REPORT: Pete Hegseth Has the Votes to Be Confirmed As Secretary of Defense!– wltreport.com Source Link Excerpt:
This just in: it’s looking like Pete Hegseth will be confirmed as President Trump’s Secretary of Defense!
According to several sources, John Thune has privately told President Trump that Pete Hegseth has the votes to be confirmed by the Senate.
Check it out:
🚨 #BREAKING: Senate Majority Leader John Thune has privately confirmed with President Trump that Pete Hegseth DOES have the votes to be confirmed as Secretary of Defense
Man who died in Tesla Cybertruck explosion was active-duty US Army solider, officials say– www.nydailynews.com Source Link Excerpt:
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The person who died in the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck packed with explosives outside President-elect Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Two law enforcement officials identified the man inside the futuristic-looking pickup truck as Matthew Livelsberger. The officials spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Three U.S. officials said Livelsberger was an active-duty Army member who spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to Army special forces command. The officials also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of his service.
The FBI said Thursday in a post on X that it was “conducting law enforcement activity” at a home in Colorado Springs related to Wednesday’s explosion but provided no other details.
Turo-rented cars were involved in 2 deadly incidents this New Year’s. Here’s what we know– abcnews.go.com Source Link Excerpt:
NEW YORK — Two deadly incidents on New Year’s Day — an attack being investigated as an act of terrorism in New Orleans and an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck in Las Vegas — both involved vehicles that were rented on Turo, a peer-to-peer car sharing company.
Early Wednesday, 42-year-old Army veteran Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a pickup truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter — killing 14 people who were celebrating the New Year. And police fatally shot Jabbar in a following firefight. Just hours after, outside of President-elect Donald Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas, a Tesla Cybertruck packed with explosives also burst into flames. The person inside, identified as active-duty U.S. Army Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger, died. Officials later said he suffered a gunshot wound to the head before the explosion.
Alleged Trump Hotel Bomber’s Uncle Makes Jaw-Dropping Statement– trendingpoliticsnews.com Source Link Excerpt:
The uncle of an Army Special Forces officer who killed himself in a Cybertruck explosion outside of the Las Vegas Trump International Hotel opened a new can of worms on Thursday, offering an explanation for why his nephew might have detonated the bomb.
The Independent spoke with Dean Livelsberger, uncle of 38-year-old Matthew Livelsberger, a Green Beret who was recently promoted and appeared to have a bright future ahead of him before he was found dead inside the charred remains of a rented vehicle on New Year’s Day. The recognizable Cybertruck was filled with gasoline tanks, camping fuel, and fireworks mortars though contained most of the blast, according to FBI investigators who questioned why an elite soldier would use that vehicle if he intended to inflict mass destruction. According to Dean Livelsberger, his nephew was distressed and only intended to make a political statement through his suicide.
New Details Emerges About Man Who Tried to Kill Brett Kavanaugh at His Home– slaynews.com Source Link Excerpt:
Conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh dealt with a scary incident in 2022 when a man showed up outside of his private residence with the intent to assassinate him.
According to The Hill, new details have emerged regarding the suspect.
The suspect, Nicholas Roske, reportedly told authorities killing Kavanaugh would “make the world a better place.”
Roske also admitted that he had planned the assassination attempt for a month prior to the incident.
Biden Downplays Link Between New Orleans Attack and Las Vegas Cybertruck Explosion: ‘Nothing to Report on That Score’– slaynews.com Source Link Excerpt:
Authorities are investigating the possible links between an exploding Tesla Cybertruck outside President Donald Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas and the attack on New Year’s partygoers in New Orleans.
Both attackers have a direct link via the military which the FBI is investigating, the Associated Press reported.
However, President Joe Biden sought to downplay any connections, telling the press:
“There’s nothing to report on that score at this time.”
In the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, a pickup truck driven by 42-year-old Islamic terrorist Shamsud-Din Jabbar plowed into a crowd on New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street.
