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Source: Debka: After bombers, Russian S-400s for Iranian base

Russian giant Antonov An-124 air freighters are ready to take off Wednesday, Aug. 17, carrying an array of advanced S-400 and S-300 air defense missiles bound for the new Russian air base just completed at Noji, 50 km from the western Iranian town of Hamedan (Biblical Shushan).
This is reported exclusively by DEBKA file from its military and intelligence sources.
Moscow is getting set to explain to concerned Americans and Israelis that the sophisticated missile systems will not be put in Iranian hands but serve exclusively for defending he new Russian air base just established in Noji to house heavy bombers for air strikes against Islamist terrorists in Syria.
This is the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution that Iran has allowed a foreign military to set up a base on its soil.
Widely reported by the Western media Tuesday were the first sorties of Russian Tu-22M3 long-range bombers and Su-34 tactical bombers from the new Iranian air base for what the Russian Defense Ministry designated “concentrated airstrikes” against Islamic State and Islamist Nusra Front ammunition depots and command-and-control centers in the provinces of Aleppo, Deir Ez-Zour and Idlib.
Less play was made by the media of the failure of Western intelligence to detect the new Russian air base that was under construction to complement their Khmeimim facility in western Syria. Our exclusive sources add that Moscow plans to fly over Spetznaz Forces to defend the new base.

Construction work on the Noji air base began in the second week of July. Joint Russian-Iranian engineering teams extended the existing landing strips to accommodate the heavy Tupolev 22M3 bombers and Sukhoi-34 escort fighters. They also set up maintenance workshops and living quarters for the Russian air and ground crews.

debkafile also reveals that the military and aviation accord reached between Moscow and Tehran covers the following clauses:

• Free rein for Russian jets in all parts of Iranian air space
• License for Russia to operate long-range UAV’s from Noji air base.
• Permission to launch Russian cruise missiles through Iranian air space.

Given the tightening strategic cooperation between Russia and Tehran, one last step remains for Vladimir Putin to take as the final touch to the Russian-Turkish-Iranian alliance – and that is a visit by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to Tehran for concluding a military pact between Turkey and Iran.

Source: 30K Muslim Refugees Land on U.S. Soil in 2016 Alone | LifeZette

America is setting itself up for a ‘homegrown’ terror problem to rival that of Europe

US Embassy Refused to Respond to Americans Being Raped

By Pamela Geller on August 15, 2016

Source: US Embassy Refused to Respond to Americans Being Raped | Pamela Geller

President Obama’s legacy, and Hillary promises to continue the horror.

While forcing foreigners to watch several foreign women being raped — American women were singled out–, they shot dead a local journalist, then beat and robbed people and carried out mock executions…

“…the U.N. peacekeeping force was stationed less than a mile away, they refused to respond to desperate calls for help.
Neither did any embassies –including the U.S. Embassy.”

South Sudanese troops rampage through complex, raping and killing foreigners

US Embassy Refused to Respond to Americans Being Raped,” By Daniel Greenfield, August 15, 2016:

The uselessness of UN peacekeepers is one of the worst kept secrets in international affairs. Like the rest of the UN, the one thing you can usually count on Peacekeepers to do is to keep the peace by letting whatever horrors are happening go on happening. Politicians love talking about dispatching UN peacekeepers. Here’s how much good they actually do.

The soldier pointed his AK-47 at the female aid worker and gave her a choice.

“Either you have sex with me, or we make every man here rape you and then we shoot you in the head,” she remembers him saying.

She didn’t really have a choice. By the end of the evening, she had been raped by 15 South Sudanese soldiers.

This was part of a series of assaults.

They shot dead a local journalist while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, singled out Americans, beat and robbed people and carried out mock executions, several witnesses told The Associated Press.

Luckily there were UN peacekeepers nearby.

For hours throughout the assault, the U.N. peacekeeping force stationed less than a mile away refused to respond to desperate calls for help.

And under Obama, the US Embassy proved equally useless.

Neither did embassies, including the U.S. Embassy.

Smart power. It really, really does not work. And this is what non-intervention looks like now.

The accounts highlight, in raw detail, the failure of the U.N. peacekeeping force to uphold its core mandate of protecting civilians, notably those just a few minutes’ drive away. U.N. peacekeepers in Juba have already been accused of not acting to stop the rapes of local women by soldiers outside the U.N.’s main camp and within their sight last month.

Of course they didn’t. They’re peacekeepers and Obama already has the answer. Send more peacekeepers.

