Syria government forces turn up heat on Homs .... Was Bloomberg caught in a Psy Op ?

Syrian regime assaults rebel stronghold Homs

Jets and mortar-bomb attacks reported as government forces battle rebels for control of crucial central city. Last Modified: 29 Jun 2013 17:23

Government forces have reported 'great progress' in the Khalidiya district of Homs [Reuters]

Syrian regime forces have launched a major offensive against rebels in Homs in their latest drive to secure an axis linking Damascus to the Mediterranean. Activists said jets and mortar bombs pounded rebel-held areas of the city, which have been under siege by President Bashar al-Assad's troops for a year, and soldiers fought battles with rebel fighters in several districts. "Government forces are trying to storm from all fronts," an activist using the name Abu Mohammad told the Reuters news agency on Saturday. There were no immediate details of casualties but video uploaded by activists showed heavy explosions and clouds of smoke rising from what they said were rebel districts. Loud, concentrated bursts of gunfire could also be heard. Syrian state media said the army was "achieving great progress" in the Khalidiyah district. The attack on Homs city comes after gains made by Assad forces in provincial Homs villages and towns close to the Lebanese border. They have been supported by Hezbollah fighters. Spotlight In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria Three weeks ago Hezbollah aided the recapture of the border town of Qusayr, a former rebel bridgehead for guns and fighters smuggled into Syria, and last week secured another border town, Tel Kalakh. Those gains have consolidated Assad's control of a corridor of territory which runs from Damascus, through Homs, and to the traditional heartland of Assad’s minority Alawite sect in the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean. The rebel setbacks have also motivated rebel allies abroad to increase their support, with Saudi Arabia reported to have fast-tracked heavy weapons shipments into Syria to combat regime armour. Despite losing ground around Damascus and Homs, rebels registered a symbolic victory on Friday when they overran a major military checkpoint in Deraa, the southern city where the uprising first erupted. Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the fall of the army post was strategically significant and could change the balance of power in Deraa, where rebels control most of the old city. The province of Deraa, on the border with Jordan, has been a conduit for rebel arms supplies. Syrian jets pound central city of Homs    |    |  A A ASSOCAITED PRESS Saturday 29 June 2013 Last Update 29 June 2013 6:59 pm BEIRUT: Syrian warplanes and ground forces bombarded fighter-held neighborhoods in Homs yesterday as part of the military’s ongoing campaign against opposition fighters in the heart of the country’s third largest city, activists said. The army of Bashar Assad has reclaimed some of the territory it has lost to the fighters in the past year. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes hit two districts in the center of the city, a stronghold of the fighters, since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011. It said the army also fired mortar shells into the neighborhoods. An activist from one of those neighborhoods, Khaldiya, said tanks were also involved in the bombardment, and that the military was trying to push into the area from all sides. Shelling has been continuous since 10 a.m. in that area and in nearby Old Homs, activist Tariq Bardakhan told The Associated Press via Skype. “Today is one of the most violent days that Homs has witnessed since the beginning of the revolution,” he said. In an activists’ video of the bombardment, several large explosions can be heard as plumes of grey smoke rise from buildings in a densely built-up area of the city. The narrator of the video says: “These are heavy explosions that hit Homs, God is great.” Another shell lands and smoke can be seen rising from behind a mosque. Two minarets are seen in the distance and the narrator says they belong to the historic Khalid Ibn Al-Walid Mosque in Khaldiya. http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/06/27/bloomberg-caught-in-psyop-treason/ Bloomberg Caught in “Psyop” Treason Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on pinterest_shareMore Sharing Services66 Bloomberg plays hoax against Obama US President Barack Obama By Gordon Duff and Press TV A bizarre Bloomberg story, citing what was represented to be one of the biggest intelligence leaks in US history, hit during the G8 conference and the critical meetings between US President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The purpose of the story by Bloomberg News, now exposed as a hoax, was to hamstring and humiliate President Obama in his meetings with Putin and show American weakness and indecision on Syria, not just that but demonstrate American recklessness and disregard for international law. US intelligence officials tell us they see a strong pattern of “planted” news stories, and phony “leaks,” all meant to sell a “war of deception” they say is part of an hostile operation against the US by a foreign intelligence agency. Lavrov responds When Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov heard