After ISIS Attack, MSNBC Blows That ‘Young White Men’ Are The Problem– www.newsbusters.org Source Link Excerpt:
New York Times columnist Charles Blow joined MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Thursday’s installment of The ReidOut to react to the reaction to the New Orleans New Year’s truck attack by an ISIS supporter that killed 14 people where he claimed that the big problem is that the attack was “one crime committed by one name that sounds exotic,” and that allows people to ignore the “really big problem, which is young white men in America.”
Reid led Blow with a statement rather than a question, “And last word to you on this, Charles, because this is the challenge. It’s very difficult to feel safe when, on top of everything that Mayor Landrieu just said, you have politicians that have a self-interest in lying about everything because it helps them with the political narrative, not concerned about the human narrative that could actually be really helpful.”
Suspect in Cybertruck Explosion Outside Trump Hotel Connected to New Orleans Suspect › American Greatness– amgreatness.com Source Link Excerpt:
Police have identified the suspect behind an attempted terror attack outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, including two startling connections to the suspect in the New Orleans terror attack on New Year’s Eve.
According to the Daily Mail, although law enforcement has not yet released the suspect’s name, they did carry out a raid of his home in Colorado Springs on Wednesday. The 37-year-old suspect, who was the sole casualty of the Cybertruck explosion, served at the same military base as Shamsud Din Jabbar, the terrorist who deliberately crashed his truck into a crowd of New Year’s Eve revelers in New Orleans on Tuesday. Jabbar was gunned down by the police after his rampage.
The Vegas suspect had multiple addresses connected to his name in the Colorado Springs area, which led to multiple neighbors being evacuated from the vicinity as the raid was conducted on his townhouse complex.
Cybertruck bomber Matthew Livelsberger’s wife left him six days before attack | The Post Millennial– thepostmillennial.com Source Link Excerpt:
“He used to have all patriotic stuff on Facebook, he was 100 percent loving the country,” Livelsberger’s uncle said.
The wife of Cybertruck bomber Matthew Livelsberger reportedly broke up with him just six days before the New Year’s Day incident where he blew himself and the Tesla vehicle up outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas.
According to a report from the New York Post, sources familiar with the investigation told the outlet that he and Jennifer Davis split after an argument about infidelity the day after Christmas. He and his Davis had a baby daughter together, but she reportedly accused him of cheating.
Corrupt FBI Has No Business Leading New Orleans Investigation– thefederalist.com Source Link Excerpt:
In his New Year’s press conference concerning the New Orleans terrorist attack that took the lives of 15 people and injured dozens of others, President Joe Biden expressed confidence from Camp David that the FBI is “working nonstop to investigate this heinous act.”
“The FBI is leading the investigation to determine what happened, why it happened, and whether there was any continuing threat to public safety,” Biden said.
President-elect Donald Trump has petitioned the Supreme Court, asking them to delay a hearing on the potential TikTok ban from America should it not be sold to an American company. The President submitted an amicus curae, or “friend of the court” brief. He only requested a delay in the hearing, nothing more.
Trump asks Supreme Court to delay hearing on TikTok injunction – The Desk Source Link Excerpt:
President-elect Donald Trump has weighed in on a forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court hearing that could decide the fate of short-form social video service TikTok in the coming weeks.
Last Friday, Trump invoked a legal doctrine known as “amicus curae” to file a so-called “friend of the court” brief, during which he took no position on the case at hand but encouraged the Supreme Court to delay its hearing on whether to approve an injunction that prevents TikTok from being banned in U.S. app stores.
The banishment is rooted in a law passed earlier this summer that forces TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to divest its U.S.-based business to a stateside entity. The law was rolled into a federal appropriations bill that was mainly intended to green-light financial funding for the wars in Ukraine and Israel. President Joe Biden signed the measure into law in April, and ByteDance filed its legal challenge soon after.
