Israel's Role in Assassination of Iranian Scientists

Magazine report claims Israeli spies used fake US spy identities to work with Pakistani fighters targeting Iran. - Agents with Israel's spy agency, Mossad, have posed as CIA agents in operations to recruit members of the Pakistani group Jundallah, according to a report in US-based Foreign Policy magazine. Using US dollars and passports, the agents passed themselves off as members of the US Central Intelligence Agency in the operations, according to memos from 2007 and 2008, said the report which was published on Friday. It is "unclear" whether the recruitment programme is ongoing. [Bullshit! - It's obviously going on 24/7] "Israel has done this before. I know of a report very widely accepted in the US of Israeli Mossad agents in the United States, actually recruiting American Muslims," Mark Perry, who authored the report, told Al Jazeera.

Mark Perry: False Flag - A series of CIA memos describes how Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight their covert war against Iran. Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives -- what is commonly referred to as a "false flag" operation.

Just one day after reports began trickling out that the US was close to a deal with the Zardari government to resume their drone strikes against the tribal areas, the first drone attack in nearly two months was launched, killing four and injuring several others. - US officials declined to comment publicly, saying that the attack was “classified,” but reports are that it was “probably” a CIA strike. The US stopped all attacks in late November after a US warplane attacked two military bases in Pakistan, killing 24 soldiers. In December it was even reported that the Pakistani military was planning to shoot down future US drones invading the country’s airspace, though this threat apparently was an empty one, as there is no indication any such attempt was made. As usual, the identities of the victims are entirely unknown, as is the reason for the strike. We can expect a future comment from Pakistani officials to term the slain “suspects,” but in all likelihood their identities will never be made public.

The same old drug war tactics lead to more powerful cartels and illicit activity by US authorities. - U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents laundered millions in cash for a powerful Mexican drug trafficker and his Colombian cocaine supplier, according to documents made public Monday. With the help of Mexican federal police officers, the DEA agents and their Colombian informant conducted at least 15 wire transfers to banks in the United States, Canada and China and smuggled about $2.5 million in the United States. Money laundering is a favored tactic of the DEA. The illicit activity – specifically sanctioned as Attorney General Exempt Operations – often violates Mexican sovereignty, facilitates additional criminal activity on the part of the drug cartels, and may be counterproductive, especially in the shadow of the failed gun-running operation Fast and Furious. Mexican military and law enforcement, trained and armed by the U.S., typically assist the Americans. But Mexico’s over-reliance on harsh law enforcement and militaristic approaches to the drug war – actively promoted by the United States – has resulted in a dramatic increase in violence and an unaccountable police and military force that is responsible for widespread human rights violations.

KTAR.com: US agents helped launder millions in drug proceeds

Reports coming out of the Express Tribune say that the United States is close to finalizing a secret deal with the Zardari government which would allow them to resume drone strikes against Pakistan's tribal areas, but under new conditions. Under the deal, the U.S. would resume the strikes but launch them less frequently, with officials saying that the frequency of the strikes was a big source of public opposition. The U.S. halted all strikes after they attacked a Pakistani military base in November, killing 24 soldiers. U.S. officials have touted the strikes as a key part of their overall strategy, and a recent study revealed that they launched 75 attacks in 2011, killing 609 people. The vast majority of the victims were never identified publicly, but only three were ever confirmed to be al-Qaeda “commanders.”

Jason Ditz: Report: US Likely to Resume Pakistan Drone Strikes Soon

The US military has been accused of abuse and torture at its notorious detention center in Afghanistan. Investigators say most detainees at Bagram prison are being held without charge or firm evidence of guilt.

Inmates of the US-run prison outside Bagram Air Base north of Kabul complained of freezing cold, humiliating strip searches and being deprived of light, according to Gul Rahman Qazi, who led an investigation ordered by President Hamid Karzai.

