WORRISOME OMEN: ISRAEL ATTACK SYRIA; RING OF FIRE; Philippine volcano erupts violently

 

Iran threatens to retaliate after Israel bombs 'Russian weapons convoy' in Syria. Iranian minister says Israel air strike will have implications for Tel Aviv U.S. officials say strike by Israel destroyed Russian anti-air missiles Syrian authorities say a military research centre was hit, Israel is silent Syria and Iran today threatened to retaliate after Israel launched an air strike near Damascus. Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdul-Karim Ali, says Damascus has 'the option and the surprise to retaliate'. He said he cannot predict when the retaliation will be, saying it is up to relevant authorities to prepare for it. In Iran, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian today as saying the raid on Syria will have significant implications for the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. Strike: U.S. officials say Israeli jets have destroyed a convoy of Russian-made anti-aircraft weapons in Syria. File picture U.S. officials said Israel launched a rare airstrike inside Syria yesterday, targeting a convoy believed to contain anti-aircraft weapons bound for Hezbollah. The Syrian military denied the existence of any such shipment and said a scientific research facility outside Damascus was hit. The attack adds a potentially flammable new element to tensions already heightened by Syria's civil war.It was the latest salvo in Israel's long-running effort to disrupt the Shiite militia's quest to build an arsenal capable of defending against Israel's air force and spreading destruction inside the Jewish state. Regional security officials said the strike, which occurred overnight Tuesday, targeted a site near the Lebanese border, while a Syrian army statement said it destroyed a military research center northwest of the capital, Damascus. They appeared to be referring to the same incident. A Russian SA-17. It is described as a 'game-changer' that could shoot down Israel's air forces U.S. officials said the target was a truck convoy that Israel believed was carrying sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak about the operation. Regional officials said the shipment included sophisticated Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which if acquired by Hezbollah would be 'game-changing', enabling the militants to shoot down Israeli jets, helicopters and surveillance drones. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. In a statement, the Syrian military denied the existence of any such shipment and said a scientific research facility outside Damascus was hit by the Israeli warplanes. Anger: Both Syria and Russia condemned the airstrike. Syrian media called it a 'terrorist attack' The Israeli military declined to comment. However, many in Israel worry that as Syrian President Bashar Assad loses power, he could strike back by transferring chemical or advanced weapons to Hezbollah, which is neighboring Lebanon's most powerful military force and is committed to Israel's destruction. Russia has expressed concern at an alleged Israeli attack on Syria, saying such a strike would be an unacceptable violation of the UN Charter. Russia has steadfastly refused to denounce Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the 22-month conflict that has killed more than 60,000 people. The Russian Foreign Ministry said: 'If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violates the UN Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it.' Fear: A Free Syrian Army fighter drags his comrade who was shot by sniper fire during heavy fighting in the Ain Tarma neighbourhood of Damascus yesterday The fighter on the right died soon after being shot. He joins an estimated 60,000 who have lost their lives during the Syrian civil war The airstrike follows decades of enmity between Israel and allies Syria and Hezbollah, which consider the Jewish state their mortal enemy. The situation has been further complicated by the civil war raging in Syria between the Assad regime and rebel brigades seeking his ouster. The war has sapped Assad's power and threatens to deprive Hezbollah of a key supporter, in addition to its land corridor to Iran. The two countries provide Hezbollah with the bulk of its funding and arms. A Syrian military statement read aloud on state TV Wednesday said low-flying Israeli jets crossed into Syria over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and bombed a military research center in the area of Jamraya, northwest of Damascus. The strike destroyed the center and damaged a nearby building, killing two workers and wounding five others, the statement said. The military denied the existence of any convoy bound for Lebanon, saying the center was responsible for 'raising the level of resistance and self-defense' of Syria's military. Damascus has seen some of the heaviest fighting of the war. Rebels are fighting to oust the Bashad regime Russia has refused to condemn the actions of government forces led by Bashar al-Assad 'This proves that Israel is the instigator, beneficiary and sometimes executor of the terrorist acts targeting Syria and its people,' the statement said. Israel and Hezbollah fought an inconclusive 34-day war in 2006 that left 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead. While the border has been largely quiet since, the struggle has taken other forms. Hezbollah has accused Israel of assassinating a top commander, and Israel blamed Hezbollah and Iran for a July 2012 attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. In October, Hezbollah launched an Iranian-made reconnaissance drone over Israel, using the incident to brag about its expanding capabilities. Israeli officials believe that Hezbollah's arsenal has markedly improved since 2006, now boasting tens of thousands of rockets and missiles and the ability to strike almost anywhere inside Israel. Israel suspects that Damascus obtained a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli airstrike in 2007 that destroyed an unfinished Syrian nuclear reactor. Carnage: Buildings damaged by what activists said were missiles fired by a Syrian Air Force fighter jet loyal to President Bashar al-Assad earlier this month Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of the dangers of Syria's 'deadly weapons,' saying the country is 'increasingly coming apart.' The same day, Israel moved a battery of its new 'Iron Dome' rocket defense system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in the 2006 war. The Israeli army called that move 'routine'. Syria, however, cast the airstrike in a different light, linked to the country's civil war, which it blames on terrorists carrying out an international conspiracy. Despite its icy relations with Assad, Israel has remained on the sidelines of efforts to topple him, while keeping up defenses against possible attacks. Syrians gather around the bodies of civilians, who were executed and dumped in the Quweiq river in Aleppo yesterday. Syria's opposition charged that 'global inaction' was giving Bashar al-Assad's regime a license to kill Israeli defense officials have carefully monitored Syria's chemical weapons, fearing Assad could deploy them or lose control of them to extremist fighters among the rebels. President Barack Obama has called the use of chemical weapons a 'red line' that if crossed could prompt direct U.S. intervention, though U.S. officials have said Syria's stockpiles still appear to be under government control. The strike was Israel's first inside Syria since September 2007, when warplanes destroyed a site that the U.N. nuclear watchdog deemed likely to be a nuclear reactor. Syria denied the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site. A rebel fighter stands in front of a building after they took over the village of Aljanodiya following fighting against pro-Syrian regime forces, yesterday Syria allowed international inspectors to visit the bombed site in 2008, but it has refused to allow nuclear inspectors new access. This has heightened suspicions that Syria has something to hide, along with its decision to level the destroyed structure and build on its site. In 2006, Israeli warplanes flew over Assad's palace in a show of force after Syrian-backed militants captured an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip. And in 2003, Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected militant training camp just north of the Syrian capital, in response to an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in the city of Haifa that killed 21 Israelis. Syria vowed to retaliate for both attacks but never did. In Lebanon, which borders both Israel and Syria, the military and the U.N. agency tasked with monitoring the border with Israel said Israeli warplanes have sharply increased their activity in the past week. Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace are not uncommon, and it was unclear if the recent activity was related to the strike in Syria. Syria's primary conflict with Israel is over the Golan Heights, which Israeli occupied in the 1967 war. Syria demands the area back as part of any peace deal. Despite the hostility, Syria has kept the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war and has never retaliated for Israeli attacks. In May 2011, only two months after the uprising against Assad started, hundreds of Palestinians overran the tightly controlled Syria-Israeli frontier in a move widely thought to have been facilitated by the Assad regime to divert the world's gaze from his growing troubles at home. Coincidence? This is the second major earthquake to strike close to a region, when military tensions were high and U.S. military forces were conducting multinational exercises nearby. On April 5, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck near the border area between Russia, China and North Korea, when tensions were running high between Pyongyang and Washington. The 6.2 quake (downgraded by USGS) which struck Iran, near the Middle East stress choke-point of the Strait of Hormuz, comes at a time when 41 nations are conducting naval exercises in the Strait. Will anyone finally get the message that starting a major war, involving potential weapons of mass destruction, could result in something worst than a war? In Revelation 11:18, God said He would destroy those that destroy the earth. Middle East out of control, world waiting for a flashpoint to World War III Posted on May 8, 2013by The Extinction Protocol  May 8, 2013 – MIDDLE EAST – Trends researcher Gerald Celente predicts war in the Middle East.  He says, “It is out of control. What are people waiting for–an Archduke Ferdinand moment?” Celente thinks Israel bombing Syria means World War 3 is on its way. The cycle leading to war started with the crash of 2008. Celente says, “Crash, depression, currency wars . . .trade wars and then real wars. That’s what we’re seeing again.” Celente charges, “This is a proxy war against Iran because when Syria is choked off, then Iran is left alone surrounded by enemies. So, that’s what we’re really looking at.  The end game is Iran.” What would happen if Iran and Israel went to war? Would the Strait of Hormuz close, gasoline explode to $10 a gallon, markets implode? Celente says, “All of the above.” Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Gerald Celente, Publisher of the Trends Journal. Experts have noted increased seismic activity from Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico in recent days. The active 17,886ft volcano near Mexico City has been spewing ash, lava and plumes of steam. Soldiers and federal police deployed to area amid fears a major eruption could be imminent. Mexico's National Disaster Prevention Center has raised alert level to Yellow Phase 3 Thousands of people living in the shadow of this looming Mexican volcano have been placed on high alert following a dramatic increase in seismic activity from the Popocatepetl crater. The 17,886ft active volcano near Mexico City, known as Popo, rumbled and shook during the night on Saturday, and has been spewing ash, lava and steam in recent days. Officials have closed off an exclusion zone around the cone of the volcano and are poised to evacuate towns in its foothills as experts warned of plumes of steam reaching more than half a mile into the sky above the crater. Threat: Officials are poised to evacuate thousands of people living in the shadow of the Popocatepetl Volcano in Mexico, which has been spewing ash in recent days 'Increased activity': The National Center for Disaster Prevention has elevated its warning level to Yellow Stage 3 - the fifth rung on a seven stage scale - after the Mexican volcano began spewing lava, ash and gases Authorities have alerted town in two central states as well as the capital, after Mexico's National Disaster Prevention Center elevated its alert level to Yellow Phase 3 - the fifth rung on a seven-stage warning scale. Should the alert level rise thousands of people could be evacuated from the most vulnerable villages in the shadow of the peak. Shelters have been set up in case authorities are forced to evacuate residents. A seven-square-mile exclusion zone has been imposed around the cone of the volcano, and soldiers and federal police have been deployed to the area amid fears of further, more violent eruptions from Popo. Popocatepetl is an Aztec word meaning 'Smoking Mountain'. Popo lay dormant for decades until it began putting out small eruptions of ash almost daily in 1994. These eruptions started strengthening two weeks ago and have increased even more this weekend. VIDEO Mexican volcano Popocatepetl spews ash over nearby towns Mexican volcano spews ash over nearby towns Danger: Smoke rises from the volcano, known as Popo, as residents of the towns in the foothills of the volcano brace themselves for further activity In the shadow of Popo: A man walks past an evacuation sign in Puebla, Mexico, left, amid fears a major eruption from the Popocatepetl volcano could be imminent Warnings: Soldiers and federal police have been deployed to the area in case of further, more powerful eruptions from the Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City 'We're ready for any emergency,' Lidia Carrillo, a spokeswoman for the state, told the Los Angeles Times. Moderate outbursts from Popo in recent years have seen officials forced to evacuate residents from their homes. The millions of people who have settled in and around the Mexican capital mean experts regard Popocatepetl as one of the most potentially destructive volcanoes in the world. Steam: Mexico's National Disaster Prevention Center elevated its alert level as towering plumes of steam began emerging from the enormous Mexican volcano Safety measures: State vehicles line the streets in Xalitzintla in Puebla, where authorities are poised to put an evacuation plan into action should activity from Popo increase further