The law requires ByteDance to divest its U.S.-based business by January 19; if it doesn’t, the measure requires U.S. app stores run by Google, Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Microsoft and others to pull the TikTok app, making it unavailable for download to computers, phones, tablets and smart TVs.
The law doesn’t ban Americans from using the service, and the TikTok app currently installed on devices will continue to work as long as ByteDance and the manufacturers of those devices support it. But it makes TikTok much harder to access when users buy new devices or switch from one platform to another, or if they delete the app and decide they want to reinstall it at a later time, because it won’t be available in app stores. (Android and Microsoft users will still be able to download the app beyond app stores, but Apple device users cannot download apps that aren’t available whiten the Apple App Store).
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-AR) is facing a potentially tough battle this Friday, January 3, 2025 when the new House votes for next session’s speaker. Facing a number of critics, Johnson’s re-election has been in doubt, but now the Speaker has an official endorsement from President-elect Trump.
The President said, “Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!”
BREAKING: Trump Endorses Unpopular House Speaker Mike Johnson for Speaker in Suprising Move | The Gateway Pundit– www.thegatewaypundit.com Source Link Excerpt:
President Trump made a surprising endorsement on Monday for House Speaker Mike Johnson to be reelected as Speaker as he faces challenges from other GOP lawmakers.
“Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!” Trump said after touting his own accomplishments on the campaign trail– no thanks to Mike Johnson.
Trump: We are the Party of COMMON SENSE, a primary reason that we WON, in a landslide, the magnificent and historic Presidential Election of 2024. ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, 312 ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES, AND THE POPULAR VOTE BY MILLIONS OF VOTERS (Despite large scale voter fraud taking place in numerous states, including California, where votes are ridiculously still being counted, or under review!), ALL WON WITH EASE, CALM, & PROFESSIONALISM. Republicans are being praised for having run a “legendary” campaign! Democrats are being excoriated for their effort, having wasted 2.5 Billion Dollars, much of it unaccounted for, with some being used to illegally buy endorsements ($11,000,000 to Beyoncé, who never even sang a song, $2,000,000 to Oprah for doing next to nothing, and even $500,000 to Reverend AL, a professional con man and instigator, who agreed to “interview” their “star spangled” candidates, Kamala and Joe). We ran a flawless campaign, having spent FAR LESS, with lots of money left over. They ran a very expensive “sinking ship,” embracing DOJ & FBI WEAPONIZATION against their political opponent, ME. BUT IT DIDN’T WORK, IT WAS A DISASTER!!! LETS NOT BLOW THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN. The American people need IMMEDIATE relief from all of the destructive policies of the last Administration. Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the $5 million summary judgment against President Donald Trump in a lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll alleging Trump raped her. The court claimed, “We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings. Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial.”
Court Upholds $5M Judgment Against President Trump in Carroll Case– wltreport.com Source Link Excerpt:
President Donald Trump’s attempt to stop $5 million judgment hit a wall on Monday.
A federal appeals court upheld the jury’s 2023 ruling against him in E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit.
The court found no errors in the trial that held President Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
Carroll’s allegations date back to the ’90s when she says he assaulted her in a department store dressing room.
You know, the same exact plot from an episode of Law & Order SVU.
A jury decided Trump was liable for battery and defamation but stopped short of the rape claim, handing Carroll a $5M win.
And so the court rejected Trump’s appeal just weeks before Jan. 20th.
South Korean president claims he can’t be prosecuted, authorities seek warrant– www.washingtonexaminer.com Source Link Excerpt:
The request was made by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials on Monday. No decision on whether the warrant will be granted has been made public.
The president’s lawyer, Yoon Kap-keun, has argued that while the investigation may be legitimate, there cannot be any possibility of a prosecution.
“An incumbent president cannot be prosecuted for abuse of power,” the president’s lawyer said.
In this photo provided by the South Korea Presidential Office, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a press briefing at the presidential office in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (South Korea Unification Ministry via AP).