President Karzai ordered the investigative commission to be set up on January 5, after demanding that the US transfer full control over its military prisons to local authorities within a month. "Foreign troops are not allowed to run prisons in Afghanistan, which is sovereign and has its own constitution," Karzai said on Thursday. According to President Karzai, the Bagram prisoners are subject to Guantanamo-like conditions with ''many cases of violations of the Afghan constitution and other applicable laws of the conventions on human rights.” Officially, the detention facility is run by the US and Afghanistan jointly, but local authorities currently control only a small portion of the prison.

An Iranian court on Monday convicted an American man of working for the CIA and sentenced him to death, state media reported. - Iranian authorities allege that Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine, received special training at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before being dispatched on a spy mission in Iran. Mirzaei, 28, was born in Arizona but holds dual citizenship. Mirzaei has 20 days to appeal the court’s decision, which comes at a time of increasing tensions between Tehran and Washington. The U.S. is pursuing tough sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, and a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and mysterious explosions at military and industrial sites have prompted Iran to keep closer tabs on dual nationals visiting the country.

PressTV: Iran sentences CIA operative to death
Fars News Agency: Judicial Decree for Execution of CIA Spy in Iran Issued
Al Jazeera: Iran sentences 'CIA agent' to death
Russia Today: Iran sentences American ex-Marine to death for spying

Pakistan's former ambassador to the United States denied any involvement in drafting a memo that accused the army of plotting a coup and suggested on the first day of a Supreme Court commission on Monday he was being framed. - Former envoy Husain Haqqani struck a defiant tone that was sure to do little to quell a scandal that has dominated Pakistani politics for the past three months and destabilized the civilian government amid rumors of a military takeover. "I had no role in creating, drafting and/or delivering the memorandum to the (U.S.) Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen," Haqqani said on Monday. "I have no knowledge of the origin, authenticity or purpose of the said memo." The murky scandal emerged last October when businessman Mansoor Ijaz, writing in a column in the Financial Times, said a senior Pakistani diplomat had asked that the memo, seeking help to rein in the military, be sent to the U.S. Defense Department.

From another grisly find...(The We!)

A mass grave containing at least 10 human skulls was discovered in northern Afghanistan by construction workers digging the earth to build a car park in an army compound, Afghan officials said on Wednesday.

The discovery of the grave Tuesday in the northern Balkh province in the Deh Dadi district near the site of a major battle during the country's bloody civil war of the early 1990s is yet another reminder of the country's turbulent past. "We brought 10 to 15 skeletons out of the grave and then stopped digging," said Mohammad Nahim, a spokesman for the Afghan army in the north said. Nahim added that the army asked forensic and human rights bodies to investigate the grave, where the hands of skeletons, some poking out from dusty sweaters, had been tied behind their backs with blue rope. [See item below.]

The men were travelling with a local interpreter and driver on the Jalalabad road, east of Kabul. They work for a "private security company" [MI6/CIA] and were carrying AK-47 assault rifles - one of the most commonly used weapons in Afghanistan. Thousands of private security guards operate in Afghanistan, including many foreigners. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has in the past accused them of undermining the security services and taking work from Afghan nationals. The men were were arrested along with their driver and interpreter. Kabul police have called on their employers to explain why they were transporting the guns without proper documentation. Kabul police chief Ayub Salangi told the BBC at least 15 of the AK-47s did not have serial numbers. [...] The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says that such cases, while hardly routine, have occurred in the past. A British man was briefly detained in 2007 for having more 100 pistols. In the same year an American bounty hunter, Jack Idema, was pardoned by President Hamid Karzai after a period in jail for running a private prison in Kabul and torturing Afghans. [See item below.]

Ola Tunander is a Norwegian Academic and author of many papers and books relating to the "Deep State" . He was appointed Research Professor at the International Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 2000. He recently published a professional paper in Norwegion entitled, "The use of terrorism to construct world order". Introduction. Tunander's full report [2004].

