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"Ramadi was almost entirely leveled as a result of the ferocity of international airstrikes, a critical part of the Iraqi government’s plan to dislodge Islamic State extremists from the besieged city."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-ramadi-s ... 1452303694" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Do they still expect us to believe their lies that no civilians are killed by Western bombs?

'Last month, the Washington DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility (PRS) released a landmark study concluding that the death toll from 10 years of the “War on Terror” since the 9/11 attacks is at least 1.3 million, and could be as high as 2 million. The 97-page report by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning doctors’ group is the first to tally up the total number of civilian casualties from US-led counter-terrorism interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The PSR report is authored by an interdisciplinary team of leading public health experts, including Dr. Robert Gould, director of health professional outreach and education at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, and Professor Tim Takaro of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.'

- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/un ... jbQts.dpuf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35799998" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to bring terrorism "to its knees" after an attack in the capital Ankara that killed at least 34 people. Mr Erdogan said the suicide car bomb would serve only to strengthen the resolve of Turkey's security forces. The explosion, in Guven Park in the Kizilay district, a key transport hub, wounded at least 125 people. Interior Minister Efkan Ala said an investigation would conclude on Monday and those responsible would be named. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but government sources are casting suspicion on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)."

So, what happens?

Turkey launches a series of air strikes against the Kurds. They hit back by terrorist bombing in Turkey's capital, Ankara.

That has similarities to France....

The French had been launching a series of air strikes against Islamic State for two months, before they hit back by terrorist bombing in the French capital, Paris.

There's a cause-and-effect relationship between the two events. That's something the Western media refuse to discuss....

The terrorist who murdered four innocent people in an attack on Westminster had long harboured a “blood lust” and had sought professional help over his urges to kill, a former close friend has told The Telegraph.

An astonishing picture has emerged of the journey Adrian Ajao took from polite schoolboy from a well-to-do family to Isil-inspired killer who called himself Khalid Masood.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03 ... g-village/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"The US military has acknowledged that aircraft of the coalition fighting so-called Islamic State (IS) in Iraq hit a location in west Mosul where dozens of civilians were reportedly killed. It says an investigation is under way. Meanwhile, thousands of Mosul residents have fled the areas held by IS, in fear of US-led air strikes and fierce fighting by Iraqi ground troops."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39392232" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

By furiously attacking Iran, Trump will encourage Saudi Arabia and Gulf monarchs to escalate their proxy wars throughout the central core of the Middle East. It will encourage Iran to take precautions and assume that a long-term understanding with the US and the Sunni states is becoming less and less feasible.

There are already some signs that Trump’s endorsement of Sunni states, however repressive, is leading to an escalation of hostilities between Sunni and Shia.

In Bahrain, where a Sunni minority rules a Shia majority, the security forces attacked the Shia village of Diraz today. It is home to the island’s leading Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim, who has just received a one-year suspended sentence for financing extremism.

One man in the village is reported to have been killed as the police moved in, using armoured vehicles and firing shotguns and tear gas canisters.

President Obama had frosty relations with the Bahraini rulers because of the mass incarceration of protesters and use of torture when the security forces crushed democratic protests in 2011.

Trump backed away from past policy when he met Bahraini King Hamad in Riyadh at the weekend, saying: “Our countries have a wonderful relationship together, but there has been a little strain, but there won’t be strain with this administration.”

The bombing in Manchester – and atrocities attributed to Isis influence in Paris, Brussels, Nice and Berlin – are similar to even worse slaughter of tens of thousands in Iraq and Syria. These get limited attention in the Western media, but they continually deepen the sectarian war in the Middle East.

The only feasible way to eliminate organisations capable of carrying out these attacks is to end the seven wars – Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and north east Nigeria – that cross-infect each other and produce the anarchic conditions in which Isis and al-Qaeda and their clones can grow.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/man ... 52181.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

'Jeremy Corbyn is to take the hugely controversial step of blaming Britain’s foreign wars for terror attacks such as the Manchester suicide bombing. The Labour leader will claim a link between “wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home”, as he relaunches his party’s election campaign on Friday after the three-day pause. Mr Corbyn will stress that his assessment is shared by the intelligence and security services and “in no way reduces the guilt of those who attack our children”....In the speech, he is not expected to name any specific wars, having – as a backbencher – opposed the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and against Isis, in Iraq and Syria. At the Iraq Inquiry in 2010, Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, said the invasion had “substantially” increased the terrorist threat to the UK, by radicalising young people. However, The Independent understands that Mr Corbyn wishes to draw attention to his March 2011 vote against the Libya bombing – when he was one of just 13 MPs to oppose David Cameron.'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 56266.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Finally, a British political leader prepared to make connections between the wars and terrorism....

'Was that really the best Theresa May could do? It was the same old tosh about “values” and “democracy” and “evil ideology”, without the slightest reference to the nation to whom she fawns – Saudi Arabia, whose Wahhabist “ideology” has seeped into the bloodstream of Isis, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Tony Blair used the same garbage language when he claimed – untruthfully, of course – that the 7/7 London bombings had nothing to do with Iraq. He, too, like George Bush, claimed that they were perpetrated because the bombers hated our values and our democracy, even though Isis would have no idea what these values were if they woke up in bed next to them....Jeremy Corbyn – not, I have to admit, one of my heroes – got it right. May needs to talk to us about the “difficult conversations” she must have with the Saudis and their Gulf allies, not to Muslim British citizens. But she is too gutless, too cowardly, to deal with the Gulf Arab autocrats to whom she sells weapons, whose principal Arabian dictator, the head-chopper-in-chief, is so worthy of our mourning that May’s predecessor lowered the British flag to half-mast on his death. Yes, to confront this Salafist-Wahhabi state and Gulf citizens’ financial contributions to Isis would be a “difficult conversation” indeed for Theresa May. Instead, she’s going to have her “embarrassing conversations” with Britain’s Muslims who have no power to switch off the “evil ideology” which Wahhabism represents. She does have that power. But she won’t use it.'

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/lon ... 73011.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Jeremy Corbyn has said the “difficult conversations” Theresa May wants to have about Islamist extremism should start with “Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states [which] have funded extremist ideology”.

In a speech in Carlisle following the terror attack in London Bridge which killed at seven people, Mr Corbyn was responding to Ms May’s comments on rooting out extremism.

He criticised her alleged suppression of a report into foreign funding of UK-based extremism which was originally due to be published in 2016 but was held back over due to its "sensitive" contents.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 73451.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

An overwhelming majority of people agree with Jeremy Corbyn that British involvement in foreign wars has put the public at greater risk of terrorism, according to a new poll.

The exclusive ORB survey for The Independent found 75 per cent of people believe interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have made atrocities on UK soil more likely.

The poll – conducted before Saturday night’s devastating attack – comes after Mr Corbyn was lambasted for suggesting foreign policy decisions were linked to terrorism in the UK and that the “war on terror” had failed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 76276.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;