Syrian missile batteries take aim at Israel, following air strikes Posted on May 7, 2013by The Extinction Protocol May 7, 2013 – ISRAEL – Syria has stationed missile batteries aimed at Israel in the aftermath of alleged Israeli air strikes in the country, the website of Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen TV, considered close to the regime of President Bashar Assad, quoted a top Syrian official as saying on Sunday. The report came as Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi said on Sunday that alleged Israeli air strikes against three targets on the outskirts of Damascus “open the door to all possibilities.” The minister’s comments at a press conference came after an emergency cabinet meeting organized to respond to what a Western source said was a new strike on Iranian missiles bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Although Zoabi did not hint at a concrete course of action, he said it was Damascus’s duty to protect the state from any “domestic or foreign attack through all available means.” Sunday’s attack is the third reported Israeli assault this year on Syrian soil. Previous strikes on Syria allegedly carried out by Israel have not elicited a military response from Syria or its allies Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Israel declined to confirm the strike so as not to pressure Assad into serious retaliation, according to a confidant of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Earlier on Sunday, Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al Mekdad told CNN that Israel’s air strikes in the country were interpreted as an Israeli “declaration of war” on the Assad regime. In an interview with CNN, Faisal said that Syria would respond in a manner of its own time and choosing. Syria’s state television said the strikes were a response to recent military gains by Assad’s forces against rebels. “The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army,” it said. Meanwhile, the IDF has deployed two Iron Dome batteries to northern cities due to regional tensions following air strikes in Damascus which Western sources have attributed to the Israel Air Force.  -Jerusalem Post Posted in Black Swan Event, Civilizations unraveling, Drumbeat of War, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism,Ethnic or religious strife, Human behavioral change after disaster, Infrastructure collapse, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War, Prophecies referenced, Rising tension between nations, Rumors of War | 4 Comments 42 Syrian soldiers dead in reported Israeli strike: Syria promises punishing response Posted on May 6, 2013by The Extinction Protocol May 6, 2013 – SYRIA - Concern over the possibility of broader war in the Middle East grew Monday in the wake of reported airstrikes on Syrian military installations. The reported strikes killed 42 Syrian soldiers, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday, citing medical sources. It said 100 people remained missing. The Syrian government warned Sunday’s apparent strikes — which followed one last week attributed by Syria to Israel – “opens the door wide for all the possibilities.” Syrian ally Iran warned of a “crushing response” while Russia called reports of Israeli involvement “very worrying.” But an Israeli general who commands forces on the Syrian border said “there are no winds of war,” according to the Israel Defense Forces website. The heightened tensions come amid questions over possible chemical weapon use in Syria and international debate over how to respond to the country’s bloody civil war, in which more than 70,000 people have died in more than two years of fighting. On Monday, a U.N. official spoke of strong suspicions that rebels, not Syrian government forces, have used chemical weapons. Syria claimed Israeli missiles struck at its military facilities on Sunday. According to the state-run SANA news agency, Israeli missiles struck a research center in Jamayra, a facility in Maysaloun and what the news agency described as a “paragliding airport” near Damascus. The blasts prompted terrified residents nearby to run for cover. “Everything kept exploding over and over again,” said Anna Deeb, whose family lives just over a mile away. “We could hear gunshots, we could hear people screaming. … We didn’t know what to do, and there was a problem with us breathing because the smoke was too much.” Syria says the attack followed another Israeli airstrike late last week. Israel has not confirmed or denied that its forces were involved in any attacks inside Syria, but a U.S. official told CNN’s Barbara Starr on Monday that Israeli forces conducted Sunday’s strike, as well as one last week. Sunday’s strike targeted a research facility in a mountainous area near Damascus and weapons that were to be transferred to Hezbollah, according to the source. The earlier strike, which U.S. officials had previously said happened Thursday or Friday, targeted Fateh 110 missiles stored at the Damascus airport, the source said. -CNN Posted in Earth Watch, Earth Changes, Dark Ages, Civilizations unraveling, Prophecies referenced, New World Order -Dystopia- War, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, New weapons of war, Time - Event Acceleration,Drumbeat of War, Rising tension between nations, Ethnic or religious strife, Rumors of War | 7 Comments Syria: Attack on military facility was a ‘declaration of war’ by Israel Posted on May 6, 2013by The Extinction Protocol May 6, 2013 – SYRIA – A series of massive explosions illuminated the dark sky over Damascus early Sunday, igniting renewed claims that Israel has launched attacks into the war-torn country. Syria’s government said the explosions were the second Israeli airstrike in three days. The latest target, officials said, was a military research facility outside the Syrian capital. A top Syrian official told CNN in an exclusive interview that the attack was a “declaration of war” by Israel. Syrian authorities vowed to retaliate against Israel but did not specify what action they would take. The Israeli military would not confirm or deny the Syrian claim that Israel fired rockets that hit the Jamraya research center in the Damascus suburbs. “We do not comment on these reports at all,” an Israeli military representative said. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed “grave concern” over the reports of Israeli airstrikes in Syria Sunday but stressed that the U.N. is not “in a position to independently verify what has occurred,” his spokesman said. Sunday’s explosions mark the third time Israel has been accused of striking inside Syria this year. The blasts rocked a large military area in the suburbs of Syria’s capital, prompting terrified residents nearby to run for cover. “Everything kept exploding over and over again,” said Anna Deeb, whose family lives just over a mile away. “We could hear gunshots, we could hear people screaming. … We didn’t know what to do, and there was a problem with us breathing because the smoke was too much.” Syrian state-run TV claimed that the Israeli rocket attack on the research center aided rebels, who have been battling government forces in the region. And the government’s Syrian Arab News Agency said mortar shells “fired by terrorists” damaged residential neighborhoods nearby. But state media reports did not provide details about what type of research occurs in the facility, or how much damage occurred there after Sunday’s attack. Even with details about the explosion unclear, tensions ran high in the volatile region Sunday amid word of the reported attack, which was condemned by some officials across the Middle East. In an exclusive interview with CNN, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al Mekdad said the attack represented an alliance between Islamic terrorists and Israel. “When they attack, this is a declaration of war. This is not something that is (new),” al Mekdad said. “We dealt with this on several occasions, and we retaliated the way we wanted, and the retaliation was always painful to Israel, and they will suffer again.” After an emergency meeting of Syria’s Cabinet on Sunday, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said on state television that the attack””opens the door wide open for all possibilities” but did not specify what those possibilities would be. Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby condemned what he called Israeli strikes on Syrian territories and called for the United Nations Security Council to “move immediately in order to stop and prevent Israeli attacks on Syria.” Foreign ministers in Egypt and Iran also condemned the reported Israeli attack. Ban’s spokesman said the U.N. secretary-general “calls on all sides to exercise maximum calm and restraint, and to act with a sense of responsibility to prevent an escalation of what is already a devastating and highly dangerous conflict.” Amid the heightened tensions, Israel appeared to be stepping up defense efforts. An Israeli Army official told CNN that two rocket interception batteries have been deployed to northern Israel. And the Israeli Airport Authority said Sunday that it had closed northern airspace over the country to civil aviation flights Lava shoots hundreds of feet into the air above erupting volcano in Alaska... as budget cuts force observation stations in the region to close A remote Alaskan volcano continues to erupt, spewing lava and ash clouds - highlighting concerns over the closure of geological observation centers in the area. The Alaska Volcano Observatory said a continuous cloud of ash, steam and gas from Pavlof Volcano has been seen 20,000 feet above sea level. John Power, the U.S. Geological Survey scientist in charge at the observatory, estimates the lava fountain rose several hundred feet into the air. Spewing lava: Fiery red molten rock can be seen erupting from Pavlof volcano, observed here from Cold Bay Seismic instruments are picking up constant tremors from the eruption at Pavlof, located about 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage. Residents of Cold Bay, 37 miles (60 kilometers) away, have reported seeing a glow from the summit. Pavlof is among the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc, with nearly 40 known eruptions, according to the observatory. It comes as scientists monitoring Alaska's volcanoes are forced to shut down stations that provide real-time tracking of eruptions and forgo repairs of seismic equipment amid ongoing federal budget cuts - moves that could mean delays in getting vital information to airline pilots and emergency planners. The Alaska Volcano Observatory can no longer seismically monitor five volcanoes with real-time equipment to detect imminent eruptions. Such equipment is especially important in helping pilots receive up-to-the-minute warnings about spewing ash that can cause engine failures and other problems. Under threat: Some Alaskan volcano observation units have had to be closed due to federal budget cuts. They often warn aircraft in the area of any possible dangerous ash clouds Alaska has 52 active volcanoes, with many of them located on the Aleutians Islands along international air routes between Europe, North America and Asia. A 3,00KM MOUNTAIN RANGE THAT IS CAPABLE OF ERUPTING AT ANY TIME Pavlof Volcano is one of several dozen volcanoes that make up the Aleutian Arc. The arc stretches across the Alaskan Peninsula in the south-west of Alaska to north-eastern Siberia, 3,000km away. It follows the line where the pacific tectonic plate meets the North American plate. Alaska Airlines officials said the observatory, funded by the U.S. Geological Survey, provides a crucial service, including early warnings of seismic changes that may portend an impending eruption. Monitors need to be operating all the time, not just during major eruptions, said Betty Bollert, an Alaska Airlines dispatcher. 'I think the public gets kind of complacent when nothing exciting is happening and think, "Oh, why should we throw money at that?"' said Bollert, who was on duty in 1989 when the Redoubt Volcano blew 115 miles from Anchorage. Following that eruption, several aircraft experienced damage from ash - including a Boeing 747-400 carrying 231 passengers that lost all four engines after flying into an ash cloud. The plane dropped more than two miles in five minutes before the crew was able to restart the engines and land safely in Anchorage. Worldwide, hundreds of flights are diverted each year because of volcanic activity. In 2010, an eruption in Iceland spread debris over Northern Europe, threatening most flight routes from the East Coast to Europe, and within Europe itself. Early warning: The steam and the fresh lava flow could be seen on the north side of the volcano on Monday Volcano: Pavlof is the second Alaska volcano to erupt this month. The Alaska volcano monitoring system, first created in 1988, is intended to help pilots avoid such problems. But it has regressed over the past few years because of shrinking finances, and now the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration are further squeezing operations. For example, gone is a plan to install seismic monitors at Cleveland Volcano, a remote mountain on an uninhabited island in the Aleutians. The volcano experienced a low-level eruption earlier this month that continues to discharge steam, gas and heat, although no ash clouds have been detected in the past week. 'Because our budget has been declining for so long, we have no hope of actually addressing the Cleveland eruption in the way that it really should be,' said geophysicist John Power, the USGS scientist in charge at the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Pavlof Volcano, 625 miles from Anchorage, does have seismic instruments, which picked up tremors signaling a possible eruption. Satellite imagery also showed a lot of heat in the mountain. Cloud: The volcano continued to pump out gas and steam on Tuesday - with the eruption still continuing Friday In Alaska, 32 volcanoes once had 200 working seismic instruments. Now 80 of those instruments have fallen into disrepair and can't be fixed due to the USGS budget cuts. That means five of those volcanoes aren't monitored electronically at all, and the number could rise if more instruments go without maintenance. Cuts also have reduced the number of days helicopter crews can fly to repair equipment in remote locations, from 140 days in 2008 to 36. The observatory still uses satellite data, infrasound and reports from pilots and others to detect eruptions. But none of those offer real-time information. Sound waves were picked up the Cleveland eruption, but it took 40 minutes for the data to reach scientists in Anchorage, 940 miles northeast of the volcano. These days, the observatory is operating on $4million annually, roughly half of its heyday budget. Four other observatories in the U.S. - in Wyoming, California, Washington and Hawaii - also have faced cuts, leading to a reduction in lab research, studies of eruption histories and lava survey flights. In Hawaii, lava flyovers of the Big Island's Kilauea volcano were reduced from once a week to once every two weeks. It's still early in the federal downsizing process, and resources already are spread thin, said Tom Murray, chief of the five USGS observatories. And while these types of cuts may not be immediately felt by the public - unlike the furloughs of air traffic controllers that caused flight delays nationwide - they are just as damaging, he said. 'The challenges with what we do is that it doesn't happen all the time,' he said. 'But when it does happen, then the ramifications can be very large.'

