Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stayed firm on Israel’s stance on the Iran nuclear deal with a powerful speech to the U.N. Thursday. The power came with his words but was intensified by his silence.
“Seventy years after the murder of six million Jews, Iran’s rulers promise to destroy my country, murder my people,” Netanyahu said. “And the response from this body— the response from nearly every one of the governments represented here— has been absolutely nothing. Utter silence. Deafening silence.”
What followed was a stone cold silence delivered by the Prime minister as he stared down the assembly. No one spoke or stirred as Netanyahu remained quiet for nearly a minute.
“The days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies— those days are over.”
The speech was Netanyahu’s first major address since the Iran nuclear deal survived a debate in the U.S. Congress. Netanyahu also reached out to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
“I am prepared to immediately resume direct negotiations with the Palestinian Authority without any preconditions whatsoever,” Netanyahu said. “Unfortunately, President Abbas said yesterday that he is not prepared to do this. I hope he changes his mind.”
Abbas stated in his own address to the U.N, “Israel has destroyed the foundations upon which the political and security agreements are based. We therefore declare that we cannot continue to be bound by these agreements and that Israel must assume all its responsibilities as an occupying power.”
Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Obama in November.
Escalating tension continues between the U.S. and Russian over Russian airstrikes that government officials feel are serving to strengthen Syrian President Bashar Assad by targeting “moderate” rebels rather than ISIS fighters that it promised to attack.
The Pentagon is wrestling with the question as to whether the U.S. should use military force to protect U.S. trained and equipped Syrian rebels now that they may be the targets of Russian airstrikes. Pentagon leaders have been consistent in saying that the U.S. must take steps to protect the American-trained rebels.
An international coalition is urging Russia to immediately cease attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians and focus instead on fighting the ISIS terrorist group.
“We express our deep concern with regard to the Russian military build-up in Syria and especially the attacks by the Russian Air Force on Hama, Homs and Idlib since yesterday which led to civilian casualties and did not target Da’esh,” said the statement, jointly issued late Thursday by the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, France, Germany, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Russia’s defense ministry said that over the past 24 hours it had damaged or destroyed 12 targets in Syria belonging to the ISIS fighters, including a command center and ammunition depots. A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, Col. Steve Warren, said he had no indication that the Russians had hit Islamic State targets.
Concerns are being raised that this conflict is leading to a new alliance between Russia, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
A shooter opened fire at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon Thursday morning killing 13 people and wounding more than 20.
The unidentified suspect was killed in a gunfight with Douglas County Sheriff’s deputies.
At about 10:38 AM, the 911 center received a report of a shooting at Umpqua Community College. Police immediately responded.
Governor Kate Brown said the shooter was “a 20-year-old male.” She expressed her “profound dismay and unimaginable heartbreak. Our top priority now is the medical treatment of the victims and the security of the campus.”
Umpqua is a two-year school with about 3,300 full-time students and 16,000 part-time students. It started offering classes in 1961.
In audio of the emergency call, a dispatcher is heard saying that at the college’s Snyder Hall: “Somebody is outside one of the doors shooting through the door. A female is inside the computer lab. We do have one female that has been shot at this time.”
Our prayers are with the families of the victims in this horrible tragedy.
Hurricane Joaquin intensified to an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm Thursday afternoon, and continues to hammer the central Bahamas with hurricane-force winds, storm surge flooding and torrential rain.
The most severe flooding reported so far was on Acklins island, where power went off overnight and phones were down. Some of the roughly 565 people who live there were trapped in their homes. Capt. Stephen Russell, the director of the Bahamas National Emergency Management Agency.Russell said.
Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey were the latest to declare a state of emergency, warning residents that the severe weather already predicted could be significantly worse if Joaquin veers northwestward. East coast states are alerting residents to prepare as potentially historic rainfall and flooding is set to create havoc into the weekend whether or not Hurricane Joaquin makes U.S. Landfall.
With the Category 4 hurricane passing close to the islands at a relatively slow speed, a catastrophic situation may unfold there with a prolonged period of intense hurricane conditions. Intense flooding and storm surge is expected to continue.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed reporters outside the U.N. on the second day of Russian bombings in Syria. Russia’s airstrikes in Syria “do not go beyond ISIL (ISIS), al Nusra or other terrorist groups recognized by the United Nations Security Council or Russian law,”
Lavrov defended Russia’s air strikes remarking that the U.S. led coalition was going after the same terror groups as the Russian’s were. Rejecting any comments that their actions were to bolster Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he said that Russia did not consider Assad’s main opposition, the Free Syrian Army to be a terrorist group.
Hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria to join a major ground offensive to accompany Russian airstrikes. According to defense officials it was always “understood” that the Russians would provide the air force and the Iranians would provide the ground force in Syria.“It has always been understood that the Russians would provide the air force, and the Iranians would provide the ground force in Syria,” one official said.