“Of course, there are differing academic opinions on whether a president can be investigated for abuse of power, and some assert that investigations are possible. But even when investigations are allowed, the prevailing opinion is that they should be exercised with the utmost restraint,” the lawyer continued.
While the new acting President faces legal challenges, the former President may soon be arrested if law enforcement officials get their way. The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials has formally requested an arrest warrant filing to detain the former President.
South Korean authorities seek warrant to detain impeached president in martial law probe– www.cbc.ca Source Link Excerpt:
South Korean law enforcement officials have requested a court warrant to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol as they investigate whether his short-lived martial law decree on Dec. 3 amounted to rebellion.
The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, which is leading a joint investigation with police and military authorities into the power grab that lasted only a few hours, confirmed it requested the warrant on Monday. Investigators plan to question Yoon on charges of abuse of authority and orchestrating a rebellion.
Yoon has dodged several requests by the joint investigation team and public prosecutors to appear for questioning and has also blocked searches of his offices.
It’s not clear whether the court will grant the warrant or whether Yoon can be compelled to appear for questioning.
Under the country’s laws, locations potentially linked to military secrets cannot be seized or searched without the consent of the person in charge, and it’s unlikely that Yoon will voluntarily leave his residence if he faces detainment.
Yoon’s presidential powers were suspended after the National Assembly voted to impeach him on Dec. 14 over his imposition of martial law that lasted only hours but has triggered weeks of political turmoil, halted high-level diplomacy and rattled financial markets. Yoon’s fate now lies with the Constitutional Court. It has begun deliberations on whether to uphold the impeachment and formally remove Yoon from office or reinstate him.
Former President Jimmy Carter (D-GA) passed away at the age of 100. President Joe Biden said of his passing, “To all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning – the good life – study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith, and humility.”
President Trump said of the passing, “President Jimmy Carter is dead at 100 years of age. While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for. He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect. He was a truly good man and, of course, will be greatly missed. He was also very consequential, far more than most Presidents, after he left the Oval Office. Warmest condolences from Melania and I to his wonderful family!”
Jimmy Carter: tributes continue for former president hailed as ‘statesman and humanitarian’ – US politics live | US news– www.theguardian.com Source Link Excerpt:
Tributes have continued to pour in for Jimmy Carter, the former US president who died aged 100 on Sunday.
The 39th president of the United States was a tireless advocate for global health and human rights, and president Joe Biden has declared a national day of mourning for 9 January, describing Carter as an “extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian.”
Downing of Azerbaijan plane reflects Ukraine war’s growing footprint– www.latimes.com Source Link Excerpt:
The deadly crash this week of an Azerbaijani passenger jet — with Russian air defenses as the suspected culprit — brings into focus a little-noticed aspect of the war in Ukraine: a battle zone that extends deep into Russia.
Ukraine for months has been using domestically tooled drones to strike Russian targets hundreds of miles from the front lines in southern and eastern Ukraine, often taking aim at fuel depots and military airfields.
The Kremlin tends to play down these attacks, and has a history of offering unconvincing explanations for massive explosions that sometimes result.
On Friday, Russian authorities acknowledged that Ukrainian drones were targeting Grozny, provincial capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, as an Azerbaijani commercial airliner with 67 people aboard was attempting to land there on Wednesday.
Azerbaijan demands Russia admit guilt for downing plane, pay compensation – The Washington Post Source Link Excerpt:
Azerbaijan’s president on Sunday demanded that Russia admit responsibility for the incident that led to the Christmas Day crash of a passenger plane that killed 38 people and pay compensation to the government and affected families.
President Ilham Aliyev said Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, which departed from Baku on Wednesday morning with 67 passengers and crew members bound for Grozny in Russia, “suffered external damage” in Russian airspace and was rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare. The tail of the Embraer 190, he said in televised remarks, was seriously damaged “as a result of shelling from the ground.”
