Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Aye DC, if that slime of a human being can stab his own brother in the back.

Mind you, I could mine sometimes. :-))

The UK’s intelligence-gathering assets based in the Mediterranean are to provide the US military with information, as it prepares to carry out cruise missiles strikes against President Bashar al-Assad.

Whitehall sources said Britain’s decision not to take part in attacks punishing the regime for using chemical weapons only covered its Armed Forces, and the sharing of intelligence would continue.

GCHQ’s powerful eavesdropping facilities on Cyprus, around only 100 miles from the Syrian coast, are expected to play a key role in intelligence gathering for military action.

One source said: “We always support our allies and the Commons’ vote was about military action, not about intelligence.” The Cyprus post intercepts messages from across the Middle East and is central to Britain’s intelligence sharing with the US, according to documents leaked by American whistleblower Edward Snowden. Washington pays for half its costs and in return has a say in what it does.

Meanwhile, the military build-up in the region was continuing yesterday, with the arrival of a US navy amphibious landing ship carrying hundreds of US Marines.

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The vessel, the USS San Antonio, is also equipped with helicopters and V-22 Osprey aircraft, that could be deployed to help rescue downed pilots. The US authorities have described its arrival in the eastern Mediterranean as part of “prudent planning”.

Six RAF Typhoons and a Sentry early warning plane remain in place in Cyprus to protect the spy bases and Britain’s airfield from possible attack by “rogue aircraft”.

The Royal Navy also said there were no plans to move a Trafalgar class nuclear-powered submarine which had been on standby to join an assault. The submarine has a formidable array of spy equipment, but sources said it was now not likely to use it to back the attacks.

Those attacks will almost certainly begin with a night time barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the US Sixth fleet.

By last night the fleet had positioned five Arleigh Burke class destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean, each armed with up to 90 missiles. USS Stout has been deployed to join sister ships Mahan, Ramage, Barry and Gravely, a US defence official said. The addition of a missile carrying US submarine gives Barack Obama the option to launch hundreds of missiles in “surgical” strikes across Syria.

A list of possible targets includes command and control centres such as the general staff, special forces and military intelligence headquarters in Damascus, along with Assad’s palace itself.

Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure is also likely to be hit. There are research labs in Hama, Latika and Homs. Missiles could also strike artillery depots used to launch chemical attacks, but analysts have suggested America will shy away from hitting stockpiles themselves for fear of toxic chemical leaks, or leaving smashed bunkers full of chemicals open to plunder by jihadist rebels.

Opposition rebels also want Mr Obama to hit Syrian airbases, including the Dumayr and Mazzeh which are being used by Iranian cargo planes to supply Assad’s forces.

America also has F-16 fighters poised around the region, at bases in Incirlik in Turkey and in Jordan. Two Fifth fleet carrier strike groups with dozens of F-18s are within reach in the Gulf and longer range bombers could be sent from America.

However the strength of Syria’s air defences and American spending cuts which have grounded combat squadrons both mean the US is likely to rely on missile strikes.

As the American military colossus assembles, France is the only European nation prepared to join in. It has sent an anti-missile warfare destroyer to the region and has the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, in Toulon, southern France.

French aircraft can be equipped with Scalp missiles and it has seven Mirage 2000 combat jets in Djibouti and six Rafales are stationed in Abu Dhabi.

In the face of such a build-up, Syria said it expects to be attacked imminently.

“We are expecting an attack at any moment. We are ready to retaliate at any moment,” a security official said.

The country’s state television has been broadcasting images of Syrian soldiers training, fighter jets soaring in the sky and tanks firing at unseen targets, to the backdrop of martial music.

Among Assad’s options for retaliation, one of the most feared is a strike from his stockpile of Scud missiles. Some estimates put his arsenal at 500 and all are capable of carrying chemical weapons. Cyprus, Turkey, Israel and Jordan are all well within range. Any attack with Scuds, particularly on Israel, would invite dangerous escalation across the region.

To combat the possibility, the US and Nato have built a shield of Patriot missile batteries surrounding Syria ready to knock down incoming missiles.

US batteries are in place in Turkey and Jordan, while Israel has its own missiles in place.

Reports from inside Syria suggest the regime is already trying to lessen the impact of air attacks by dispersing and hiding Scud missile launchers and aircraft. Senior military officers are also steering clear of headquarters buildings and bunkers which are expected to be hit.

Assad also has a wide range of unconventional options for revenge, using his allies and militant groups around the region.

Turkey will be on alert for car bombings in its border towns similar to one in Reyhanli earlier this year.

In Amman, Jordan, security will be bolstered in the city’s five star hotels, which are popular with foreigners.

Assad could also encourage attacks by militant groups linked to his Iranian allies. The Shia militia Hizbollah could be persuaded to fire rockets from southern Lebanon into Israel. The Iranian-sponsored militants group Islamic Jihad has also frequently fired rockets into Israel.
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Syria
News »World News »Middle East »UK News »Mobile »In Syria


Syria missile strike: view from Damascus

In order to bury the evidence!

dreamcatcher 31 Aug 2013 21:58 - 28558 of 28564

"MPs have privately begun to voice concerns that their leader made a catastrophic mistake by engineering the defeat of the Government’s motion in the House of Commons on Thursday night. That's the sentence that hits home with me Chris."