Is a massive Cascadia earthquake on the horizon? Posted on May 17, 2013by The Extinction Protocol May 17, 2013 – OREGON – The Cascadia Subduction Zone runs along the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States to Vancouver Island in Canada. This major fault line is capable of producing megathrust earthquakes 9.0 or higher, though, due to a dearth of observations or historical records, this trait was only discovered within the last several decades from geology records. The 1700 Cascadia event was better documented in Japan than in the Americas. Records of the “orphan tsunami”—so named because its “parent” earthquake was too far away to be felt—gave earth scientists hints that this subduction zone was capable of such massive seismic activity. Geological studies provided information about the earthquake, but many critical details remained lost to history. “Previous research had determined the timing and the magnitude, but what we didn’t know was how the rupture happened,” says Benjamin Horton, associate professor and director of the Sea Level Research Laboratory in the department of earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania. “Did it rupture in one big long segment, more than a thousand kilometers, or did it rupture in parcels?” To provide a clearer picture of how the earthquake occurred, Horton and his colleagues applied a technique they have used in assessing historic sea-level rise. The team traveled to various sites along the Cascadia subduction zone, taking core samples from up and down the coast and working with local researchers who donated pre-existing data sets. The researchers’ targets were microscopic fossils known as foraminifera. Through radiocarbon dating and an analysis of different species’ positions with the cores over time, the researchers were able to piece together a historical picture of the changes in land and sea level along the coastline. The research revealed how much the coast suddenly subsided during the earthquake, which infers how much the tectonic plates moved during the earthquake. “What we were able to show for the first time is that the rupture of Cascadia was heterogeneous, making it similar to what happened with the recent major earthquakes in Japan, Chile, and Sumatra,” Horton says. This level of regional detail for land level changes is critical for modeling and disaster planning. “It’s only when you have that data that you can start to build accurate models of earthquake ruptures and tsunami inundation,” Horton says. “There were areas of the west coast of the United States that were more susceptible to larger coastal subsidence than others.” The Cascadia subduction zone is of particular interest to geologists and coastal managers because geological evidence points to recurring seismic activity along the fault line, with intervals between 300 and 500 years. With the last major event occurring in 1700, another earthquake could be on the horizon. A better understanding of how such an event might unfold has the potential to save lives. “The next Cascadia earthquake has the potential to be the biggest natural disaster that the Unites States will have to come to terms with—far bigger than Sandy or even Katrina,” Horton says. “It would happen with very little warning; some areas of Oregon will have less than 20 minutes to evacuate before a large tsunami will inundate the coastline like in Sumatra in 2004 and Japan in 2011.” The National Science Foundation, the United States Geological Survey, and the University of Victoria funded the research. 54: Philippine volcano erupts violently, spews rocks: kills five climbers Posted on May 7, 2013 May 7, 2013 – PHILIPPINES - One of the Philippines’ most active volcanoes spewed huge rocks and ash after daybreak Tuesday, killing at least five climbers and trapping more than a dozen others near the crater in its first eruption in three years, officials said. Rescue teams and helicopters were sent to Mayon volcano in the central Philippines to bring out the dead. At least seven were injured from a group of about 20 mountaineers who were caught by surprise by the sudden eruption, Albay provincial Gov. Joey Salceda said. Clouds have cleared over the volcano, which was quiet later in the morning. The climbers who died were struck by huge rocks, guide Kenneth Jesalva told ABS-CBN TV network by cell phone from a camp near the crater. They included a German, an Austrian and a Filipino. The injured included foreigners and Filipino guides. Some were in critical condition, said the chief of the national disaster agency, Eduardo del Rosario. Jesalva said he was in the group that spent the night on the picturesque mountain, known for its almost-perfect cone, when the volcano rumbled back to life early in the morning and rocks “as big as a living room” came raining down on them. He rushed back to the base camp to call for help. The head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Renato Solidum, said Tuesday’s eruption was normal for the restive Mayon, about 340 kilometers (212 miles) southeast of Manila. It has erupted about 40 times during the last 400 years. In 2010, thousands of residents moved to temporary shelters when the volcano ejected ash in an 8-kilometer (5-mile) zone surrounding the crater. Solidum said that no alert was raised for the volcano following the latest eruption and no evacuation was being planned. Climbers are not allowed when an alert is up, and the recent calm may have encouraged this week’s trek. –Yahoo News Indonesia’s Lokon erupts: Another explosion occurred yesterday evening. It was heard in up to 6 km distance and incandescent bombs were ejected to 200 m distance from the Tompaluan crater. The eruption was preceded by an increase in seismic activity starting Saturday night, the local volcano observatory reported. An exclusion zone of 2.5 km radius from the volcano remains in place. –Volcano Discovery Another Indonesian volcano awakening: Increased seismic activity was detected at the Papandayan volcano and VSI raised the alert level to 3 out of 4 (“Siaga, warning”) yesterday. Sudden phreatic explosions could occur with little warning at the volcano and present a significant hazard to visitors to the crater, which is a popular tourist site due to its varied, intense hydrothermal activity and colorful active fumaroles. The volcano last erupted in 2002.  –Volcano Discovery5.8 magnitude earthquake strikes Fiji: A 5.8 magnitude earthquake violently struck the Fiji Islands within the last hour. The U.S. Geological Survey reports that 5.8 shake was 239km NNE of Ceva-i-Ra, Fiji and hit at approximately 10:10:55 UTC. According to the U.S.-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, a destructive tsunami was not generated, based on earthquake and historical tsunami data. This is the first quake to hit the Fiji Islands since a 5.5 tremor was recorded on April 19, 2013. Though it was a strong earthquake reports suggest it was a safe distance from Suva, Fiji. A statement from the Mineral Resources Department’s Seismology Section explained that it was a medium-sized magnitude earthquake. The department said there was no felt report from the nearby places since the event source was very deep. In the past year, the Fiji Islands region has been hit with 112 earthquakes. Alaska’s Pavlof Volcano rumbles- unleashes 20,000 ft cloud of ash Posted on May 16, 2013by The Extinction Protocol Alaska’s Pavlof Volcano, during its famed 2007 eruption. Activity at the volcano appears to be increasing once again. May 16, 2013 – ALASKA – Eruptions from Pavlof Volcano continued on Wednesday after rumbling to life earlier in the week. The 8,261-foot peak on the Alaska Peninsula awoke Monday morning, kicking off a “low-level eruption of lava,” according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO). Sitting about 30 miles northeast of the community of King Cove, Pavlof is a frequently-active volcano that last erupted in 2007. The volcano’s rumbling has strengthened this week. At about noon Tuesday, satellite images showed a lava flow had coursed a third of a mile down the northern side of the volcano. By late Tuesday, an ash plume extended 15,000 feet above sea level, moving downwind to the northeast for up to 100 miles before dispersing. The National Weather Service issued a “Significant Meterological Event” warning, called a SIGMET, to alert pilots of hazardous conditions in the area. Pavlof continued to rumble Wednesday, with one pilot reporting a dark ash cloud reaching 20,000 feet. Residents of Cold Bay, located 37 miles southwest of the volcano, observed incandescent glow at the summit during the night. Pilot reports and photographs from yesterday afternoon indicate that the lava flow extending down the northwest flank is still active and has generated debris-laden flow deposits, presumably from interaction of hot lava with the snow and ice on the flank. Reports of possible eruptions from Pavlov date back to 1762, when historical accounts suggested an eruption in the area, though that activity may also have come from Pavlof Sister, another eruptive peak very close by. The most recent eruption at Pavlof, in 2007, featured spitting lava and small ash clouds during a month-long stretch of heightened activity. Unlike Mount Cleveland — a remote volcano located on a small Aleutian island and the only other volcano exhibiting activity in the Last Frontier at the moment — there is an extensive monitoring system set up at Pavlof due to its location and how often it’s active, including a webcam set up at Cold Bay. Meanwhile, Cleveland remains on orange alert following an ash explosion May 6. No further explosions have been recorded since then, but satellites still show elevated surface temperatures. –Alaska Dispatch Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Earthquake Omens?, Environmental Threat, High-risk potential hazard zone, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Time - Event Acceleration, Volcanic Ash,Volcanic Eruption, Volcano Watch | Leave a comment Planet reeling from a swarm of earthquakes over last 72 hours Posted on May 15, 2013by The Extinction Protocol May 15, 2013 – GEOLOGY – A flurry of earthquakes continues across the planet over the past 72 hours, showing few signs of abatement. Seismic tension continues to build across the Pacific Plate, the Cocos plate (Central America), and the Nazca plate, near South America. Tectonic plate agitation appears to be increasing, along with volcanic pressures under many of the world’s major volcanoes.  -TEP 55th volcano erupts in Alaska: Scientists say small lava flows have been detected on two restless volcanoes in Alaska. The Alaska Volcano Observatory says satellite images Tuesday show the lava partly down a flank of Pavlof Volcano in a low-level eruption 625 miles southwest of Anchorage. Geophysicist Dave Schneider says minor steam and ash emissions are visible from the community of Cold Bay 37 miles away. Pavlof is the second Alaska volcano to erupt this month. Cleveland Volcano, on an uninhabited island in the Aleutian Islands, experienced a low-level eruption in early May. The observatory says analysis of satellite imagery shows a lava flow partly down a flank of the volcano. Ash plumes can be an aviation hazard, but no ash clouds have been detected from Cleveland Volcano in the past week. Massive underwater volcano discovered off the coast of southeast Alasksa Posted on May 15, 2013by The Extinction Protocol May 15, 2013 – ALASKA - U.S. Forest Service Geologist Jim Baichtal, who is based on Prince of Wales Island, and Anchorage geologist Sue Karl were looking at some hydrographic surveys, something geologists tend to do. When we were done, I noticed the area from Thorne Arm to Rudyerd had been surveyed,” Baichtal said. “I zoomed in and there was this large… some kind of volcano, and two other dome-like structures.” Karl added that, “This new NOAA survey allowed us to see things that people had never seen before.” Karl said a modern example of a similar eruption is Surtsey, a volcanic island in Iceland, which erupted from the sea floor in the 1960s, building itself up and eventually breaching the surface to form the island. Karl points out that when the newly discovered volcano erupted, sea levels also were lower than they are now, but even with that, “We still have too much depth. We have to call on glacial loading and rebound.” “When you get a thousand feet of ice sitting on the ground, it is very heavy,” she explains. “It actually depresses the earth’s crust. After the glacier melts back, the earth will rebound.” Like a trampoline, or waterbed, but at a much slower pace. “So at one time, in Misty Fiords, there was close to 4,000 foot of ice on that site, so the weight of that ice at least pushed down (created) as high as 400 feet of displacement,” Baichtal added. So, in summary, the volcano erupted within the last 13,000 years, after the ice retreated, as the land was slowly bouncing back, and when sea levels were lower. They figured out most of this stuff just from examining the surveys. Volcanoes show up along faults in the earth’s crust, so when the fault moves enough to expose magma, that can lead to a volcanic eruption. Since faults don’t go away, volcanic eruptions in Southeast Alaska are possible in the future. “With the evidence that we have and the geologic age of the things that are there, there is no reason why it couldn’t,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.” But, Karl said people shouldn’t get anxious about it. “We have much better technology for detecting the initiation of one of these sorts of things now,” she said. “I don’t think people need to get too worried.” The newly discovered volcano is very close to New Eddystone Rock, which is what’s left over from another volcano, which may have erupted around the same time frame. They are both near the entrance to Misty Fiords National Monument.

