It was two weeks ago when we alerted readers to Egypt’s Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah visiting Moscow – so it should come as no surprise to see Vladimir Putin now extending his influence into Syria.

President Obama has created an intentional leadership vacuum in the mid-east.
Intentional by design.
The two most stable forces within the region, Egypt and Jordan, have been ignored by President Obama for several years.  President Obama willingly allowing Turkey’s Recep Erdogan free reign on what takes place inside Syria, while Erdogan simultaneously provides a safe-haven for the Muslim Brotherhood.  The current events are not disconnected from this empirical truth.

WASHINGTON — Russia has sent a military advance team to Syria and is taking other steps the United States fears may signal that President Vladimir V. Putin is planning to vastly expand his military support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, administration officials said Friday.

The Russian moves, including the recent transport of prefabricated housing units for hundreds of people to a Syrian airfield and the delivery of a portable air traffic control station there, are another complicating factor in Secretary of State John Kerry’s repeated efforts to enlist Mr. Putin’s support for a diplomatic solution to the bloody conflict in Syria.

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[…]  Air Force serviceman Spencer Stone, of Carmichael, California, Alek Skarlatos, a National Guardsman from Oregon, and their childhood friend, Anthony Sadler, a university senior, confronted El-Khazzani and wrestled his rifle, a handgun and nine magazines of bullets from him.

In the attack, El-Khazzani pulled out a box cutter knife, slashed Mr Stone in the neck and ‘almost cut his thumb off’ in the melee.

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The event took place near the Syria Turkey border.

[…]  “Through binoculars the soldiers could see that the crowd were terrified and many were in tears.”
A man and a young boy were dragged out in front of the crowd and were made to kneel down.
“They were both wearing blindfolds and looked terrified.
“A tall bearded man emerged and drew a long knife. (more…)

Turkish President Recep Erdogan is the ultimate ‘wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing’ when it comes to hiding his Muslim Brotherhood affiliation from western media.   The majority of the media, is essentially complicit and willfully blind in allowing his transparent disguise to remain unexposed.

The Muslim Brotherhood is ISIS.  Period.  Trying to parse distinctions is like trying to separate the Occupy Wall Street affiliates from the Anarchists’ amid the Democrats.

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish jets struck camps belonging to Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, authorities said Saturday, the first strike since a 2013 peace deal as Ankara also bombed ISIS positions in Syria.

The strikes in Iraq targeted the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, whose affiliates have been effective in battling ISIS. The strikes further complicate the U.S.-led war against the extremists, which has relied on Kurdish forces making gains in both Iraq and Syria. (more…)

Sunlight is slowly creeping over the canopy of the treetops….

~ The Benghazi Brief ~

ISTANBUL — Turkish news agencies say that authorities have arrested two Georgian citizens who tried to enter the Turkey with radioactive material, including cesium.

State-run Anadolu Agency says a woman identified only as N.K., aged 43, and a man, I.A., 40, were arrested Friday at a border gate in northeastern Turkey. The agency said they entered by foot from Georgia and were acting suspiciously. A search found 1.2 kilos of the cesium.

Authorities later detained a 60-year-old Turk, and all three were brought to court.

The material was delivered to the Turkish Atomic Energy Board. (more…)

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, aka President Obama’s BFF, has been working earnestly trying to recreate the Ottoman Empire with himself as the proclaimed head of the Islamist Empire.

Toward that end Erdogan built himself a grand and opulent palace, aligned himself with ISIS radicals, and provided a safe-harbor for exiled Muslim Brotherhood leadership after Qatar kicked them out for advocating extremist violence.  Yes, even Qatar, home of the GITMO 5, realized the Brotherhood leadership were essentially ISIS sycophants.  However, Erdogan viewed them as ideological brethren deserving of more than a little sympathy.
Erdogan is ‘all-in’ toward his goals of recreating a modern Ottoman Empire.  Nothing was going to stand in his way; even if it meant killing journalists who were exposing his extremist plans.  Erdogan even jails people who make fun of him, and shut down Twitter just because it posed a threat to his power. However, today he suffered a significant, well, actually a devastating, setback.  (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – President Barack Obama will not use the word “genocide” to describe the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians in his annual statement commemorating the historic atrocity later this month.

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes informed an official from the Armenian National Congress of America of the decision in a meeting at the White House on Tuesday.
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• *Greece has signaled its willingness to default on its upcoming IMF payment
• *Sets in place a plan to shift from Euros to a new issue of Greek controlled Drachmas
• *Tspiras boards a plane for Moscow
• *Seeks alternative creditors in Russia and China
• *A “Grexit” would be the de facto end of NATO and shift alliances in the Aegean from Europe to Russia
• *IMF formally withdraws staff from Athens….

Greece arrives at an existential fork in the road:  which way to turn? Continue to go West or strike out for an unknown path heading East ——————————————————————————————————————————–

The far-Left Syriza party of Greece, contrary to assertions of the European Monetary Union (EMU) has not agreed to further “austerity” measures, but has decided to double down on its threats to default on its IMF payments and align itself with Russia.

The Telegraph explains some of the backstory for Syriza’s popularity and rejection of “austerity” measures that don’t include significant debt write-offs (forgiveness).

“…One might righteously protest at what amounts to open blackmail by Mr Tsipras, deeming such conduct to be a primary violation of EU club rules. Yet this is to ignore what has been done to Greece over the past four years, and why the Greek people are so angry…

An apartment building for “middle class” Athens residents, in a “decent” part of Athens, 1 block from our 4 star hotel  (Jan 2015).  According to local social workers, 50% of the population of Greece has migrated from the countryside to Athens in an effort to find work and pool resources with other like-impoverished family members. (Click to embiggen detail)

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Al Nusra is a front for, and has openly aligned with, al-Qaeda in Syria – which is essentially ISIS.

It is not a secret that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has tried to deliver the maximum benefit to ISIS (in Northern Syria) in direct opposition to the Kurds who are trying to formulate their own independent nation of Kurdistan. Erdogan views Kurdistan as a proxy for Irans’ growing sphere of influence.

Erdogan opposes Iran for many ideological reasons, but arguably most of all because he sees Iran’s growing influence as a threat to his own political ambitions to lead a new Ottoman Empire.

In my opinion Erdogan views his envisioned construct as most possible with a constituency of: ISIS, The Muslim Brotherhood, Al Nusra (al-Qaeda) and various other segments of Sunni Islam including the Palestinian Authority, vis-à-vis Hamas. Erdogan, like Obama, has more grand aspirations than his own territory – all of his prior behavior aligns with this perspective.

So it comes as no surprise to see Turkey’s Erdogan take the opportunity provided by the distractions of both Yemen and Iraq, to act against one of Iran’s benefactors in Syria, namely Assad. (more…)