Did IDF admit giving weapons to Islamists in Syria?

The IDF has confirmed that it provided weapons to Islamist rebels in Syria’s Golan Heights, the Jerusalem Post reported. However, the article was removed without explanation hours after being published. The report, ‘IDF confirms: Israel provided light-weapons to Syrian rebels,’ claimed that the Israeli military acknowledged for the first time that it had provided money, weapons and ammunition to militants operating near the border with Israel.

The article was removed shortly after being published, but a version of the article can still be read using Google cache. The IDF told RT that it would not comment on the story, and the Jerusalem Post has not responded to an inquiry asking why the article was pulled.

The lethal aid was apparently part of Operation Good Neighbor which, until now, was billed as a humanitarian aid program. Launched in 2016 by the Israeli military, the operation purportedly provided large quantities of food, clothing, fuel and medical supplies to those living in the Syrian Golan. The operation was shuttered in July, after the Syrian Army retook the area.

However, it has long been suspected that Israel was also furnishing weapons to Islamist groups operating in the contested border region, in the hope of creating a “buffer zone” against Hezbollah and Iranian forces operating in southern Syria. Damascus has previously claimed that weapons captured from Islamist groups in the Golan had Hebrew inscriptions.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Israel was “regularly supplying” Syrian rebels with cash to “help pay salaries and buy ammunition and weapons.” The Israeli military declined to confirm the report’s claims, noting only that Israel was committed to “providing humanitarian aid to the Syrians living in the area.”

Read more @ RT.

Unquiet Graves...

Former policeman blows the whistle on murderous Glenanne Gang in new documentary

A DOCUMENTARY about the loyalist Glenanne Gang - who were thought to be responsible for more than 120 killings in an area of Mid Ulster once dubbed 'murder triangle' - took four years to complete.
West Belfast filmmaker Sean Murray said he could have made the film in two years but said it "wouldn't have been the documentary he wanted to make".

The film, which was funded from charitable donations, crowd funding and from the filmmaker's own pocket, tells the story of a gang of loyalists, that included members of the security forces [my emph.], involved in a sectarian campaign of terror from 1972 until 1978.

Narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Stephen Rea, it finishes with a reading of the 'Strand at Lough Beg', the famous poem by Seamus Heaney he wrote in memory of his cousin Colum McCartney, who was shot dead by members of the Glennanne Gang dressed as UDR soldiers in Newtownhamilton in 1975.

"I contacted Stephen Rea probably about a year after we had started the film," said Murray, the son of leading republican Sean 'Spike' Murray.

"The one condition he had was that he wanted approval from the Heaney family, which of course we needed to do anyway. Once we got that over the line Stephen was amazing and his voice really brings another dynamic to it."

Catholic priests Fr Denis Faul and Fr Raymond Murray, who started to highlight the activities of the murder gang back in the 1970s, said at the time that the RUC had "a 100 per cent failure rate" when it came to convicting loyalists for murders in the area.

More than a decade ago the Pat Finucane Centre and journalist Anne Cadwallader started to research the activities of the Glenanne Gang.

The book, Lethal Allies by Ms Cadwallader, provided the basis of the research for the documentary, which also takes the same name.

However in the course of the making of the film Mr Murray said he managed to uncover new details of how the gang operated after speaking to ex-RUC man and self confessed Glenanne gang member John Weir.

The Irish Times

Unquiet Graves: Uncovering Britain's Secret War in Ireland (Trailer)

How the Internet is Killing Democracy with Jamie Bartlett

Should you really be shocked by the Facebook revelations? Author and Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, Jamie Bartlett argues that our fragile political system is being threatened by the digital revolution.

Inside America’s Meddling Machine: The US Funded Group that Interferes in Elections Around the Globe

Filmed inside the Capitol, this Grayzone special explores the National Endowment for Democracy, a taxpayer funded organization that has interfered in elections, mobilized coups, and orchestrated public relations campaigns against nations that resist Washington’s agenda.

By Max Blumenthal.

Marc Wadsworth speaks to George Galloway (RT - Sputnik)

Starts at around 13:00.

Jonathan Pie on Boris, Burka

Boris makes 'insensitive' comments about Burka wearers (and in the context of his own opposition to the Danish Burka ban!) and this makes the NEWS??

QAnon: Conspiracy Theories to go!

The bizarre pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory has burst from fringe websites into the real world this week, as dozens of attendees at two recent Trump rallies in Florida and Pennsylvania promoted it.

“It’s a movement, man. It’s the shift. I can feel it coming,” one Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania rally-goer told CNN on Thursday. “Some call it the great awakening,” he added.

The theory, which originated from anonymous messages posted online, purports to explain everything from the sinking of the Titanic to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, weaving them into a grand narrative where President Donald Trump is a secret mastermind – and hero.

QAnon’s online clues — called “breadcrumbs” — are so vague, they can be hard to follow. But there has been no evidence to prove them.

At a press conference on Wednesday White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders denied that Trump supports the group, “The President condemns and denounces any group that would incite violence against another individual, and certainly doesn’t support groups that would promote that type of behavior,” she said.

Footage from Trump’s rally in Tampa on Tuesday and a rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday shows attendees wearing T-shirts and carrying posters with the letter “Q” — a shorthand to identify followers of the conspiracy theory.

Here’s what experts say you need to know about QAnon and why the conspiracy theory has spread.

How did QAnon’s theories spread?

For a detailed explanation of QAnon's codes and symbology, see here (Vice)