A theory behind the appearance of multiple drones across the east coast surmised the drones are looking for missing nuclear waste or missile-great uranium stolen from a nuclear weapon. The GQ Electronics’ Geiger Counter World Map is showing a spike in radiation in the New York city area, showing the area had radiation levels 5 times higher than normal.
High Levels of Radiation Detected Across the East Coast After Mysterious Drone Sightings– townhall.com Source Link Excerpt:
Radiation levels have dramatically increased in New York City after the “mysterious” drone sightings were discovered hovering around the East Coast in recent weeks. The new revelations result in officials warning Americans to “prepare for the worst.”
According to GQ Electronics’ Geiger Counter World Map, high emissions levels were detected near the Bronx and the Upper West Side of New York City. The radiation reading scale measured 1048 counts-per-minute (CPM), or the number of particles detected. This exceeds the average number of particles detected by the 200 counts-per-minute safety threshold. In comparison, the average person is usually exposed to background radiation that measures about five to 60 CPM.
Author of Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America, Gordon Chang, told Forbes that the drones could be associated with the area’s high radiation levels.
“There have been reports of spikes and radiation in the New York metropolitan area,” Chang said. “Two of them, one on each side of the Hudson. That leads to the conclusion that maybe they’re looking for an implanted nuclear weapon.”
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) appears to be accelerating its military build-up and investing in weapons and munitions that make it clear it is preparing to engage in a major world war with major world powers like the United States of America. The 2024 Department of Defense’s Report on Chinese Military Power raises even more alarms.
Some of the noted expansions include 50 new ICBM, 300 medium-range ballistic missiles, 600+ operational nuclear warheads, and 370 new ships and submarines, expanding the world’s largest navy. The report suggests China is planning on conquering Taiwan, the first necessary step in world conquest, before becoming the dominant power by 2035.
China Is Rapidly Building Up Weapons And Warfare Operations– thefederalist.com Source Link Excerpt:
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is undertaking an unprecedented military buildup aimed at challenging America and its allies, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. And, like Nazi Germany’s buildup in the 1930s, the militarization program ordered by the Chinese Communist Party isn’t simply a great power buildup — it’s a weapon in service of a deadly ideology.
The 2024 Department of Defense China Military Power Report and recent analysis by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times reveal this buildup as part of a broader strategy by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to position itself as a global superpower. Meanwhile, the U.S., having spent $5.4 trillion on the global war on terror and attendant, futile nation-building, has left itself strategically vulnerable by diverting critical resources while underestimating the threat from China.
The DNC-serving content market “The Hill” published an “op-ed” from two lawyers who appear to have been tasked with the job of testing a narrative to see if a new coercive method of precenting Trump from taking office might be viable. The two lawyers are Evan A. Davis and David M. Shulte. Their narrative is being picked up by the other DNC content marketing companies, like MSNBC and CNN.
The lawyers’ central claim is this: “The Constitution provides that an oath-breaking insurrectionist is ineligible to be president. This is the plain wording of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution…. This disability can be removed by a two-thirds vote in each House. Disqualification is based on insurrection against the Constitution and not the government. The evidence of Donald Trump’s engaging in such insurrection is overwhelming. The matter has been decided in three separate forums, two of which were fully contested with the active participation of Trump’s counsel.”
Congress Must Stop Trump From Being Sworn In, Argues Column in The Hill– legalinsurrection.com Source Link Excerpt:
An op-ed in The Hill by two lawyers argues that Congress has the right and the duty to prevent Trump from taking office because he allegedly committed insurrection and is disqualified:
The Constitution provides that an oath-breaking insurrectionist is ineligible to be president. This is the plain wording of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” This disability can be removed by a two-thirds vote in each House.
Disqualification is based on insurrection against the Constitution and not the government. The evidence of Donald Trump’s engaging in such insurrection is overwhelming. The matter has been decided in three separate forums, two of which were fully contested with the active participation of Trump’s counsel.