GOP dredges up Benghazi incident to impeach Obama

 

Today, the average person – especially among leftists – would tend to attribute the Watergate scandal to the limitless evil of the Nixon administration. But in retrospect, it was a destabilization which succeeded. It succeeded mainly because Nixon insisted on launching a cover-up of the Plumbers, foolishly acting as if the latter had been loyal White House officials operating under his orders, and not infiltrators and provocateurs boring from within. Obama would do well to contemplate the fate of Nixon, and reserve a half-hour of air time with the main television networks for some time in the next month. He could use this time to regretfully detail the extent of an attempted military coup coordinated with the November 2012 elections, and seeking to install Romney in the White House in defiance of the popular will. He could point out that the Benghazi incident was simply a key moment in the unfolding of this coup. They could then detail the large number of government officials, generals, admirals, members of Congress, pollsters, defense industry executives, and others who have been ousted or otherwise neutralized over the past several months, generally on grounds of sexual or financial malfeasance. Once the influence of this cabal is permanently liquidated, it will prove much easier for Obama to put a definitive end to the Afghanistan war, and to avoid a catastrophic US involvement in Syria. Otherwise common the current administration will face a series of catastrophic defeats culminating in impeachment.

GOP dredges up Benghazi incident to impeach Obama The picture shows the damage inside the burnt US Consulate building in Benghazi on September 13, 2012, following an attack on the building on September 11, 2012.

Officials tell how ambassador Chris Stevens was trapped in safe-room as assailants burnt the compound down As security teams tried to escape, car was trapped as attackers shot at them with AK-47s from just two feet away   Killed: Ambassador Chris Stevens died following smoke inhalation. This time last month, it was business as usual at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. A day later, ambassador Christ Stevens and several agents were dead, in an attack which was as brutal as it was deadly. Officials have now described the overnight attack, which saw agents trapped in the burning compound, before finally speeding away as attackers threw grenades and sprayed their armoured vehicle with gunfire from AK-47 assault rifles from a distance of two feet. Meanwhile, the ambassador was locked in a safe-room as the compound burnt down. When the decision was made to escape the diesel-heavy smoke, it was too late, and Stevens never made it out. September 11, 2012, started out as a regular day in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. The site is the size of a football field surrounded by a nine-foot wall topped by barbed wire and other security upgrades. Ambassador Stevens arrived in the city the day before, accompanied by a five-person security detail. As it was the anniversary of 9/11, the American envoy decided to hold meetings inside the secured compound, fearing possible acts of violence. Then, at around 8:30pm that evening, Stevens concluded his final meeting of the day and retired for the night. Attack: Four U.S. citizens died in the raid on the consulate in Benghazi, including Mr Stevens Inferno: Armed attackers dumped jerry cans of diesel fuel in the building and set ablaze part of the exterior of the consulate's exterior Sean Smith Then, at 9.40pm, security agents started hearing loud noises, gunfire and explosions near the front gate. A barracks at the entrance housing the local militiamen was burnt down, and a large group of armed men was captured on a security camera flowing into the consulate. The alarm was sounded and one agent, armed with a sidearm and an M4 submachine gun, led Stevens and computer specialist Sean Smith to a safe room inside one of the compound's two main residences. The room is equipped with a heavy metal grill and several locks, as well as windows that can be opened only from the inside. The other security officials armed themselves with long guns, body armor, helmets and ammunition at other buildings. Two of them made an attempt to enter the building with Stevens, but were forced to retreat after meeting resistance. Attackers eventually managed to enter the building where the ambassador was hiding and attempted to open the door to the safe room, but to no avail. Instead, they dumped jerry cans of diesel fuel in the building, lit furniture on fire and set the exterior of the building on fire. Flames, grenades and gunfire: A burnt car in front of the U.S. consulate Aftermath: The U.S. consulate in Benghazi the day after last month's deadly assault Rage: A protester holding his rifle during the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on September 11th Heroic: Former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods, right, and Glen Doherty, left, were killed in a mortar attack Two of the remaining four agents barricaded the insides of the compound's other residence, preventing the armed men from entering. The protesters then attempted to gain access to the tactical operations center, but were unable to enter the building despite smashing the door. Meanwhile, the building that was housing the ambassador rapidly began filling up with thick diesel smoke and fumes from the burning furniture. Inside, visibility was less than three feet. Unable to breathe, the Americans opened a window in the bathroom, but it proved insufficient to fill the room with fresh air.  At that point, a decision was made to leave the building. The agent went out first, as is standard procedure, flopping out onto a patio enclosed by sandbags and immediately taking fire, believed to include rocket-propelled grenades. Stevens and Smith did not come out, so the third agent, suffering severely from smoke inhalation, went in and out of the building several times to look for them. He then climbed to the roof  and collapsed, but not before radioing the other agents to alert them. Haven: Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith were hiding in a safe room which later filled with diesel smoke Under siege: The compound came under heavy mortar and gun fire during the attack which lasted several hours The other four agents were able to reunite and take an armored vehicle to Stevens' building. They reached the agent on the roof and tried to set up a perimeter. Taking turns enter the building, the agents scoured the premises on their hands and knees for the missing Americans. Smith was eventually pulled out dead. Stevens was not found. A six-person quick reaction security team arrived from their compound across town accompanied by about 60 Libyan militiamen accompany. They also attempted to secure a perimeter around the building, but determined that they could not hold it. Outnumbered by ‘an unbelievable amount of bad guys’ in the compound, the militia fighters told the security team they had to evacuate, according to a State Department official. ‘We've got to leave, we can't hold the perimeter,’ the official said the militia told the team. After taking fire, a decision was made to evacuate the compound and return with everyone to the reaction force's compound. Agents piled into an armored vehicle, with Smith's body in tow, and left through the main gate under fire. Crowds and groups of men blocked two different routes to the security compound, creating heavy traffic that slowed down the escaping Americans to about 15mph. Traveling a narrow street, they reached a group of men who signaled for them to enter a compound. However, the security officials ‘smelled a rat’ and sped away, taking heavy fire from AK-47 machine guns at a distance of only two feet, and hand grenades thrown against and under the car which blew two of the tires. Official version: The State Department says the attack on the Benghazi compound was not preceded by protests Locked and loaded: Men who attacked the U.S. consulate came armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars They sped past another crowd of men and onto a main street and across a grassy median into opposing traffic. The agents drove against traffic, eventually reaching their compound, where they took more heavy fire for several hours. In the night, a team of reinforcements from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli arrived on a chartered aircraft at the Benghazi airport and reached the security compound. At around 4am, the compound's building was hit by mortar fire which killed agents Doherty and Woods. One agent who was involved in the attack from the beginning was severely wounded. The men then decided to evacuate the city entirely. The following several hours were spent securing the annex and moving a large convoy of vehicles to the airport before they were evacuated on two flights. Stevens was not seen by the security team again until his body was delivered to the airport, officials said, and they still do know how he reached the Libyan hospital where attempts were made to treat him for smoke inhalation. Officials said that they were informed that Stevens was at the hospital only after doctors found his cell phone and began calling the most recently dialled numbers.

