A gruesome video has emerged on the Internet, showing a foreign-backed militant in Syria cutting out the heart of a Syrian soldier and biting into it. - In the footage posted online on Sunday, a man wearing military gear is seen knife in hand slicing parts of a dead soldier's torso before turning to the camera and putting the heart in his mouth. "I swear we will eat from your hearts and livers…," the man says referring to the Syria government soldiers. Peter Bouckaert of the New York-based Human Rights Watch says the man has been identified as Abu Sakkar, a founder of the militant Farouq Brigade. Abu Sakkar's identity has been confirmed by militant sources in Homs and by images of him in other videos wearing the same black jacket as in the latest clip and with the same rings on his fingers. "The mutilation of the bodies of enemies is a war crime. But the even more serious issue is the very rapid descent into sectarian rhetoric and violence," Bouckaert said.

Russia Today: Video shows Syrian rebel biting into soldier's heart
PressTV: 'FSA reveals true color of terrorism' - Video Press TV has conducted an interview with Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and historian from Washington, about al-Nusra Front terrorist group that has claimed responsibility for carrying out hundreds of acts of terror in the past year.

The tempo of events in Syria has accelerated in recent weeks. The government forces have scored significant battlefield victories over the rebels, and this has provoked a mixture of war provocations and peace offers from the U.S. and its anti-Assad allies.

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb: There is no greater distortion of reality than to portray the war in Syria as one fought between two warring sides. There are no two sides inside Syria; there is simply Syria and the enemies of Syria. As such, when we call for a dialogue between “the two sides” we are not referring to the two sides of Syria, or two camps within Syria, as though there were some political or moral parity between them, but to the side that represents the Syrian Arab Republic and the side that represents those who want to destroy it. The fact that some of Syria’s enemies happen to be Syrian does not make them any more representative of one side of Syria than their Arab and American masters. - Yes, the war is taking place on Syrian soil and it does possess characteristics of a civil war, but it remains a war ON Syria and not one between two sides of Syria. To state otherwise is to confer popular legitimacy and sovereignty on those that pursue the destruction of the Syrian state.

Brazil has renewed its permanent support for finding a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria. - "Brazil is ready to contribute and support efforts in this direction, " Xinhua news agency quoted Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota as saying in a press statement on Thursday. He added that Brazil welcomes Russian-US rapprochement regarding Syria and the proposal of holding an international conference on this issue. Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, in a joint press conference with Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi in Brasilia yesterday, expressed her country's support for a political solution to the crisis in Syria by the Syrians and supported by the international community.

Bloomberg: Assad Opponents Rebuff U.S.-Russia Call for Syria Talks
YaLibnan: U.S. reassures Syria rebels about its stance on Assad

A US State Department official testified Wednesday that he was one of the last people to speak with an American ambassador before his death in Benghazi and was later demoted in retaliation for questioning how the September 11, 2012 attack was managed. - During a six-hour hearing with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Gregory Hicks told lawmakers he spoke with J. Christopher Stevens at the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Hicks said Stevens sounded frantic and communicated a quick “Greg, we’re under attack” before the call was lost. Hicks, who was in Tripoli at the time, added that he had requested air support from a US Air Force base in Aviano, Italy and later for ground troops to fend off Libyan insurgents but was denied by the State Department in both instances. Fearing their consulate would be the next to be overrun, Hicks and his aides began destroying communications equipment with an ax, according to The New York Times.

New York Times: Diplomat Says Questions Over Benghazi Led to Demotion

In the days of hysteria immediately following the Boston bombing, an unlikely media darling emerged. Ruslan Tsarni, the alleged bombers’ uncle, known to the press as “Uncle Ruslan,” gained notoriety for the ferocity with which he denounced his own nephews and their alleged Islamic radicalism. It isn’t hard to see why the press focused so closely on “Uncle Ruslan.” He said precisely what the so-called “authorities” wanted to hear about the suspects in precisely the way they wanted to hear it. Compare this to the coverage of the boys’ mother in the mainstream media. After revealing the FBI’s connection to the Tsarnaev brothers—causing the Bureau to reluctantly confirm that they had investigated Tamerlan in the past—she has been alternatively smeared and dismissed by those same media outlets which have refused to delve into the FBI connection. But even more interesting than the sudden popularity of “Uncle Ruslan” is his background and ties to other organizations.