U.S. officials say that the bombings are not in ISIS held territories. Russian were given only a one hour notice before the bombings and that was more to tell our military to stop our own airstrikes. The U.S. declined that request.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday that the Russian attacks, which the Kremlin said were meant to target terrorists, didn’t appear to hit targets under the control of ISIS, which operates in the north and east of the country.
Sen. John McCain — chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee called the Russian strikes “an incredible flouting of any kind of cooperation or effort to conceal what their first — Putin’s priority is. And that is of course to prop up Bashar al-Assad.”
NATO special forces have joined Afghan forces in their attempt to retake the city of Kunduz which fell into Taliban control on Monday.
The heavily assailed airport, which sits on a hilltop a few miles outside Kunduz, is now the only place held by the Afghan army. The nearby Bala Hisar fort fell when soldiers there ran out of ammunition, deputy provincial governor Hamdullah Daneshi said. Thousands of troops have fled to the airport during the intense fighting over the last two days.
U.S. special forces had been advising Afghan troops while operating from a temporary base at the Kunduz airport for several weeks, according to a special forces commander.
Coalition spokesman Col. Brian Tribus gave few details about the foreign troops’ engagement with insurgents while supporting Afghan forces overnight, including the troops’ nationalities. Although the U.S. and NATO have officially handed over the battle against the Taliban to Afghan forces, the terms of their mission allows them to fight when they come under direct threat.
That happened early Wednesday morning when a team of U.S. special forces “encountered an insurgent threat in the vicinity of the Kunduz airport at approximately 1 am, 30 September,” Tribus told Reuters, adding that the soldier had acted in self-defense. “When they encountered the threat, they defended themselves,” he said.
After Russian Parliament gave the all go to using air power to combat in Syria, a Russian General told the U.S. to stay out of Syrian airspace.
“A Russian official in Baghdad this morning informed U.S. Embassy personnel that Russian military aircraft would begin flying anti-ISIL missions today over Syria,” said spokesman John Kirby. “He further requested that U.S. aircraft avoid Syrian airspace during these missions.”
Putin said the action was preemptive, warning that Moscow would be hunting down Islamic State militants before they target Russia.
Russian defense officials say that they were targeting the Islamic State group saying it has hit IS weapons, depots, ammunition, communications infrastructure, and fuel.
The head of the Western-backed Syrian political opposition said the Russian strikes had killed at least 36 civilians and targeted areas where Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked fighters were not present. Official reports of casualties have been mixed.
An unnamed U.S. official told Reuters that so far they did not appear to be targeting ISIS held territory but only hitting areas where Free Syrian Army and other anti-Assad groups are located.
Tropical Storm Joaquin was upgraded to a Category 1 Hurricane early this morning as it bears in on the Bahamas. Forecasted to become a Category 3 Hurricane with wind gusts up to 115 mph by Saturday. Winds are now sustained at 80 mph and will hit the Bahamas by early Sunday. Hurricane watches and warnings have been issued.
More than 10,000 people live on the Bahamian islands and should experience tropical storm-like winds Wednesday and hurricane conditions by noon Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Five to 15 inches of rain could fall. Dangerous storm surges 4 feet above normal tides are also expected.
“Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the hurricane center said about the Bahamas on Wednesday.
Hurricane Joaquin is the 2015 Atlantic season’s third hurricane. Residents along the East Coast of the U.S. should pay close attention to the forecast now through this weekend. It is a particularly difficult forecast that hinges on the behavior of several different atmospheric features over North America and the North Atlantic Ocean.
Over half a million homes are without power in Taiwan while officials survey the damage caused by Typhoon Dujuan. Two deaths were reported as well as hundreds of injuries. Dujuan made landfall in China Tuesday morning with an average sustained wind at 74 mph.
Two to three feet of rain have been reported from Taiwan in a number of mountain locations with wind gusts as high as 154 mph.
The torrential rainfall from what is left of the Typhoon still torment the already battered Taiwan, threatening more flooding and dangerous mudslides.
Typhoon Dujuan is forecasted to rapidly weaken and dissipate as it moves over the terrain of southeastern China.
In an attempt to regain Kunduz from the Taliban in Afghanistan, military officials announced airstrikes that were launched on Tuesday.
U.S. Army Col. Brian Tribus, spokesman for the U.S. and NATO missions in Afghanistan, said the strike was carried out “in order to eliminate a threat to the force.”
Afghanistan troops were amassed outside Kunduz in an effort to take back the city that had fallen to the Taliban on Monday.
President Ashraf Ghani stated in a televised address to the nation, that the military launched a counter-offensive on the city, with security forces “retaking government buildings … and reinforcements, including special forces and commandos are either there or on their way there.”
“The enemy has sustained heavy casualties,” said Ghani, who marked his first anniversary in office on Tuesday. He urged his nation to trust Afghan troops and not give in to “fear and terror.”
Many analysts and officials predict a very difficult time in the fight ahead. Taliban have control of many of the roads to the city which make supply runs and reinforcing troops quite challenging as well as the fact that the Taliban has infiltrated residential areas which make airstrikes and the use of heavy weapons quite costly.