Abstract: In any state, certain areas are ‘securitized’ and by definition removed from the democratic political process. In an emergency situation – in short of war or terrorist attacks – the security sphere ‘invades’ the sphere of democratic politics. An autocratic security force or ‘security state’ appears to act in parallel to the regular democratic state, and this duality or ‘dual state’ was described by Hans Morgenthau already in 1955. After September 11, terrorism has become an instrument to ‘securitize’ what used to be public and tilt the ‘dual state’-balance in favour of the ‘security state’. The US ‘security state’ with its intelligence hegemony enters the scene as global protector that defines the world order in terms of a Pax Americana. Terrorism is used to construct a new world order. This development has been followed by mutual transatlantic accusations between European critiques and US neo-conservatives. According to the critiques, the Strategy of Tension, as we know it from Cold War Europe, has received a global dimension. During the Cold War, the US ‘dual security structure’ – with its specifically tasked units masquerading as ‘enemy forces’ – was developed by the US ‘security state’ in order to keep the political strength and the readiness and capability of the Western defences. Now, this structure has seemingly been made into a self-propelled mechanism that is able to transform the world order into a Pax Americana.

The promise to scrap his predecessor’s hardliner war-on-terror policies, which helped Barack Obama win presidential election, is apparently off the table. The political reality is that the current administration is doing quite the opposite thing.

Long before he became US president or the winner of a Noble Peace Prize, Barack Obama was a constitutional law professor. During his election campaign he vowed to reverse the abuses and policies of his predecessor George W. Bush. Three years later, many civil rights advocates, who once cheered “yes, we can,” are finding themselves disillusioned.

“Not only has the Obama administration blocked torture accountability and refused to investigate and prosecute. He has basically maintained indefinite detention. He has revived military commissions. As well he has expanded targeted killings – they’ve increased under the Obama administration manifold, and he’s even authorized the killing of a US citizen,” explains Maria LaHood from the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Russia Today: ‘Obama just didn’t have the balls to follow with the right thing’

White House officials are rejecting calls by top Congressional leaders for details about the ongoing drone assassination programs around the world, insisting that calls for oversight “don’t hold water.” - A number of Congressmen and former administration and military officials are complaining that the program is being conduct with virtually no oversight and that the killings have a huge impact on foreign affairs. The Obama Administration has killed thousands of “suspects,” mostly in Pakistan, since taking over in 2009. The program, conducted by both the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is only occasionally even publicly acknowledged by officials, and details related to massive civilian casualties are never publicly commented on.

Peter Phillips of Project Censored speaks at the Grand Lake Theater for the 9/11 anniversary film festival on September 8, 2011.

The US has resorted to “any possible means”, ranging from implicit to explicit acts of enmity, to undermine the Iranian nation and break its resistance to subjugation, a political analyst tells Press TV. - In consonance with its animus-charged measures against the Islamic Republic, “a US court in Manhattan made a mockery of justice, issued a default judgment against Iran, and accused Tehran of being involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” Ismail Salami, a Middle East expert, said, citing one such anti-Iran push in an article published on Press TV on Tuesday. Such an allegation “stands in stark contrast to reason in view of the plethora of evidence pointing with force and logic to the joint role of the CIA and the Mossad in the tragic incident,” he added. On December 22, a US federal judge in Manhattan alleged that Iran, together with Taliban and al-Qaeda, had been involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The court, meanwhile, withdrew Saudi Arabia's name from the 10-year-old case, even though 15 of the 19 attackers were of Saudi nationality. The Iranian author went on to say that the association of the Islamic Republic of Iran with Taliban and al-Qaeda was a move aimed to “further drag Iran into the margins of isolation.” The US government's effort to incriminate Iran in the 9/11 case followed another attempt in early October, when the US Justice Department accused Tehran of involvement in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

Jason Ditz: Report: Israel, US Discuss Excuses for Attacking Iran - Officially, of course, both sides would insist such an attack was about Iran’s nuclear program. But since both nations have been claiming Iran is within striking distance of acquiring nuclear weapons since the mid-1980s, the excuse isn’t going to really fly internationally, so both nations are hoping to settle on something which could be the “trigger” for the attack.

Two suicide car bombs apparently aimed at state security facilities rocked the Syrian capital on Friday leaving at least 40 dead and 100 wounded. The government dubbed the attacks “terrorist operations with involvement by al-Qaeda.”