The first fully contested proceeding was Trump’s second impeachment trial. On Jan. 13, 2021, then-President Trump was impeached for “incitement of insurrection.” At the trial in the Senate, seven Republicans joined all Democrats to provide a majority for conviction but failed to reach the two-thirds vote required for removal from office. Inciting insurrection encompasses “engaging in insurrection” against the Constitution “or giving aid and comfort to the enemies thereof,” the grounds for disqualification specified in Section 3.
Stanford Researchers Create Virtual Lab with AI Scientists to Automate Scientific Discovery – INDIAai Source Link Excerpt:
In an effort to automate scientific discovery using artificial intelligence (AI), researchers from Stanford University in California have created a virtual laboratory that combines several ‘AI scientists’ — large language models with defined scientific roles — that can collaborate to achieve goals set by human researchers.
The system, described in a preprint posted on bioRxiv last month, was able to design antibody fragments called nanobodies that can bind to the virus that causes COVID-19. Nearly 100 of these structures were proposed in a fraction of the time it would take an all-human research group.
“These virtual-lab AI agents have shown to be quite capable at doing a lot of tasks,” says study co-author James Zou, a computational biologist at Stanford University in California. “We’re quite excited about exploring the potential of the virtual lab across different scientific domains.”
The experiment “represents a new paradigm of taking AI as collaborators, not just tools”, says Yanjun Gao, who researches the healthcare applications of AI at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. But she adds that human input and oversight are still crucial. “I don’t think we can fully trust AI to make decisions at this stage.”
Now that Assad has fallen in Syria, a northern part of Syria called Rojava is facing widescale threats from Turkey, who hopes to eradicate both the semi-autonomous authority as well as the Kurds who are the majority of people in that region. Recent threats by Turkey’s President Erdogan suggest the fear of a potential genocide of Kurds is not unfounded.
Erdogan added to those fears when he directly stated “The separatist murderers will either bid farewell to their weapons, or they will be buried in Syrian lands along with their weapons. We will eradicate the terrorist organization that is trying to weave a wall of blood between us and our Kurdish siblings.”
Erdogan Warns Kurds Will Be ‘Buried in Syrian Lands Along with Their Weapons’– www.breitbart.com Source Link Excerpt:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Kurdish militias in Syria on Wednesday to either lay down their arms or be “buried.” On the same day, the Turkish military said it killed 21 Kurdish militants in northern Syria and Iraq – including members of the People’s Defense Units (YPG), the leading Syrian Kurdish force allied with the United States against the Islamic State.
Erdogan and other Turkish officials have adamantly insisted for years that the YPG is allied with, or merely a branch of, the violent separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK is banned in Turkey and classified as a terrorist organization by many other nations, including the United States.
Most other countries, however, regard the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia as a separate entity from the PKK. The YPG holds a leadership role in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which was instrumental in the fight against ISIS and remains a U.S. ally.
Erdogan repeated Turkey’s view that the YPG and PKK are one and the same in remarks to members of his ruling AKP party on Wednesday.
“The separatist murderers will either bid farewell to their weapons, or they will be buried in Syrian lands along with their weapons,” he said.
“We will eradicate the terrorist organization that is trying to weave a wall of blood between us and our Kurdish siblings,” he added, seeking to draw a distinction between the YPG militia and civilian Kurds, whom Turkey claims to have no problem with.
Last week, the SDF admitted for the first time that PKK fighters are in Syria and were allies against the Islamic State, although the SDF insisted it had no operational links with the PKK.
SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi told Reuters last week that Kurdish fighters came to Syria from across the Middle East to defend Kurdish lands against the Islamic State, including members of the PKK. He said that while many of the PKK fighters returned home after the fall of ISIS, some “decided to stay and help us.”