Army spokesman Lul Ruai did not deny the attack at the Terrain but said it was premature to conclude the army was responsible. “Everyone is armed, and everyone has access to uniforms and we have people from other organized forces, but it was definitely done by people of South Sudan and by armed people of Juba,” he said.

A report on the incident compiled by the Terrain’s owner at Ruai’s request, seen by the AP, alleges that at least five women were raped, torture, mock executions, beatings and looting. An unknown number of South Sudanese women were also assaulted.

READ MORE: Over 60,000 have fled South Sudan since latest violence, UN says

The attack came just as people in Juba were thinking the worst was over.

Three days earlier, gunfire had erupted outside the presidential compound between armed supporters of the two sides in South Sudan’s civil war, at the time pushed together under an uneasy peace deal. The violence quickly spread across the city.

Throughout the weekend, bullets whizzed through the Terrain compound, a sprawling complex with a pool, squash court and a bar patronized by expats and South Sudanese elites. It is also in the shadow of the U.N.’s largest camp in Juba.

By Monday, the government had nearly defeated the forces under Machar, who fled the city. As both sides prepared to call for a cease-fire, some residents of the Terrain started to relax.

“Monday was relatively chill,” one survivor said.

What was thought to be celebratory gunfire was heard. And then the soldiers arrived. A Terrain staffer from Uganda said he saw between 80 and 100 men pour into the compound after breaking open the gate with gunshots and tire irons. The Terrain’s security guards were armed only with shotguns and were vastly outnumbered. The soldiers then went to door to door, taking money, phones, laptops and car keys.

“They were very excited, very drunk, under the influence of something, almost a mad state, walking around shooting off rounds inside the rooms,” one American said.

One man wore a blue police uniform, but the rest wore camouflage, the American said. Many had shoulder patches with the face of a tiger, the insignia worn by the president’s personal guard.

For about an hour, soldiers beat the American with belts and the butts of their guns and accused him of hiding rebels. They fired bullets at his feet and close to his head. Eventually, one soldier who appeared to be in charge told him to leave the compound. Soldiers at the gate looked at his U.S. passport and handed it back, with instructions.

“You tell your embassy how we treated you,” they said. He made his way to the nearby U.N. compound and appealed for help.

Meanwhile, soldiers were breaking into a two-story apartment block in the Terrain which had been deemed a safe house because of a heavy metal door guarding the apartments upstairs. Warned by a Kenyan staffer, more than 20 people inside, most of them foreigners, tried to hide. About 10 squeezed into a single bathroom.

The building shook as soldiers shot at the metal door and pried metal bars off windows for more than an hour, said residents. Once inside, the soldiers started ransacking the rooms and assaulting people they found.

Some of the soldiers were violent as they sexually assaulted women, said the woman who said she was raped by 15 men. Others, who looked to be just 15 or 16 years old, looked scared and were coerced into the act.

“One in particular, he was calling you, ‘Sweetie, we should run away and get married.’ It was like he was on a first date,” the woman said. “He didn’t see that what he was doing was a bad thing.”

READ MORE: Harjit Sajjan: spread of terrorism in Africa on Canada’s peacekeeping radar

After about an hour and a half, the soldiers broke into the bathroom. They shot through the door, said Jesse Bunch, an American contractor who was hit in the leg.

“We kill you! We kill you!” the soldiers shouted, according to a Western woman in the bathroom. “They would shoot up at the ceiling and say, ‘Do you want to die?’ and we had to answer ‘No!’”

The soldiers then pulled people out one by one. One woman said she was sexually assaulted by multiple men. Another Western woman said soldiers beat her with fists and threatened her with their guns when she tried to resist. She said five men raped her.

During the attack on the Terrain, several survivors told the AP that soldiers specifically asked if they were American. “One of them, as soon as he said he was American, he was hit with a rifle butt,” said a woman.

In this file photo taken Monday, July 25, 2016, A UN armoured personnel vehicle stand in a refugee camp in Juba South Sudan. South Sudan on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2016, rejected a U.S. proposal for the U.N. Security Council to send 4,000 additional troops to the East African country to restore calm, saying it “seriously undermines” its sovereignty and threatens a return to colonialism.

(AP Photo/Jason Patinkin/File

When the soldiers came across John Gatluak, they knew he was local. The South Sudanese journalist worked for Internews, a media development organization funded by USAID. He had taken refuge at the Terrain after being briefly detained a few days earlier. The tribal scars on his forehead made it obvious he was Nuer, the same as opposition leader, Riek Machar.