Never tell the truth in the midst of a “crisis”. - Poor Carla del Ponte – as soon as she let the cat out of the bag on the Syria “sarin gas” hoax a flurry of articles appeared in the mainstream media reporting panicked denials by UN officials and reminding us all of her past sins. [...] All of this is meant to divert attention away from – and discredit – what del Ponte said in an interview with the Italian television network RIS: “According to the testimony we collected, the rebels have used chemical weapons, using sarin gas, although the investigation is far from concluded. Our investigations will have to be further examined, tested and proven through new witnesses but as far as we could determine, at the moment only opponents of the regime have used sarin gas.” That’s a rough Google translation. The London Independent has her saying this: “Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated. This was used on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.”

As I wrote about here yesterday there was a special ops unit in Tripoli on the night of the terrorist attack in Benghazi which was preparing to mobilize in order to assist the brave heroes who died that night trying to save Chris Stevens. If this team had made it to the scene it is very possible that Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods would be alive today, but that team never made it to Benghazi because it was ordered to stand down. Yesterday I wrote that I found it hard to believe anyone would ignore a direct order from the commander-in-chief during an attack which amounted to an act of war against the United States and today it is being reported that only the president–or someone acting on his behalf–could order the special ops to stand down. If this it true it means either Barack Obama is lying and he didn’t authorize all available resources to be used to thwart the attack, he himself ordered the stand down, or he told someone else (Hillary Clinton?) to order the stand down while he went to bed in order to rest before his major fundraiser in Nevada on September 12th. Now that we know this order came down from someone very high up in the Obama regime–acting on the behest of the president–the only question remaining is why was the stand down order issued?

Militants fighting against the Syrian government have abducted a group of UN peacekeepers monitoring the ceasefire line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the detention and called for the peacekeepers' immediate release. They were detained as they patrolled close to an area where 21 Filipino observers were held for three days in March. Syria's two-year uprising has increasingly seeped into sensitive frontiers, threatening to draw other countries closer to a conflict that has already killed more than 70,000 people in Syria. U.N. spokeswoman Josephine Guerrero said the peacekeepers were taken at Position 86, near the southern end of the narrow "area of separation" between Syrian and Israeli forces.

Blackwater mercenaries already busy little assassination bees: Anti-US Drone Candidate Imran Khan injured in Pakistan poll rally fall 07 May 2013 Leading Pakistani politician Imran Khan has been injured after falling off a lift that was taking him on stage for an election rally. Officials told the AFP news agency that the former cricketer suffered head injuries after the fall in Lahore. TV footage showed supporters carrying a bloodied and dazed Mr Khan away from the rally. Mr Khan has recently emerged as a serious contender in May's elections, with thousands attending his rallies. "He has received injuries to his head and he has been taken to hospital," Malik Ishtiaq, a local spokesman for Mr Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) told the AFP news agency. [Right, the hospital - where CIAciopaths will 'finish the job.']

PolicyMic: Pakistan Election 2013: Imran Khan Vows to Shoot Down US Drones If Elected

UK special forces are being pulled out of Afghanistan ahead of a planned mission to help Syrian rebels. - SAS and SBS commanders are drawing up top secret plans to give the fighters much-needed weapons. A Whitehall source revealed SAS and SBS veterans are being “quietly” withdrawn from Afghanistan to prepare for their new mission. They will be working with guidance from MI6 and their French counterparts, the Directorate-General for External Security, to get a £20million Brit-funded arsenal stockpiled in neighbouring countries into rebel hands.

The United States and NATO say they are "skeptical" on the finding of UN human rights investigators that foreign-backed militants used chemical weapons in Syria. - The White House press secretary repeated Washington’s accusations that Damascus used chemical weapons. "Separately," the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) also tried to undermine the report, saying it’s unclear who used such weapons. "We do not have confirmed, consolidated information as to who might have used" chemical weapons, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Brussels on Monday. [They didn't seem to need "confirmed, consolidated information" when they were accusing Syria a couple of weeks ago...] The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria could not find any evidence that Syrian government forces used chemical weapons against militants, commission member Carla Del Ponte said. "Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Del Ponte said in a television interview. "This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," said Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general who also served as prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

AWIP: U.N. has testimony Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator
In Wake of US-Israeli Attack on Syria, UN Reveals Terrorists Not Government Used Sarin Gas