By Dr. Webster G. Tarpley and Press TV The so-called US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya was in fact a CIA station with more than 50 personnel on hand to maintain liaison with the Al Qaeda death squads deployed by NATO intelligence in 2010 and 2011 for the purpose of overthrowing the Libyan government of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.   Zealously seeking issues to use against the Obama White House, the reactionary Republicans of the US House of Representatives last week once again dredged up the Benghazi incident of September 11, 2012 in the form of a full-blown media circus centering on hearings by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Congressman Darrell Issa. Long deprived of foreign policy issues to exploit for political gain, and fearing the political backlash from their usual expedient of trying to start a new war, the Republican reactionaries are doing everything possible to create popular hysteria reminiscent of the final phases of the Watergate scandal four decades ago.GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, desperately seeking to stave off a political challenge by Tea Party fanatics, says that a new Watergate is in the air. The troglodyte Senator Imhofe of Oklahoma is busily invoking the specter of Obama’s impeachment, a project in which he is joined by failed Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. House Speaker John Boehner wants to open a fishing expedition among the e-mails of the White House. The pseudo-libertarian Rand Paul has already announced that the Benghazi incident shows that Hillary Clinton, still the most likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, should never hold high public office again. Few indeed are the Republican congressmen who have not found a way to pop off about Benghazi.These farnetications by themselves would be of limited interest, were it not for a recent change in the attitude of the controlled corporate media, reflecting in turn a shift in the attitude of the US ruling class towards the Obama regime. Up until now, harping on the Benghazi incident has tended to be limited to Fox News, controlled by the British Empire’s right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch, and a gaggle of extremist radio talk show hosts. But now, other propaganda channels have joined in: Cheryl Atkisson of CBS news is now working on the story full-time, and Jonathan Karl at ABC news is attempting to catch up. National Public Radio, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press have developed new interest in a story they have long dismissed. For virtually the first time, Jay Carney’s daily White House press briefing is turning into a hostile confrontation, rather than a liturgy of adoration for Obama.As predicted here several months ago, Obama is falling prey to the familiar destructive pattern of the second term: once an administration has been in power for four years, a backlog of abuse, scandals, corruption, and malfeasance builds up. The ruling financier oligarchy, always interested in weakening the office of the presidency, and anxious to keep the president on a short leash at a time when he otherwise might feel free to attempt new initiatives, has instructed its journalistic minions to increase the hostility to Obama. Obama himself has also helped to bring this moment about – by refusing to come forward with a job creation and economic recovery program for his second term, despite continued mass unemployment, by proposing to shift the cost of the Depression to the middle class and working families through his savage proposal to gouge the Social Security benefit by instituting the so-called Chained CPI, and also by an additional $400 billion in Medicare cuts. These are the third rail of American politics, and Obama has embraced them with reckless abandon. For the average person, an understanding of Benghazi is made almost impossible by the accumulated lies and fictions of a dozen years of the fraudulent Global War on Terror. Dispense with the myths, and the underlying reality is brutally simple. An October surprise that came early The Benghazi incident of September 11, 2012 was an October surprise which arrived a few weeks early. Its goal was to help defeat Obama, and to install the Romney in the White House. (Interestingly, the name of Romney was never mentioned during the entire five-hour length of the Issa committee hearings.) There are tell-tale signs that the Benghazi incident was deliberately orchestrated by a cabal of generals and admirals favorable to Romney. Many of these flag officers have been removed from their posts over the past several months, but their ouster has generally been attributed to financial or sexual misdeeds. Even though Obama was primarily the target of the Benghazi incident, partisan Republicans are attempting anyway to blame him for, betting and Obama is too cowardly to go public with charges of what amounts to an attempted military coup in 2012. This is folly, since Obama’s inaction leaves much of the rogue military network intact and capable of striking again. The so-called US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya was in fact a CIA station with more than 50 personnel on hand to maintain liaison with the Al Qaeda death squads deployed by NATO intelligence in 2010 and 2011 for the purpose of overthrowing the Libyan government of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. Hillary Clinton was interested in building up the US presence in Benghazi in order to handle the growing workload generated by the airlift and sealift involved in this operation. By September, 2012 NATO was in the process of transferring large numbers of these terrorist fighters, along with weaponry plundered from the arms depots of Colonel Qaddafi, into Syria — with the goal of stoking a civil war against Assad government. This transfer was being accomplished by way of southern Turkey, which explains why Ambassador Stevens’ last official meeting was with a Turkish diplomat. The Obama administration showed reckless disregard for probable political retribution when it embarked on a policy of systematically using Al Qaeda terrorists in the form of secret armies to destabilize and overthrow several regimes in the Arab world. Awareness of this colossal vulnerability may also explain why the Obama White House has been so reticent to provide basic information about the Benghazi incident. Benghazi mission was moving terrorists from Libya to Syria Security was lax at the Benghazi facility because Ambassador Stevens and his State Department and CIA colleagues had been working closely with the Libyan jihadis for many months on redeploying these fanatical fighters to the Syrian front. As I reported in 2011, the Benghazi-Derna-Tobruk corridor had been identified by the United States Army some years earlier as the world’s most productive breeding ground for suicide bombers destined for the conflict in Iraq. The US intelligence community had decided to mobilize those fighters for the overthrow first of Qaddafi, and then of Assad. By all accounts, Ambassador Stevens was assassinated by the organization known as Ansar al Islam, controlled by the infamous Sufian bin Qumu. Qumu, previously a member of the Al Qaeda affiliate calling itself Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, had been held up by the United States in the Guant?namo Bay concentration camp for several years until his release in 2007. Qumu had returned to Libya and set up al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a key part of the effort to overthrow Qaddafi. Qumu’s career points up the widely misunderstood role of Guant?namo, which is not just a prison, but is also a training center for terrorists destined to be recycled back into the field in the service of the CIA. Another example of the same pattern is the late Said Ali ah-Shihri, who was held in Guant?namo for six years and then sent to Yemen to help found Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQIP). Shihri had then been zealously carrying out his assignment of destabilizing Yemen. As a rule, the only way to get out of Guant?namo alive is to become a double agent in the service of the CIA. When reactionary Republicans are confronted with this phenomenon, they whine that the terrorists have duped the CIA to obtain their freedom. In reality, the CIA is deliberately sending the Guant?namo alumni into the field for terror operations against targets the US wants to hit. Thus, the headline for the murder of Ambassador Stevens might well read: ”Top CIA Asset Kills US Ambassador.” The main question thus becomes why Qumu surprised the entire US mission by killing a man who might well have been his case officer and controller until the day before. Forces at the CIA Annex were told to stand down Another important issue is the lack of sufficient security for the Benghazi post. The CIA annex-near the consulate where Ambassador Stevens was meeting his Turkish contact was staffed by between six and twelve highly trained special forces paramilitary veterans. By most accounts, these CIA commandos received a peremptory order not to intervene to save Stevens and his State Department colleagues when they were under attack. One or two of the CIA paramilitaries are said to have disobeyed this order and attempted to help Stevens. Obviously enough, orders going to these CIA commandos are the responsibility of General David Petraeus, at that time the Director of Central Intelligence, or in other words the boss of the CIA. The imbecility of the Issa hearings is suggested by the fact that this evident chain of command was totally ignored last week. Neither party, it seems, is interested in tracing the paralysis of the CIA commandos at the annex back to their commanding officer. Another layer of security for the Benghazi consulate was supposedly being provided by the February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade. Instead, when Ambassador Stevens came under attack, the February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade fled the scene. There is every reason to regard this organization as a CIA asset. In the middle of 2011, there had been a rivalry for control of the Libyan armed forces. One of the contenders for overall military command was General Younis, who had defected from the Qaddafi military establishment a short time earlier. His rival was the reputed CIA asset General Hifter, who had been living in Northern Virginia, not far from the CIA headquarters at Langley, until he was flown back into Libya in the spring of 2011. Many indications suggested that Hifter was much preferred by Washington. This rivalry was resolved when General Younis was assassinated by a members of the February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade. Our headline has now become “US ambassador murdered by CIA assets as CIA paramilitaries are ordered to stand down and local CIA assets flee.” Ask General David Petraeus and General Carter Ham At any point in the Benghazi story where malfeasance or nonfeasance by CIA personnel or local assets occurs, the scrutiny of investigators must be directed towards General David Petraeus, who was allegedly attending a screening of the pro-war movie Argo at the time of the Benghazi attacks. This obvious connection was totally ignored in the Issa hearings, including by the Democratic Party minority. Another possible source of assistance for Ambassador Stevens and his