PRIVATELY?

They have being doing it for months.

They just can't find where they left the knives.

Same here DC... what a shitty saturday.

Anyway your all missing the point.

This vote against Camoron was engineered by back bench Tory MPs who want rid of Camoron and the Eton outfit surounding him.

Itl come out later, you mark my words.

30 plus Tories who couldnt be assed to turn up. Redwood meeting with 5 other tomorrow.

The writing is on the wall.


Camoron is an arogant liar who deserved to get a bloody nose.

By nature IM a true believer in responsible capitalism, Blair brought that back to the labour party and we had 10 good years.

Brown ruined it, like Camoron thinking about his own personal agenda.

If the Tories get a decent leadership without the snobs I and others can still save them from a humiliating defeat at the next election.

I call for Mick Portillio to step up to the plate.

The 'listening post' on Cyprus and in the rock at Gibraltar are very important for intelligence intercepts. I know someone who worked at both. He was trained in Arabic and the listeners would sit for hours studying phone and radio traffic. The US has already said that it has recordings of high ranking military in Syria planning the chemical attacks. I believe Israel supplied some of the intercepts as well as the UK.

So good to see you Chris debating real politics rather than the Hilary type baby clap trap. WELL DONE.

The current Labour party as its stands in my view will not defeat the Conservative party at the next election. lol

Bring it on. lol

Someone please tell BILL....... haystack we ARENT going to war.

Camoron cannot do a U turn on his thursday closing call. GET IT.......DOPE.

Like others here have said he'd never be trusted again it would be political suicide.

Ed could land in do do , who knows, may all just backfire,

Ed has just done a whopping u turn saying don't abandon the Syrian people.

DC yes they will with this present lot of tories.

Dont forget on the day it all comes down to how much the middle ground have in their back pocket, and at the moment its nowt but pennies.

Not only that but watch out for % rate rises.

Already the Canadian is under pressure on this topic.

DC I think Cynic is a t--t.

O/T United or Liverpool tomorrow???????.

United by the odd goal.

Washington Post

Three days before the rockets fell outside Damascus, a team of Syrian specialists gathered in the northern suburb of Adra for a task that U.S. officials say had become routine in the third year of the country’s civil conflict: filling warheads with deadly chemicals to kill Syrian rebels.

The preparations, as described by U.S. intelligence analysts, continued from Aug. 18 until just after midnight on Aug. 21, when the projectiles were loaded into rocket launchers behind the government’s defensive lines. Then, at 2:30 a.m., a half-dozen densely populated neighborhoods were jolted awake by a series of explosions, followed by an oozing blanket of suffocating gas.

Unknown to Syrian officials, U.S. spy agencies recorded each step in the alleged chemical attack, from the extensive preparations to the launching of rockets to the after-action assessments by Syrian officials. Those records and intercepts would become the core of the Obama administration’s evidentiary case linking the Syrian government to what one official called an “indiscriminate, inconceivable horror” — the use of outlawed toxins to kill nearly 1,500 civilians, including at least 426 children.

Pulling back the curtain on some of the United States’ most sensitive collection efforts, the Obama administration released on Friday its long-awaited intelligence assessment of the Aug. 21 event, explaining in rare detail the basis for its claim that Syria was behind the release of deadly gas, the grisly effects of which have been documented in more than 100 amateur videos.

The four-page assessment and accompanying map revealed for the first time how communications intercepts and satellite imagery picked up key decisions and actions on the ground.

In choosing to release the document, White House officials anticipated the likely comparisons to the famously inaccurate intelligence reports from a decade ago that claimed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, in his remarks on the release of the intelligence assessment, said White House officials were “more than mindful of the Iraq experience.”

“We will not repeat that moment,” Kerry said. “Accordingly, we have taken unprecedented steps to declassify and make facts available to people who can judge for themselves.”

The document proposes a possible motive for the attack — a desperate effort to push back rebels from several areas in the capital’s densely packed eastern suburbs — and also suggests that the high civilian death toll surprised and panicked senior Syrian officials, who called off the attack and then tried to cover it up.

“We intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive,” it says, “who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on Aug. 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence.”

% rate rises are argued very soon or as late as 2017. gf- ''DC yes they will with this present lot of tories''. They will not with the present leader or Ed balls, they have no trust from the British public.

Yep are u sure though.

Latest and first poll after Thursdays vote........ Labour lead of 8%.


Up frm 5%.

These small %s now are the norm and mean a great deal more through accuracy of the polls of 10 years ago.

Anyway goodnight all.

Sick of mainstream TV these days.

Total crap. I see the shite factor has started again tonight.

Time to get the ale out or go night fishing.

Seee ya,