Haaretz: Former Bush administration official: Israel may be behind use of chemical arms in Syria
Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who once served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff, believes that the chemical weapons used in Syria may have been an Israeli "false flag" operation aimed at implicating Bashar Assad's regime. Wilkerson made his astounding assertion in an interview on Current TV. Wilkerson said that the evidence that it was Assad’s regime that had used the chemical weapons was "flaky" and that it could very well have been the rebels or Israel who were the perpetrators. Asked why Israel would do such a thing, Wilkerson said: "I think we've got a basically geostrategically, geopolitical inept regime in Tel Aviv right now." A "false flag" operation is a covert attack on foreign or domestic soil carried out by governments or organizations under a false identity, aimed at placing blame on the enemy.

Lew Rockwell: Flaky Syrian Chemical Weapons Evidence Does Not Deter Neo-Cons - Col. Lawrence Wilkerson appeared on the Young Turks program late last week to reveal that the "varying degrees of confidence" with which Defense Secretary Hagel proclaimed that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons was in fact based on "really flaky" evidence, according to Wilkerson's sources in the intelligence community. "There is no way I would say my red line had been crossed and start something serious in terms of US intervention based on this very flimsy evidence," said Wilkerson, an academic advisor to the Ron Paul Institute. Now we hear that, according to UN investigator Carla Del Ponte, it appears that the rebels rather than the government had used the banned weapons. Hardly a surprise, as they are the ones to gain by sparking a US/NATO attack. Nevertheless, the interventionists for some reason never suffer criticism or loss of reputation when their lies are exposed. They will turn on a dime from "Assad used chemical weapons we must go in" to "the rebels in Syria have used chemical weapons we must go in," expecting no one to notice.

Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights, to Genie Energy. Major shareholders of Genie Energy – which also has interests in shale gas in the United States and shale oil in Israel – include Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild. This from a 2010 Genie Energy press release:

Claude Pupkin, CEO of Genie Oil and Gas, commented, “Genie’s success will ultimately depend, in part, on access to the expertise of the oil and gas industry and to the financial markets. Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch are extremely well regarded by and connected to leaders in these sectors. Their guidance and participation will prove invaluable.”

For Israel to seek to exploit mineral reserves in the occupied Golan Heights is plainly illegal in international law. The argument has been made in international law that an occupying power is entitled to opeate oil wells which were previously functioning and operated by the sovereign power, in whose position the occupying power now stands. But there is absolutely no disagreement in the authorities and case law that the drilling of new wells – let alone fracking – by an occupying power is illegal.

OilPrice.com: Cheney-Linked Company to Drill in Occupied Golan Heights

U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday. - The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte. "Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television. "This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added.

BBC: UN's Del Ponte says evidence "rebels" used sarin
CNN: U.N. official: There are strong suspicions Syrian rebels used sarin gas
VOR: Independent probe must be launched into use of war chemicals in Syria - Russian diplomat
Russia Today: Radioactive materials disappear in UK over last decade
Tony Cartalucci: In Wake of US-Israeli Attack on Syria, UN Reveals Terrorists Not Government Used Sarin Gas

MI6, the British secret intelligence service, has acknowledged they handed “bundles” of cash over to Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai to fund projects aimed at rebuilding the war-torn nation, the Telegraph newspaper has reported. - The news has given rise to claims that direct cash payments might have been used inappropriately and have settled down in pockets of Afghan warlords. The donations were made periodically over the 12 years that Britain has been at war in Afghanistan. The statement about “ghost money” from MI6 followed the reports that the CIA had been providing the Afghan government with millions of dollars in cash since 2001.

DandelionSalad: Afghanistan Awash with U.S. cash and U.S. blood -by Dennis Kucinich (Video)
NYT: C.I.A. delivers 'tens of millions of dollars' to Afghan druglords, Taliban
Jason Ditz: CIA’s ‘Bags of Cash’ Fueled Afghan Corruption
Bill Van Auken: What the CIA’s cash has bought for Afghanistan