RT’s Sara Firth, who has just returned from Damascus, says reports suggest the attacks might have been launched by an increasingly well-armed section of the opposition. State TV said police had arrested an individual involved in the attacks in the Kfar Sousa district of Damascus which claimed the lives of both civilians and soldiers. The attacks are believed to be the first in the Syrian capital since the start of the uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad in March. They come a day after a team of Arab League observers arrived in Syria in the hope of salvaging prospects for peace in the conflict-torn country. Former Belgian MP Lode Vanoost believes the ongoing conflict in Syria is not simply about domestic issues, but has geo-strategic implications. “The West wants to control the Middle East, and for the moment, Syria remains a dictatorship out of their control,” he told RT.

Reuters: Forty killed, 100 wounded in Damascus blasts: Syrian TV

Legislation that will let President Obama and future leaders of America detain and torture Americans indefinitely has made it to the White House, where it is expected to be soon signed into law by the commander-in-chief. - The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, of NDAA FY2012, was overwhelmingly approved by the House and Senate earlier this month. While the legislation indeed had its critics, the act was inexplicably missed by the mainstream media, who neglected to inform Americans of the dangerous blows to constitutional rights that will become a reality under the law. The bill, which is annually updated to outline spending for the Department of Defense, contains several provisions for 2012 that will turn America, as Senator Lindsey Graham puts it, “into a battlefield.” As the US continues an open-ended war on terror, now American citizens suspected to be linked to terrorist enemies can be detained in prison indefinitely and subjected to torture tactics previously outlawed.

When the commander-in-chief inks his name to NDAA FY2012, Americans can be on their way to the same torture cells that have kept al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked terrorists for the last decade. It’s now been revealed, however, that US citizens and anyone suspected of a crime against America can be sent all over the world. - If you’re upset that congressional approval of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 can send you away to military prisons and be tortured in America, don’t worry — it could be worse. The US could send you somewhere else. No, really. They could. And they can. Anywhere else, too. Really. While the bill that left Capitol Hill last week and awaits authorization from US President Barack Obama allows for the United States to indefinitely detain and torture American citizens suspected of aiding enemy forces, one provision in the bill specifies that that detention doesn’t necessarily have to occur domestically — nor does it have to be in a foreign prison run by the US.

A senior Iranian lawmaker says the US government demanding that Iran return the CIA spy, recently arrested by the country's intelligence agents, is outrageous. - “The US spy is a criminal and must be tried in Iran for the crime he has committed,” Kazem Jalali said on Wednesday. The lawmaker, who is also the spokesman for Iran's Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, added that US officials have shamelessly sent spies and spy drones into Iran and brazenly says they want their operative and spy drone back. Noting that President Barack Obama is in dire conditions, Jalali said, “ The severe economic crisis in the United States and the difficult times ahead of the Democrats in the upcoming presidential election, have prompted them to launch such a immature political propaganda campaign.” “How come that the Americans kidnap Iranian citizens and keep them in custody for [many] years, but…when our intelligence forces arrest an American spy, the US president [Barack Obama] says he must be freed?” he asked.

She has eyelashes but no eyebrows. She has all her fingers but is missing four nails. Her skin is so taut now that she can no longer frown. But she can still smile. Her face tells a story of suffering. Her name, Shakira, tells a story of a new journey. Shakira means thankful. Last week, 4-year-old Shakira arrived in the United States for what her caretaker, Hashmat Effendi, hopes will be the start of the rest of her life. Shakira, believed burned in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan, will undergo reconstructive surgery in January. She will never look fully normal, but Effendi hopes the surgery will make it easier for Shakira to grow older and help others see what Effendi has seen all along: an effervescent bundle of love.

The British government has asked Washington to hand over a man held by US forces in Afghanistan after the appeal court ordered a writ of habeas corpus be issued seven years after he was detained. The court ordered the writ last week after hearing that Yunus Rahmatullah was detained by UK special forces in Iraq in 2004, and then handed over to US forces who flew him to Bagram prison, north of Kabul. The court heard on Wednesday that the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence had asked the US government to transfer Rahmatullah to British custody so that he could be released. However, the US defence department replied three days later that the responsible official "is currently on travel", and that it would respond at some unspecified date in the future.

