Holy Cats… things are moving exponentially fast now…
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is now disclosing the nature of his resignation, and why he left Lebanon to spend time in Saudi Arabia.  It appears the Saudi and regional partners provided evidence that Iran and Hezbollah were planning an assassination targeting Hariri and his family.
Saad Hariri traveled to France for a meeting with French President Emanuel Macron.
Yesterday President Trump and President Macron had a phone conversation where they agreed on the need for continued cooperation and partnership with regional allies, namely Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Gulf States and coalition members to confront the destabilizing efforts of Iran and Hezbollah:

JEDDAH: US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday agreed on the need to partner with allies to respond to the destabilization activities of Hezbollah and Iran in the region.
The two leaders’ telephone conversation came in the aftermath of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s resignation, which he announced during a recent trip to Saudi Arabia.
“Both presidents agreed on the need to work with allies to counter Hizballah’s and Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region,” a statement from the White House said.

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It was massively unreported in 2014 when Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took control of the Gaza Sinai border and began removing the Hamas Terror tunnels.  As we watched the local media reporting, it was almost unbelievable how western media were ignoring the events. (example)
A full one-third of all homes on the Gaza border with Egypt contained Hamas tunnels used to smuggle weapons.  One of the discovered tunnels was 1.5 miles long (link).  In order to deal with the scale of the issue, al-Sisi ordered the removal of houses to facilitate an almost mile-wide buffer zone.   During the effort massive tunnels were discovered that the terrorist network Hamas was using to smuggle weapons.

It was al-Sisi’s efforts on that border that eventually forced the terms of a 2014 ceasefire between Hamas/Palestinian Authority and Israel.  By forcing Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to speak with one voice President al-Sisi changed the paradigm of willful blindness supporting terrorism.
Since 2014/2015 the border area has been secured by Egypt and no weapons have been able to flow into Gaza.  The inability of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to fuel further terror created the space for the Palestinian Authority to extend it’s influence.
Eventually, absent their ability to fuel terrorist activity, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood diminished in influence; later granting the PA with unified governing authority.  The “big squeeze” paid off.
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Given the speed of events in Saudi Arabia this year a stunning report surfaces stating that King Salman is anticipated to hand over ruling authority to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman next week.
According to The Daily Mail King Salman will retain the title of guardian of the holy mosques but otherwise hand over all ruling authority to the crown prince.

The King of Saudi Arabia plans to step down and announce his son as his successor next week, a source close to the country’s royal family has exclusively told DailyMail.com.

The move is seen as the final step in 32-year-old Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s power grab, which began earlier this month with the arrests of more than 40 princes and government ministers in a corruption probe.

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Major developments happening in Saudi Arabia including the arrest of former King Abdallah chief of staff, prince Al Walid Bin Talal, and heads of the main three Saudi owned television stations.  Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Trump ally) leads the way:

Eleven princes, four sitting ministers and ‘tens’ of former ministers have been arrested on orders from the new anti-corruption committee headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Saturday evening according to sources. (LINK)

NOTE: It’s important to understand the use of the word “corruption” as it pertains to the domestic consumption of news in KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).  In these examples, “corruption” is expressed as self-interested financial corruption as in: ‘activity against the people’.  However, within KSA politics, adverse political action targeted against the state is framed as ‘corruption’ through internal broadcast.

President Trump, May 2017: “Drive Them Out” … “Our goal is a coalition of nations who share the aim of stamping out extremism and providing our children a hopeful future that does honor to God.”

I’ll outline some recent actions we’ve been tracking that will highlight today’s events, and yet encapsulate some larger issues.  It is critically important to remember, KSA is in a state of realignment away from extremism –REMINDER– and President Trump has committed his support to the reform agents King Salman, and more importantly, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the future leader of Saudi Arabia.   You can easily connect-the-dots.
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The Backstory Here Is Important – Those who travel the deep weeds of politics might remember back in August when the Trump administration delayed $300 million in economic aid to Egypt.  The U.S. media made quite a fuss about it and claimed U.S. Egyptian relations would be stressed.  Reminder:

CAIRO— Egypt reacted angrily Wednesday to the Trump administration’s decision to cut or delay nearly $300 million in military and economic aid over human rights concerns, a surprise move given the increasingly close ties that have bound the two allies since President Donald Trump took office in January.

Hours after the U.S. announcement, Trump’s Middle East envoy, son-in-law Jared Kushner, arrived in Egypt as part of a Middle East tour to try to revive Arab-Israeli peace talks. He met with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and later conferred with Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry before leaving for Israel.

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Everything eventually comes full circle.  The dissonance within this tweet and subsequent article is a story unto itself.  Obviously six years ago when Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Samantha Power and President Obama were destroying Libya the progressive movement needed to stick their head in the sand regarding predictable future consequences.
The Obama/Clinton short-sighted Libya fiasco created situation where regional extremists became well armed, and now the Obama/Clinton supporters are wondering why?

Let’s take a little trip down memory lane…
Several years ago we wrote about how those massive stores of former terror armament looted from the Gadhaffi caches was going to be a major -yet unreported- story.  We’re not talking about a few pounds of yellow-cake, or a few Man-Pads.  No, we’re talking about 20,000+ shoulder fired SAAMs, Stinger Missiles, hundreds of Man-Pads and thousands of canisters of mustard gas and serin componentry.
The story everyone sealed up in the too-big-to-scale files of military FUBAR.
Yeah, that story.
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President Donald Trump meets with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and highlights the message that the ongoing goal of Israeli-Palestinian peace remains vital to regional stability.

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CTH readers are entirely clear-eyed as to the scope of the challenge. No-one amid our association is naive to the seemingly impossible scale against the backdrop of history. It may be that their task is impossible. Yet, if they do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if they do not try, it most certainly won’t be done…
There is absolutely no doubt of the work that has been going on for months, quietly, mostly under the radar. National media are completely deficient for not covering the ongoing events and the diplomacy that has been taking place all year.
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King Abdullah II of Jordan meets with U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.   King Abdullah is a strategic and ideological ally in the ongoing mid-east campaign against extremism, and a central figure in Trump’s peace coalition.
Prior to the election of President Trump it was Egypt (Abdel Fattah al-Sisi) and Jordan (King Abdullah II) who assembled the regional partners (GCC) and pushed back against the political extremism of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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NOTE: I am posting this for Sundance, who is very busy at the moment. He wrote this last year on September 11. (signed) Stella

I hope he will rejoin us at any moment!

To honor the memory of those lost on September 11th/12th 2012:

The Benghazi Brief

The “Benghazi Brief” remains the most controversial research report we have ever produced. The brief contains over two years of research and hundreds of very specific factual citations supporting it. Two years after it was originally written, and not a single aspect outlined within the brief has ever been identified as inaccurate.
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Today Secretary of State Rex Tillerson highlighted events over the past six months.  T-Rex takes another stroll around the globe discussing regional policy, specific state policy, and ongoing challenges.  Secretary Tillerson then takes questions from the media at the conclusion of his remarks.
Very informative. Very well worth watching (T-Rex Begins at 03:40):

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[*Note* We’ll capture and share transcript as soon as possible.]
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