Abdi said he was agreeable to Turkey’s demand that non-Syrian Kurdish fighters must leave Syria but said that would not be possible until there was “a total ceasefire between us and the Turkish forces and their affiliated factions.”
“On the other hand, we are preparing ourselves to repel any attack if it happens,” Abdi said.
The major offensive Abdi described has not happened yet, but on Wednesday, the Turkish Defense Ministry said 21 Kurdish militants were killed in northern Syria by Turkish forces, including both PKK and YPG members. One Kurdish fighter was also killed in Iraq.
“Our operations will continue effectively and resolutely,” the Turkish Defense Ministry said.
Some of Turkey’s colleagues in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are growing queasy with Erdogan’s war against the Kurds. On Monday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that a resurgent ISIS could benefit from Turkey weakening Syrian Kurdish forces.
“It would help no one if the Islamic State terrorists were the ones to benefit from a conflict with the Kurds. This would pose a security threat to Syria, Turkey and Europe,” Baerbock said.
Writing at the Hill on Thursday, Georgetown University adjunct professor David L. Phillips asserted it was time for the United States to stand up for its Kurdish allies in Syria.
Phillips wrote:
Defeating ISIS is still a work in progress; the Kurds are guarding thousands of ISIS prisoners in northeast Syria. If they redeploy to counter a Turkish invasion, the SDF will have a stark choice: either defend their families from a Turkish-backed invasion or stand guard over the ISIS detainees. Defending their homes and families will have priority.
Turkey actually has an answer to that argument, as Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan insisted last weekend that the insurgent government in Syria is perfectly capable of running the ISIS prison camps.
Phillips said the Kurds have provided an “island of stability amid the chaos” by providing a component administration in northeastern Syria during the civil war and warned the U.S. would “incur a reputational cost” if it abandons an effective ally who has largely followed the American model for anti-extremist government.
“Who will join U.S.-led counterinsurgency efforts if we abandon the Kurds now?” he wondered.
“Moral clarity is called for at this perilous moment. Kurds are America’s allies and friends with whom we share strategic interests and values. Kurds are a force for good in Anatolia and Mesopotamia. To secure U.S. interests and reputation, Washington must deter Turkey’s aggression,” he urged.
The moribund Biden administration has said little on the matter of the Syrian Kurds, but there is a bipartisan bill in the Senate to impose sanctions against Turkey if it launches a major operation against the SDF.
Thousands flee violent post-election unrest in Mozambique to neighboring Malawi – Anadolu Agency | English Source Link Excerpt:
Thousands of Mozambicans have fled ongoing violence in their country to neighboring Malawi after months of unrest over disputed presidential election results, government officials told Anadolu on Thursday.
Dominic Mwandira, a senior civil official in Malawi’s Nsanje district, which borders Mozambique, said some 2,000 households have entered the territory since Monday.
“They are coming as families and we have, so far, sheltered them in schools waiting for proper arrangements. The number is likely to rise,” Mwandira told Anadolu over the phone.
Violent protests have rocked Mozambique since presidential polls were held on Oct. 9, resulting in the death of 248 people, including 33 in a prison break on Wednesday, according to Plataforma Decide, an election monitoring group.
6,000 inmates escaped from a high-security prison in Mozambique. What to know – National– globalnews.ca Source Link Excerpt:
At least 6,000 inmates escaped from a high-security prison in Mozambique’s capital on Christmas Day after a rebellion, the country’s police chief said, as widespread post-election riots and violence are roiling the country.
Police chief Bernardino Rafael said 33 prisoners died and 15 others were injured during a confrontation with the security forces.
The prisoners fled during violent protests that have seen police cars, stations and infrastructure destroyed after the country’s Constitutional Council confirmed the ruling Frelimo party as the winner of the Oct. 9 elections.
The escape from the Maputo Central Prison, located 14 kilometers (9 miles) southwest of the capital, started around midday on Wednesday after “agitation” by a “group of subversive protesters” nearby, Rafael said.