John Glaser: Britain Asks US to Hand Over Bagram Detainee

With demonstrators suspecting governmental assistance in the crackdowns clobbering Occupy Wall Street encampments, the CIA is trying to distance itself from divulging any incriminating evidence regarding their role in the raids. - The Partnership for Civil Justice (PCJF), a Washington DC-based civil rights group, filed a Freedom of Information Act request last month to see what role, if any, the CIA has had in the brutal raids of OWS encampments that have left thousands jailed and droves of demonstrators beaten, in some instances ending up in intensive care. Now after reviewing the request to publically release any information, the Agency is scoffing at the PCJF, who in turn is calling this “a classic case of CIA-double speak” used to hide its involvement.

London/Madrid, 19 December 2011 - Just days after new details emerged of a secret CIA prison in Romania used to torture terrorism suspects, a report by two international human rights organisations shows that many European countries are suppressing evidence of their role in the USA’s notorious rendition programme.

The report, Rendition on Record, produced by open government specialists Access Info Europe and legal action charity Reprieve reveals how 28 countries have responded to a total of 67 requests for information about specific rendition flights carried out between 2002 and 2006. While six European countries and the USA responded by releasing data, 16 others have either refused or failed to respond to questions about their complicity in the CIA’s illegal detention operations. The European air traffic management body Eurocontrol also refused on the grounds that it has no transparency obligations to the public.

CIA Special Review
Read the Rendition on Record report
Access Info Europe - Information Request from September [Norway]
Finnish report on suspected CIA extraordinary rendition flight leaves many open questions [Finland, html]

The son of Libya’s top general, Khalifa Hiftar, has been kidnapped and is being held by a militia at Tripoli International Airport, the general said today. - Belgassim Hiftar, 30, was kidnapped as he drove to visit his brother Saddam, who was in a Tripoli hospital after being wounded by gunfire yesterday, said his father. “My son is kidnapped, he is being held at the airport,” the general said, speaking to reporters in his fortified compound in southern Tripoli. “We have been making phone calls with them this evening, I don’t know what they want.” The alleged kidnapping comes on the eve of a visit to Libya by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who said in Turkey today that the U.S. must give Libya more time to gain control of its militias.

Iran's Intelligence Ministry has arrested a CIA spy of Iranian descent, foiling an intricate American plot to carry out espionage activities in the Islamic Republic. - According to an Iranian Intelligence Ministry statement, the American spy is a CIA analyst who had experience working for the Military Intelligence Division (MID) of the US Army in military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was tasked with carrying out a complex intelligence operation and infiltrating the Iranian intelligence apparatus. The statement said the operative underwent intense intelligence straining before beginning his mission. He was identified by Iranian intelligence upon arriving at the Bagram Airbase. According to the report, Iranian intelligence agents surveilled the said spy and monitored his actions after entering Iran. The CIA spy was arrested after attempting to start his espionage activities in Iran. The statement continued that further information about this arrest will be made public in the coming days.

Raw Story: Iran intelligence arrests CIA spy

Commenting on Iran's recent downing of an aggressive US drone, a former CIA agent says the Iranian Army's experts managed to hack the aircraft's cyber system and then brought it down. - The downing of the drone by Iran was another defeat for the United States in the area of espionage, Robert Baer, a former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, who used to operate in the Middle East, was cited by French-language Swiss newspaper 20 Minutes as saying, IRNA reported on Saturday. On December 4, the Iranian military's electronic warfare unit announced that Iran had downed with minimal damage the US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth reconnaissance aircraft, while it was in violation of the Iranian airspace. On December 6, two US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the drone had been part

The narrative surrounding the lost RQ-170 Sentinel drone over the skies of Iran last week continues to morph, with US military officials now saying that the drone, which was previously supposed to be “patrolling” the border, was actually spying on nuclear sites in Iran.