The Pentagon has redesigned its biggest "bunker buster" bomb with more advanced features intended to enable it to destroy Iran's most heavily fortified and defended nuclear site. - U.S. officials see development of the weapon as critical to convincing Israel that the U.S. has the ability to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb if diplomacy fails, and also that Israel's military can't do that on its own. Several times in recent weeks, American officials, seeking to demonstrate U.S. capabilities, showed Israeli military and civilian leaders secret Air Force video of an earlier version of the bomb hitting its target in high-altitude testing, and explained what had been done to improve it, according to diplomats who were present. In the video, the weapon can be seen penetrating the ground within inches of its target, followed by a large underground detonation, according to people who have seen the footage.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the White House is considering providing lethal weapons to foreign-sponsored militants fighting the Syrian government. - Hagel made the remarks at a joint press conference in Washington with British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond on Thursday. "Arming the rebels - that's an option," Hagel said, adding that a "range of options" remained on the table. "These are options that must be considered with partners, with the international community: what is possible, what can help accomplish (our) objectives," he said. Saying that the British government has not directly supplied arms to the militants in Syria, Hammond confirmed that Britain does not rule out the possibility to do so in the future. The British defense secretary also said the US decision to provide weapons to the militants is a signal that Washington was showing renewed leadership over the Syrian crisis.

Bill Van Auken: US defense secretary says Washington weighs arming of Syrian insurgency - In reality, both the US and Britain are already deeply involved in supporting the forces fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. The CIA has established a covert station in Turkey near the Syrian border to coordinate the shipment of arms from that country as well as Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, both US and British military forces have undertaken the training of so-called rebels inside Jordan.

Syrian media say foreign-backed militants have used an unknown liquid to kill a number of civilians in the country’s northwest. - According to a report by the official SANA news agency on Wednesday, several people have been killed due to exposure to poisonous fumes from the liquid in Idlib. Meanwhile, Turkish officials said they were testing blood samples taken from Syrian casualties to determine whether they were victims of a chemical weapons attack. Earlier in the day, Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari said the foreign-backed militants in the Arab country used chemical material against civilians during an attack on a town near Idlib. He added that some of the victims had been transferred to Turkey in a pre-arranged scenario.

Tony Cartalucci: EU Lifts Oil Embargo on Syria - Buys Directly from Al Qaeda - Western media hails EU oil deal as potential game changer, despite admitting Al Qaeda holds oil fields. - Clearly then, it is no accident that Al Qaeda has the weapons and cash to dominate the so-called "opposition," nor a mystery as to how they've managed to seize much of Syria's oil fields. It is also no accident that these very terrorists now stand to gain immensely by selling stolen oil to the European Union, in a bid to further increase their strength, capabilities, and reach, in an otherwise so-far unsuccessful bid to overthrow the Syrian government.

Pepe Escobar: The Syria-Iran red line show
PressTV: US training anti-Syria militants, al-Qaeda terrorists in Jordan: Report

Further investigation into the Boston Bombers ties to the CIA reveal a shell company used to funnel funds to overseas terrorists was set up by Uncle Ruslan at the home of a top CIA official. - As details continue to emerge about the connection of the Boston Bombers to the CIA documents surfaced over the weekend which directly tie the Uncle Ruslan Tsarnaev to operations to fund overseas terrorists on behalf of the CIA. To fund the terrorists Uncle Ruslan set up a company called the Congress of Chechen International Organizations at the home of CIA official Graham Fuller. One of the document’s shows correspondence with organiation classified by the UN as terrorist organization. The doument shows the company confirming aid and soliciting further aid for an international terrorist cell lead by a well-known international terrorist that is said to have later trainded and funded on of the 9/11 hijackers.

Neo-Cons Trolling for Terrorist Recruits in Caucasus: Did CIA Fund and FBI Lend Tamerlan as a Spotter?

Claims 'Evidence' of Usage, But Stumped on Who, How, or When. - President Obama claims that the US now has “evidence” of chemical weapons use inside Syria, but is missing some very key pieces of the puzzle, such as when they were used, how they were used, and most importantly who even used them. Insisting that the Pentagon planners had given him an array of “options” militarily, Obama conceded that the US really can’t confirm that the Assad government actually used the chemical weapons and that they couldn’t really do anything until they figure that part out. Intelligence sources last month were saying that the largest such “attack” was almost certainly launched by the rebels, noting that it targeted Syrian troops and used a more primitive type of agent than the Syrian arsenal is believed to consist of.

Tony Cartalucci: West's WMD Lies Fray as Syrian Army Overruns Terrorist Proxies