beleaguered associates would have been a small but capable team of US special forces stationed in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, some 400 miles to the west of Benghazi. According to testimony at the Issa hearings, this Tripoli team was under the command of a certain Lt. Col. Gibson. According to the sworn testimony, Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were about to board a Libyan Hercules C-130 transport aircraft for the flight to Benghazi when he received an order to stand down, do nothing, and remain in Tripoli. The hearings featured a melodramatic invocation of how bitterly disappointed Lt. Col. Gibson was when he received this order. One of the partisan pro-Republican witnesses at the Issa hearing was State Department official Gregory Hicks, who had served as deputy chief of mission under Ambassador Stevens. Hicks tried to argue that the order moving Lt. Col. Gibson and his team from Tripoli to Benghazi needed to come from the Deputies’ Committee contained in the National Security Council structure at the White House. But, since Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were already in the country, it is clear that they had full autonomy to proceed to Benghazi. By all indications, Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were under the command of US General Carter Ham, the boss of the United States African Command (US AFRICOM), located in Stuttgart, Germany. General Ham, who had directed US military operations against Libya in 2011, was removed from this command in the aftermath of Benghazi on October 18, 2012, when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced Obama’s intention of replacing him with General David Rodriguez. General Ham, like General Petraeus, would therefore have to be thoroughly interrogated on his role in the Benghazi incident, and also in the context of the Seven Days in May scenario which hangs over the run-up to the November 2012 presidential election. There was also the question of the ability of the United States military to deploy air assets over Benghazi in useful time. Pentagon officials have generally stated that US attack aircraft were too far away from Benghazi to make a difference, and that the two waves of the Benghazi attack would have been over long before these planes could have arrived. They also claimed that there were no tankers available for the necessary in-flight refueling. The acceptance of these fictitious arguments by Issa’s self-styled truth seekers testifies to the extremely primitive and ill-informed level of the Issa hearings. The closest US airbase to Benghazi is not Aviano, but Sigonella A layman listening to the Issa hearings would have come away convinced that the closest US military airbase to Benghazi was Aviano in northeast Italy, not far from the border with Slovenia. This is absurd. The closest US military airfield was that at Sigonella on the east coast of Sicily, in the shadow of Mount Etna, about 875 miles south of Aviano. The bombing of Libya in 2011 was largely conducted from Sigonella. The distance from Sigonella to Benghazi is about 420 miles, which a modern fighter jet can cover in one to two hours. Tankers are unquestionably available at Sigonella. Could air assets from Sigonella have arrived in time to strafe Qumu’s forces, or intimidate them into a retreat? Here is a real question which the Issa committee was too poorly informed to even pose. And who was in command of the US Naval Air Station at Sigonella on September 11, 2012? The answer seems to be General Carter Ham once again. Sigonella was also the home of Special-Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force 12.2, with 120 Marines ready to provide support to Marine Forces Africa and US Africa Command missions. Congressman Issa needs to question General Carter Ham about why forces from Tripoli and from Sigonella never intervened in Benghazi. Otherwise, the credibility of this investigation will be zero. Naval assets in the Mediterranean might also have been brought to bear by either General Carter Ham or Admiral James Stavridis, the Supreme Commander of NATO and also of the US European command. Stavridis had been considered a candidate to become the top officer of the United States Navy, but his hopes were frustrated by accusations of relatively minor financial irregularities. Stavridis was then ousted from his NATO command in early 2013. Just before retiring, Stavridis told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was eager for the United States to increase its meddling in Syria. He demanded the arming of the terrorist death squads with modern weapons, noting that this would be “helpful in breaking the deadlock and bringing down the Assad regime.” (AP, March 19, 2013) Many disgruntled generals and admirals regard Obama as insufficiently aggressive. Part of the Republican mantra has been to ridicule the suggestion that a scurrilous anti-Islamic film made in Southern California had any role in preparing the Benghazi incident. One of the film’s major backers, the Egyptian Copt Joseph Nasrallah, was part of the so-called Islamophobia Network of pro-Israeli publicists, academics, retired military, and former government officials. The dominant personality and most famous participant in this Islamophobia Network (which had tried in 2011 to block the construction of a mosque in lower Manhattan) was none other than neocon former State Department official John Bolton, in September 2012 a close adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who might have been considering him as a future secretary of state. Whatever the connection of this anti-Islamic film to events in Libya, there is no doubt that it played an important role in more than two dozen protests and riots around the world, including one that was going on that same day in Cairo, Egypt. In that instance, rioters had broken through the security perimeter and breached the wall of the US Embassy. It is understandable that the Republicans wish to minimize attention to this film, since it was to all intents and purposes produced by a branch of the Romney presidential campaign, quite plausibly with the goal of creating incidents that could be used to embarrass Obama. However, even before the now legendary appearances of US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice on a series of Sunday morning political programs, it was none other than CIA boss Petraeus who told a secret session of the House Intelligence committee that the Benghazi incidents had been triggered by the anti-Islamic film. State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nualand, aka Mrs. PNAC Jonathan Karl of ABC News, eager to participate in the anti-Obama turn by key sectors of the media, has trumpeted his finding that the original CIA talking points were changed or revised no fewer than a dozen times. According to Karl, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland was responsible for most of these revisions. The implication is obviously that Victoria Nuland the feminist diplomat was engaged in activities to help the career of her boss, then Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton. But a few minutes of investigation show that Mrs. Nuland is just as likely to have been a submarine for the Romney campaign and the associated coup faction. Victoria Nuland is the wife of Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, a cofounder of the neocon warmonger pressure group that called itself The Project for a New American Century. In 2012, neocon heavyweight Robert Kagan was identified by Ezra Klein of the Washington Post as the most important foreign policy adviser of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Four years earlier, Robert Kagan had played the same role for Republican nominee John McCain. Victoria Nuland’s father-in-law is Donald Kagan, Yale professor and another signer of the infamous Project for a New American Century. Victorian Nuland’s brother-in-law is neocon star Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, yet another activist for the Project for a New American Century. Frederick Kagan had designed the sending of US reinforcements to Afghanistan, widely called the surge, on the part of the Bush administration in 2007. In December 2012, the Washington Post revealed that Frederick Kagan and his wife Kimberly “Kim” Kagan had been meddling in US military policy in Afghanistan for several years, having been originally invited there by General Stanley McChrystal, who was ousted as US commander after his anti-Obama outbursts were revealed by a journalist. Frederick and Kim Kagan had then been illegally incorporated into the US military chain of command in Afghanistan by none other than the General David Petraeus, evidently an inspirer of the anti-Obama military cabal that was active in the second half of 2012, and in any case the main focus of tendencies toward military dictatorship in the United States. Victoria Nuland’s connection with Hillary Clinton, whatever it might be, will necessarily prove temporary. Her connection to the Kagan dynasty of neocon warmongers is, by contrast, likely to be far more permanent. The actions of this charming lady must therefore be scrutinized in the light of the hypothesis that she may have been serving as a neocon submarine on Hillary Clinton’s State Department team. Mrs. Nuland would have known that it was highly unrealistic to attempt to hide the fact that Qumu’s al Qaeda terrorist organization had killed Ambassador Stevens. The crude falsification of this fact in the so-called talking points was therefore sure to be discovered, thus damaging the credibility of the Obama regime. So there is every reason to assume that Nuland was acting against Obama, rather than to defend him. As we have seen, the Obama administration made sure that a large number of generals and admirals were ousted from their commands in the second half of 2012. Among these may well have been participants in the Seven Days in May scenario which included Benghazi as a campaign surprise designed to help Romney seize the White House. The feckless Obama administration is clearly deeply frightened of telling the American people about the failed military coup lurking behind the November 2012 presidential election. To understand the forces at work here, we need to take a quick look back to the Watergate scandal, which began to explode with the impaneling of Senator Sam Ervin’s investigating committee precisely 40 years ago this week. The Watergate mirror The Watergate scandal was primarily a complex of intelligence community operations designed, not just to oust President Nixon from the White House, but mainly to permanently weaken the office of the presidency and to promote an oligarchical transformation of US politics and society. The carefully doctored Pentagon Papers of 1971 – released by Daniel Ellsberg, the Julian Assange limited hangout operative of his day – had driven Nixon into a paroxysm of paranoia. Wall Street asset Henry Kissinger helpfully suggested the creation of the plumbers, allegedly to seal off leaks of information to the press. These Plumbers included FBI agent Gordon Liddy, and top CIA agents Howard Hunt and James McCord, both in the orbit of the CIA Office of Security. The Watergate revelations reportedly came from top FBI official Mark Felt, the legendary “Deep Throat.” The main journalistic exposé was supervised by Bob Woodward, who had been a top naval intelligence officer.