Seeking to explain the sudden and dramatic change, military officials quoted by CNN conceded that the US military “did not have a good understanding of what was going on” with the high tech spy drone.

Iran also changed their story on the drone, backing off its claim that it had “shot down” the drone and now saying that it had used some sort of false GPS signal to trick the drone into believing it landed in Afghanistan when in fact it landed undamaged inside Iran.

This could be even worse for US officials, who were already concerned with the apparent lack of damage to the drone, as it would not only suggest Iran can grant access to a fully intact stealth drone to nations like Russia and China, but that the drones are also vulnerable to such tricks in the future.

Ismail Salami: US fear and loathing over spy drone
PressTV: Iran downing drone, body blow to US

Former Central Intelligence Agency officer, Rober Baer, said that Hezbollah’s naming of several agents and the agency’s Beirut Station Chief was a “serious blow” to the United States. - Talking to the English-written Lebanese newspaper, Daily Star, Baer said the resistance unmasking of the agency’s spies “is a serious blow to the US’ ability to gather intelligence”. The former CIA officer described Hezbollah as the “sophisticated enemy”, saying he “has enormous abilities” and "he can do whatever we can imagine". Baer also talked about an apparent “intensifying covert war between the West and Iran”. “There’s obviously an espionage war going on in Iran. And to lose an asset in the middle of a war like this, I think it’s catastrophic.”

Russia has submitted its own draft resolution on Syria to the United Nation Security Council (UNSC), calling on all sides involved to end to the ongoing violence in the country.

A draft was put forward to the members of the UNSC on Thursday, AFP reported. Moreover, the draft urges both the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the country's opposition to engage in dialogue and to work together towards reform. According to experts, the draft shows no change in Russian policy on Syria. Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March, with demonstrations being held both against and in favor of President Assad. Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed in the turmoil. While the opposition and Western countries accuse Syrian security forces of being behind the killings, Damascus blames outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups for the deadly violence, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad. Meanwhile, the confession of Syrian rebels to carry out armed activities and killing people as well as security forces proves that recent developments in the country are to be seen as parts of an attempt to start a revolt in order to overthrow the current government and replace it with a US-backed regime.

Al-Manar News: Russia Proposes Syria Resolution, US Hails Cautiously
Russia Today: Russia puts new draft resolution on Syria to UNSC

TEHRAN (FNA)- With America still scrambling to explain why and how they lost a drone aircraft over Iran last week, the Pentagon is trying to make sense of how another high-tech unmanned spy craft crashed Tuesday morning in the Seychelles. - For the second time in two weeks, American authorities lost contact with a drone aircraft, this time resulting in a fiery crash in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. The United States has operated an Air Force base there since 2009 to dispatch drones for use in anti-piracy missions and to patrol the skies over Somalia and elsewhere. Officials at the US embassy in Mauritius confirmed the crash on Tuesday morning, revealing that an MQ-9, or "Reaper" drone, had landed at Seychelles International Airport, citing mechanical issues. A week earlier, the US Department of Defense denied losing a drone, only for Iran authorities to in turn publish video proof of an American craft that they have recovered. The Pentagon later admitted that they lost contact with the drone while allegedly flying it over Afghanistan. But they later confessed that the drone was carrying a mission in Iran, prompting President Obama to ask Tehran to return the spy plane. Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shot down Obama's plea, however.

Fars News Agency: Afghan Analyst Links Panetta's Visit to Kabul with Loss of US Spy Drone
Russia Today: Cyber war on US drones? Another spy craft crash, now in Seychelles
PressTV: NATO to stay in Afghanistan after 2014
PressTV: Returning US spy drone out of question

The severity and the extent of the CIA’s involvement with Nazi war criminals has remained undisclosed for years, with the U.S. Department of Justice stifling masses of pages and documents of a frank and open history of how the U.S. government collaborated and even protected Nazis. - In 2005, the National Security Archive finally posted formerly classified secret documents that linked the CIA to the notorious Nazi general Reinhard Gehlen, despite the fact that Gehlen had employed numerous known Nazi war criminals. The released two-volume history, known as the “Secret Relger”, was compiled by Kevin Ruffner, a CIA historian. In 1999, the report was presented to the German Intelligence Service by Jack Downing, CIA Deputy Director for Operations, in remembrance of the “new and close ties” formed between the CIA and German officials during post-war Germany.