Upon seeing him, the soldiers pushed him to the floor and beat him, according to the same woman who saw the American beaten.

Later in the attack, and after Kiir’s side declared a ceasefire at 6 p.m., the soldiers forced the foreigners to stand in a semi-circle, said Gian Libot, a Philippines citizen who spent much of the attack under a bed until he was discovered.

One soldier ranted against foreigners. “He definitely had pronounced hatred against America,” Libot said, recalling the soldier’s words: “You messed up this country. You’re helping the rebels. The people in the U.N., they’re helping the rebels.”

During the tirade, a soldier hit a man suspected of being American with a rifle butt. At one point, the soldier threatened to kill all the foreigners assembled. “We’re gonna show the world an example,” Libot remembered him saying.

Then Gatluak was hauled in front of the group. One soldier shouted “Nuer,” and another soldier shot him twice in the head. He shot the dying Gatluak four more times while he lay on the ground.

“All it took was a declaration that he was different, and they shot him mercilessly,” Libot said.

The shooting seemed to be a turning point for those assembled outside, Libot said. Looting and threats continued, but beatings started to draw to a close. Other soldiers continued to assault men and women inside the apartment block.

From the start of the attack, those inside the Terrain compound sent messages pleading for help by text and Facebook messages and emails.

READ MORE: South Sudan: A look back at what brought the country to the brink of civil war

“All of us were contacting whoever we could contact. The U.N., the U.S. embassy, contacting the specific battalions in the U.N., contacting specific departments,” said the woman raped by 15 men.

A member of the U.N.’s Joint Operations Center in Juba first received word of the attack at 3:37 p.m., minutes after the breach of the compound, according to an internal timeline compiled by a member of the operations center and seen by AP.

Eight minutes later another message was sent to a different member of the operations center from a person inside Terrain saying that people were hiding there. At 4:22 p.m., that member received another message urging help.

Five minutes after that, the U.N. mission’s Department of Safety and Security and its military command wing were alerted. At 4:33 p.m., a Quick Reaction Force, meant to intervene in emergencies, was informed. One minute later, the timeline notes the last contact on Monday from someone trapped inside Terrain.

For the next hour and a half the timeline is blank. At 6:52, shortly before sunset, the timeline states that “DSS would not send a team.”

About 20 minutes later, a Quick Reaction Force of Ethiopians from the multinational U.N. mission was tasked to intervene, coordinating with South Sudan’s army chief of staff, Paul Malong, who was also sending soldiers. But the Ethiopian battalion stood down, according to the timeline. Malong’s troops eventually abandoned their intervention too because it took too long for the Quick Reaction Force to act.

The American who was released early in the assault and made it to the U.N. base said he also alerted U.N. staff. At around dusk, a U.N. worker he knew requested three different battalions to send a Quick Reaction Force.

“Everyone refused to go. Ethiopia, China, and Nepal. All refused to go,” he said.

Eventually, South Sudanese security forces entered the Terrain and rescued all but three Western women and around 16 Terrain staff.

No one else was sent that night to find them. The U.N. timeline said a patrol would go in the morning, but this “was cancelled due to priority.” A private security firm rescued the three Western women the staffers the next morning.

When asked why the U.N. peacekeeping mission didn’t respond to the repeated requests for help, acting spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane said the circumstances are under investigation.

“The peacekeepers did not venture out of the bases to protect civilians under imminent threat,” Human Rights Watch said Monday in a report on abuses throughout Juba.

The U.S. Embassy, which also received requests for help during the attack, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The assault at the Terrain pierced a feeling of security among some foreigners who had assumed that they would be protected by their governments or the hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers almost next door.

One of the women gang-raped said security advisers from an aid organization living in the compound told residents repeatedly that they were safe because foreigners would not be targeted. She said: “This sentence, ‘We are not targeted,’ I heard half an hour before they assaulted us.”

Source: Hacked Soros e-mails reveal plans to fight Israel’s ‘racist’ policies – Israel News – Jerusalem Post

The documents are available on a website, reportedly backed by Russia, that uses anti-Semitic stereotypes to attack Soros.

WASHINGTON— Hacked emails show that the Open Society Foundations, led by George Soros, has as an objective “challenging Israel’s racist and anti-democratic policies” in international forums, in part by questioning Israel’s reputation as a democracy.