the story of the supposedly planned US air attack on Syria put out by Bloomberg News, he immediately made a press release, one censored in the US, that exposed Bloomberg and debunked their claims. From Veterans Today: “As yet, the contracts are not finished, they have not been delivered in full.” Lavrov also repeated Russia’s strong objection to a no-fly zone to be implemented over Syria. During an interview with Lebanon’s al-Manar TV in late May, Assad said Damascus is already in possession of the first batch of S-300 missile defense systems from Russia. He noted that the second shipment of the Russian systems will be delivered to Syria soon. Russia says that the shipment of the S-300 missile defense systems is aimed at deterring foreign intervention in Syria.” On June 18, 2013, Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg News wrote a story outlining what he purported to a White House meeting during which Secretary of State Kerry advocated the immediate bombing of Syria. That story has now been exposed as a total hoax, fed to Bloomberg, not by a “White House leaker” but rather a “construct” by a foreign intelligence agency as part of a wide “psyop” meant to exploit tensions between the US and Russia. Colonel James B. Hanke, USA Special Forces (ret), former attaché to Israel and a top US intelligence officer has confirmed that no such meeting had occurred, nothing of the kind had been discussed and that the story itself is a serious security problem for the United States: “This is Bloomberg, caught with their pants down lying about Russia’s delivery of the S 300 missile system now caught again lying about an American attack. We certainly have a basis for investigating those behind this hoax as being involved in not just espionage and but even treason.” Secretary of State Kerry has been a strong opponent of US military involvement in Syria. Not just that, both Kerry and Dempsey are totally aware that the Russian built S 300 system is fully operational and that the US would lose aircraft in such an attack, even if the US supported such an attack, which it doesn’t. There was not only no discussion of bombing, the idea of it is absurd, a fantasy clearly demonstrating that Bloomberg has a dangerous agenda and that reports of high level leaks are, to an extent, also hoaxes meant to sell an intelligence “psyop” war against the United States.” Other sources within the highest levels of the Department of Defense (DOD) indicated that US policy in Syria, despite the flurry of news stories to the contrary, is moving toward an increasing American disengagement: “Gordon, simply put, the US doesn’t have a ‘dog in this hunt.’ We have nothing to gain in Syria and have no choice but to let this play out. We are going to continue our hardline with Iran, waiting for a move there but in Syria, we have no desire to harm relations with Russia, a nation President Obama has strong plans to partner with during his second term.” Even the US military exercise in Jordan, one said to be a precursor to American moves against is being shown to be something quite different. As early as March, reports of a 20,000 man US force in Jordan came from Israel’s DEBKA Files. In fact, Bloomberg and DEBKA, a propaganda organ for Shin Bet and Mossad, one invariably outlandishly wrong and embarrassingly biased, seem to be functioning as “one in the same.” Jordan From highest-level intelligence sources at the White House: “We are ‘staking out’ Jordan, we have to. It’s the ‘high ground’ in the region. After the fall of Al Quasar to Assad, Al Nusra, a ‘nasty bunch’ began moving on Iraq. They were kicked out of Syria, weren’t prepared to go against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Jordan didn’t want them around. They immediately began a terror bombing campaign in Iraq’s cities. Maliki saw this ploy and moved even more troops to the Syrian and Jordanian border. We have to be prepared to back up Iraq from the other side, this is one of the reasons we left forces in Jordan. Allowing a cross border civil war on engulf both Iraq and Syria would overshadow even Bush era military blunders, something previously thought impossible. Technically, we are supporting both sides in what is now a regional conflict. We can only hope this begins to sort out in Geneva.” Bloomberg deception Goldberg’s article of June 18 was, to be generous, a broad attack on reality. He began with citing what he claimed to be multiple unnamed sources in the White House “Situation Room,” present at highest level meetings that typically have only the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in attendance. These meetings are chaired by the White House National Security Advisor. Sources indicate that “designate,” Susan Rice would have been there. In fact, no one was there at all, the meetings never happened. If they had and if they had been reported by “three sources” as Goldberg indicates, this would be the largest single intelligence leak since Jonathan Pollard. Goldberg would have found himself in front of a federal grand jury. What is clear is that Bloomberg had a clear agenda. Any real White House meeting would, at least by the standards of the American/Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) look like a “convention of anti-Semites.” Obama has been cited as the most “Israeli unfriendly” president