Hezbollah has revealed the identities of CIA officers working undercover in Lebanon, a blow to agency operations in the region and the latest salvo in an escalating spy war. - Hezbollah made the names public in a broadcast Friday night on a Lebanese television station, al-Manar. Using animated videos, the station recreated meetings purported to take place between CIA officers and paid informants at Starbucks and Pizza Hut. The disclosure comes after Hezbollah managed to partially unravel the agency's spy network in Lebanon after running a double agent against the CIA, former and current U.S. intelligence officials said. They requested anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence. The fiasco happened despite top CIA officials being warned to be extra careful when handling informants after Hezbollah and Lebanese officials arrested scores of Israeli spies in 2009. The outing of the officers is particularly damaging because it will hinder the ability of these CIA employees to work overseas again - especially in the Internet age where references to their names will be widely available to other foreign intelligence agencies.

Al-Manar TV: Information on CIA’s Work in Lebanon, Published for First Time by Hezbollah

The Islamic Republic announced it will reverse engineering on the US spy drone downed by its military, and is in the “final stages” of unlocking the aircraft's software secrets, the head of Iran’s Parliamentary National Security Committee Parviz Sorouri said on Monday. - According to the website of Iranian state television, Sorouri said that “in the near future, we will be able to mass produce it... Iranian engineers will soon build an aircraft superior to the American [drone] using reverse-engineering.” Sorouri said “we are in the final stages of cracking [the drone's] code.” He indicated that “we will acquire valuable intelligence through deciphering the Americans' covert intelligence and espionage methods once the code is cracked,” but added he could not say when the software would be finally unlocked.

PressTV: Returning US spy drone out of question

Jason Ditz: Obama Confirms Asking Iran for Drone Back - After initially declining comment on the matter, President Barack Obama confirmed today at a news conference with Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki that the US would really like to have back that RQ-170 Sentinel drone that Iran shot down over Iranian airspace, and that the US “have asked for it back.” The drone is considered one of the more advanced in the US arsenal, and was captured virtually undamaged by the Iranian military while it was spying on eastern Iran. The loss is expected to allow the technology to reach a number of other countries, with Russia and China both particularly keen on having a look at it. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also confirmed a “formal request” that Iran give them back the drone, while saying that “given Iran’s behavior to date, we do not expect them to comply.”

Following days of silence on the American spy drone captured and unveiled by Iranian armed forces, US President Barack Obama says Washington has asked Tehran to return the US reconnaissance drone. - “We've asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond,” Obama said in a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Monday. The plea comes as the US and CIA refused to adopt an official position after Iran aired footage of the captured unmanned aerial vehicle on December 8. The US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft was brought down with minimal damage by the Iranian Army's electronic warfare unit on Sunday, December 4, 2011, when flying over the northeastern Iran city of Kashmar, some 225 kilometers (140 miles) away from the Afghan border. On December 6, two US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to CNN that the drone was part of a CIA reconnaissance mission, involving the US intelligence community stationed in Afghanistan. They claimed the reconnaissance capability of the RQ-170 Sentinel drone enabled it to gather information from inside Iran by flying along Afghanistan's border with the Islamic Republic. Iran has announced that it intends to carry out reverse engineering on the aircraft, which is similar in design to a US Air Force B2 stealth bomber. Tehran says that the US drone spy mission was a “hostile act,” adding that it will lodge a complaint with the United Nations over the violation of its air sovereignty by the intelligence gathering aircraft. Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaei on December 8 called on the world body to condemn US aggressive moves against the Islamic Republic with respect to the reconnaissance drone that violated the Iranian airspace.

AWIP: Iran refuses to hand back US drone