The documents are available on a website, reportedly backed by Russia, that uses anti-Semitic stereotypes to attack Soros.
They reveal that Open Society, which was founded and is chaired by the hedge fund billionaire and philanthropist, gave close to $10 million since 2001 to groups advancing the rights of Arab Israelis, with an emphasis in recent years on countering what one document says are Israel’s “restrictive measures” against minorities.

“In recent years the radicalization of public opinion and consecutive Israeli right wing governments have resulted in more restrictive measures against Palestinians within Israel,” a Sept. 1, 2015 review of Open Society’s Arab Regional Office’s work said.

It cites as an example the Jewish Nation State bill, advanced by its sponsors to entrench Israel’s Jewish status, but decried by some Arab Israelis as further marginalizing non-Jewish minorities. The bill has yet to pass.

Among achievements listed in the Sept. 1 document, the Arab Regional Office includes increased advocacy by “Palestinian citizens of Israel,” or PCI, in international forums, challenging Israel’s “racist” policies in the face of its reputation as a democracy.

The document advocates the “development of a more organized and efficient PCI advocacy and presence in international forums (UN, EU, US) especially in light of the increasingly limited domestic avenues available for seeking justice.”

“In shifting to international advocacy, PCI’s [sic] are up against Israel and its image as a democratic state before the international community, therefore Palestinian civil society organizations in Israel feel the pressure of filling this gap by strengthening their relations with international actors and systems such as the European Union and United Nations to put their issue on the international agenda,” it says.

“There have been a number of successes in challenging Israel’s racist and anti-democratic policies in the international arena and influencing EU-Israel bilateral negotiations,” the document says.

The emails were posted in recent weeks by DC Leaks, a group Bloomberg News, in an Aug. 11 report, quoted security experts as saying is likely backed by Russia’s intelligence agencies.

Open Society told Bloomberg News that it reported the hacks to the FBI. JTA has submitted a number of queries regarding the hacks to Open Society, which has yet to reply.

Former communists in the Eastern Bloc have for years reviled Soros for promoting democracy and free markets in their countries. At the same time some Jewish groups have labeled Soros, a child survivor of the Holocaust, as anti-Israel.

The Soros page on DC Leaks’ website, in broken English, notes Soros’ Hungarian Jewish roots. Depicting a sinister-looking Soros presiding over an array of news photos of rioting and violence, it invokes anti-Semitic tropes commonplace in Russia and eastern Europe, describing him as a “vampire” managing “puppets” and “slaves” who “spill blood of millions and millions people just to make him even more rich.”

Soros is a major backer of the presidential bid of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s campaign has accused Russian intelligence of being behind a deluge of recent embarrassing email dumps, and has alleged that Russian President Vladimir Putin is backing her rival, Republican nominee Donald Trump.

An Aug. 6, 2015 document details Open Society’s Arab Regional Office funding of civil society groups in Israel since 2001, amounting to $9,591,801. The group obtaining the most money is Adalah, a legal rights group for Arab Israelis, which received a total of $2,688,561 over the period.

Another grantee is the New Israel Fund, a clearinghouse for Israeli civil rights groups, which received $837,500 from 2002-2015.

Notably, the Sept. 1, 2015 Arab Regional Office review depicts as a positive a controversial initiative, the 2007 Democratic Constitution, calling it one of several “important cooperation efforts among leading OCI civil society groups.”

That document, which the review describes as “the most direct and substantive challenge posed by Palestinian citizens to their status in the Jewish Israeli state” was decried by pro-Israel groups at the time as promoting an outcome that would all but remove Israel’s Jewish character.

Adalah was one of the drafting bodies, and the subsequent controversy led the New Israel Fund in 2010 to revise its funding criteria to reject any group that “works to deny the right of the Jewish people to sovereign self-determination within Israel.” The NIF policy was not retroactive, and it still funds Adalah.

The release of the Open Society documents was overshadowed by last month’s similar dump, by WikiLeaks, of Democratic National Committee emails, also believed to have been hacked by Russians. Those emails, revealing antagonism within the DNC toward Bernie Sanders’ ultimately unsuccessful bid for the party’s nomination, led to the resignation of top DNC officials.

NGO Monitor, an Israeli watchdog, uncovered among the DC Leaks trove a separate document prepared by Open Society’s European Policy Institute, suggesting questions for September 2014 hearings to confirm senior European Union foreign policy officials.

Among the questions are one that promotes labeling products from West Bank settlements and another that favors the ascension of the Palestinian Authority to the International Criminal Court. Israel adamantly opposes both policies.