in recent history. General Martin Dempsey, far from being “soft spoken” as Goldberg states, is a strong willed and the only general officer in the Army to have refused paid “junket” visits to Israel. High-level sources cite the carefully staged and broadly misrepresented Benghazi attacks, a coordinated offensive with strong Israeli/Neocon fingerprints meant to, not just rig the American presidential election but, in the process, destroy Susan Rice, a major skeptic regarding Israel’s “friendship” with the United States. From Bloomberg: “At a principals meeting in the White House situation room, Secretary of State John Kerry began arguing, vociferously, for immediate U.S. airstrikes against airfields under the control of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime — specifically, those fields it has used to launch chemical weapons raids(1) against rebel forces. It was at this point that the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the usually mild-mannered Army General Martin Dempsey, spoke up, loudly. According to several sources, Dempsey threw a series of brushback pitches at Kerry, demanding to know just exactly what the post-strike plan would be and pointing out that the State Department didn’t fully grasp the complexity of such an operation. Dempsey informed Kerry that the Air Force could not simply drop a few bombs, or fire a few missiles, at targets inside Syria: To be safe, the U.S. would have to neutralize Syria’s integrated air-defense system (2), an operation that would require 700 or more sorties. At a time when the U.S. military is exhausted (3) and when sequestration is ripping into the Pentagon budget (4)… Officials with knowledge of the meeting say that Kerry gave as good as he got, and that the discussion didn’t reach aneurysm-producing levels. But it was, in diplomatic parlance, a full and frank vetting of the profound differences between State and Defense(5) on Syria” Bloomberg puts Debka “talking points” into “White House mouths” As with any intelligence operation, there are issues of timing, of goals and potential risks. Bloomberg believed it had hit a “home run” when their hoax hit key news sources in the Middle East and even Russia. With all attribution stripped off and feeding on a sea of anti-American sentiment, there would be a large audience for another Obama administration scandal and a story intended to undermine US policy and endanger US security. (1) Bloomberg seems to have been “tasked” with selling the cover story on chemical weapons. The US had already been pressured into a weak response in accepting poorly substantiated claims of WMD use by Assad’s forces. Bloomberg was sent out to make that weak US response look like something more, thus the imaginary Kerry “bombing scenario.” (2) Bloomberg mentions an “integrated air defense system,” one Syria has had for decades. However, Bloomberg, in failing to acknowledge the devastatingly effective S 300 system, tries to “hammer square history into a round hole of lies.” Bloomberg, despite Russian government statements, still tries to sell the idea the S300 has never been delivered, tying them to an earlier hoax of their own making. (3) Whether the US military is “exhausted” or not, the idea that this would be discussed in the White House in front of “underlings” who run to Jeffrey Goldberg is beyond insane. (4) Here, Bloomberg is attacking the Obama administration citing an economic squeeze orchestrated by the Israel lobby through AIPAC and its control of the Republican Party. (5) The “killer,” of course, is Bloomberg’s colorful mythology, attempting to show the Obama administration as, not just factionalized but Secretary of State Kerry as militarily inept, psychologically unstable and both Kerry and General Martin Dempsey as uninformed as Bloomberg itself. Invented news now the norm When Bloomberg published an unattributed story claiming the US Secretary of State was advocating military action in Syria that would likely lead to a full-scale military confrontation between the United States and Russia, no one asked questions. The White House, busy at the G 8, couldn’t respond. A denial of something to fanciful and far-fetched would, in itself, give the story credence. Bloomberg knew this. This is why they felt free to publish, knowing a denial would not be forthcoming. In the real world, a story like this would represent a major intelligence leak at the White House. Policy level conferences involve the highest imaginable security clearances. Leaks from such meetings can and should mean decades in prison, unless, of course, the stories are totally fabricated. There was no mention by the White House of a leak. There was no leak. There should never have been a story. There was only the abuse of a free press by an organization seeking to use the platform of “mainstream journalism” to sell imaginary international plots and sow the seeds of war and suffering. The problem is, these stories, once invented, each either a total hoax, always unsourced, always an attractive mythical narrative meant to feed wild conspiracy theories, aren’t coming from “blogosphere” but from multi-billion dollar news organizations. From there, they seed into the conspiracy sites on the internet, become even wilder and more speculative and reverberate and grow like ripples on a pond.