 

 

Hundreds of protestors are trying to storm the U.S. embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana'a USS Laboon and USS McFaul, which are both armed with Tomahawk missiles, to be sent to the coast of Libya Attack came amid protests following film The Innocence Of Muslims which 'insults Prophet Mohammed' Attackers could have been staging revenge attack for death of al Qaeda official in June Officials noted that attack came on 11th anniversary of 9/11 U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens died of 'smoke inhalation' after grenade attack on consulate in Benghazi, while they were being evacuated from a safe house President Obama vows to hunt down Stevens' killers Marines on their way to Benghazi to provide additional security and drones expected to gather intelligence Sean Smith, a foreign service information manager, was also shot dead by armed militants

In the chaotic aftermath of the attack on the U.S consulate in Libya, American Ambassador Christopher Stevens was missing for five hours, it has emerged. It has also been revealed today that the Benghazi consulate was not protected by the contingent of Marines that usually safeguard embassies and instead was guarded by Libyan and State Department security officers. A senior administration official said the embassy was 'an interim facility,' which the State Department began using 'before the fall of Qadhafi,' reported Politoco. The embassy was vulnerable to attack because it did not have bulletproof glass, reinforced doors or other features common to embassies, according to reports. Victims: Mr Stevens (left) died from smoke inhalation while communications officer Sean Smith (right), a married father-of-two, was also killed in the attack

Attack: Yemeni protesters storm the US embassy during a protest today. Yemen's embassy in Washington said no casualties were reported

 

The deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, information management officer (“propaganda specialist”) Sean Smith, and two others may have been cunningly contrived.  In his recollections of Stevens, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy has remarked, “This time, the imbeciles have won”, because the ambassador was among the strongest friends of the Islamic world the US has ever placed in the field.  While my thoughts about this are somewhat speculative, it may have instead been part of the plan to use the excited protest against this deliberately provocative film, “Innocence of Muslims”, as a cover to take out one of our most effective ambassadors, where there are reasons to believe that he was not going to go along with new plans to destabilize Libya once again.  Sen. John McCain, who recently visited Benghazi, has laid the responsibility for his murder on Obama for not paying enough attention to foreign affairs, which suggests that this incident may be part of the GOP “game plane” to elect Mitt Romney by attacking the President’s foreign policy. There are reports that the attackers may have had help from inside the consulate. Bear in mind that the Israels are the most accomplished practitioners of “false flag” ops in the world today.  You do not have to go back to the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 when a gang of Irgun terrorists dressed as Arabs murdered 91 and injured another 46; or the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967, when Israeli fighters torpedoed and strafed an American spy ship during the Six Day War, killing 34 and wounding 170; or the bombing of its own Embassy in Bueos Aires, Argentina, in 1992, which did not result in enough deaths, so they bombed the Jewish Community Center for greater political effect in 1994 (“False Flag Attacks in Argentina: 1992 and 1994″, with Adrian Salbuchi).  But the massacres at Sabra and Shatila in 1982 are nice illustrations of the duplicity of the nation’s highest leaders, where Arial Sharon provided cover for the massacre of between 762 and 3,500 Palestinian and Lebanese Shiite civilians by a Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia, while the IDF illuminated the streets to facilitate the killing. So taking out Ambassador Stevens under the cover of this protest would have posed no problems for the Mossad.

Fury: Chanting 'death to America,' hundreds of protesters angered by an anti-Islam film stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Yemen's capital and burned the American flag. It was the latest in a series of attacks on American diplomatic missions in the Middle East Force: The protesters breached the usually tight security around the embassy and reached the compound grounds but did not enter the main building housing the offices. Once inside the compound, they brought down the U.S. flag, burned it and replaced it with a black banner bearing Islam’s declaration of faith - 'There is no God but Allah'

Refuted: An embassy statement said Yemen's government condemned the attack by protesters

Darkness: A protester throws a tear gas canister, which was earlier thrown by riot police, during clashes along a road which leads to the U.S. embassy, near Tahrir Square in Cairo, as demonstrations there continued into this morning

Guarding: Riot policemen stand guard as protesters approach in Cairo

Violence: Tunisians burn an American flag adorned with a photo of Marilyn Monroe on Wednesday, the day after U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens was killed in a terror strike on the U.S. consulate in Banghazi

Anger: A Tunisian protester stomps on the American flag as Muslim countries erupted in protests over a low-budget anti-Mohammed film

Clashes: Riot police form a line as Moroccan protestors shout during a protest about the film Innocence Of Muslims, which mocks Islam's Prophet Mohammed

President Barack Obama could also command unmanned surveillance drones to fly over Benghazi in search of jihadi encampments possibly tied to the deadly attack, a U.S. official said who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The drones, which would pass gathered information to Libyans, are expected to be approved by the Pentagon and White House shortly.

With Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at his side on Wednesday, Mr Obama said: 'Justice will be done.'

Demonstrations spread: Palestinians burn a U.S. flag during a protest against the movie, Innocence of Muslims, near the United Nations office in Gaza City

Running scared: Protesters flee from tear gas fired by riot police during clashes along a road which leads to the U.S. embassy in Cairo

Smoke: Riot police fire several tear gas containers during the violent clashes with prostesters in Cairo

Remedy: A protester has his eyes doused with milk after tear gas was fired at him during protests in Cairo

Riots: A protester throws a petrol bomb at policemen during clashes along a road which leads to the U.S. embassy, near Tahrir Square in Cairo on Wednesday night

Unrest: Riot police clashed with protesters near Tahrir Square in Cairo on Wednesday night

'America shut up': An Egyptian man holds placards condemning the film Innocence Of Muslims, which was made in the U.S. and pokes fun at the prophet Mohammed

The murder of Christopher Stevens, pictured, who died alongside three other US embassy officials, cannot be written off as an isolated incident The murder of Christopher Stevens is as shocking as it is unprecedented in recent times. The last assassination of an American ambassador was in Afghanistan, more than three decades ago. However, the killing of Mr Stevens, who died alongside three other US embassy officials, cannot be written off as an isolated incident. Rather, it marks an opening salvo by radical groups in Libya who are now poised, with deadly determination, to launch a post-Arab Spring wave of revolution in the name of Islamic fundamentalism. Similar groups across the Middle East will follow their lead. It is no coincidence the attack took place on the anniversary of September 11, for these groups are fiercely hostile to America and the West. From Tunisia to Yemen, Egypt to Syria, the emergent extremists have one clear goal: the toppling of the nascent regimes that came to power after last year’s uprisings. Their wish is to impose the strictest form of Islam on society, and espouse hostile views against what they see as the decadent West. Such groups believe the new regimes are led by pro-Western stooges or secular elites. And it is not just America these extremists loathe. While the relatively moderate Muslim Brotherhood which swept to power in Egypt wishes to maintain a long-standing peace treaty with Israel, these Al Qaeda-inspired terror groups dream of wiping the Jewish state off the map. So this week’s US deaths are the latest power play in a region-wide struggle – one in which Britain involved itself this week when it sent the head of MI6 to encourage the Israelis not to attack Iran. Blame for the attack on the American consulate has been laid at the door of an ultra-conservative Islamist group, Ansar al-Shariah (Supporters of Shariah). It isn’t their first violent foray. More... Obama pays tribute to Chris Stevens - the first US ambassador killed by terrorism for 33 years - who 'died in a city he helped save' Send in the drones: US launches military manhunt for terrorists who murdered ambassador and three of his team 'I have a hole in my heart': Dead ambassador's mother pays tribute to the son she lost in Libya The group have also been responsible for imposing the segregation of the sexes in public, setting up torture chambers and beating up anyone caught with alcohol. In June, a vehicle containing the British ambassador to Libya was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades, and the US Consulate in Tripoli was also bombed. The group says the attacks were motivated by assassinations of suspected Al Qaeda members in Pakistan by unmanned US drones. Self-evidently, nearly a year after the fall of Gaddafi, Libya is anything but stable. Scroll down for video Flames of hate: A gunman celebrates at the US compound in Benghazi after the embassy was attacked by a mob The ruling National Transitional Council, largely made up of secularist newcomers and former regime hangers-on, is staunchly pro-West, and was quick to distance itself from the attack on the embassy. But it rules only in name. Libya’s still lawless streets have been overrun by a hodge-podge of Islamist and tribal militias. They refuse to recognise the NTC’s authority, and have assassinated numerous Libyan government officials during recent months. Spark for the attack on the US consulate, though, was not disaffection with the government, but the release online of clips from the film Innocence of Muslims which attacks the Prophet Mohammed as a paedohile and philanderer. Offensive, insulting and childish, it may have been intended to help Israel by exposing the threat of Islam. But it is only serving to threaten Israel’s immediate security. The nation’s position in the Middle East is precarious, and the Arab Spring has presented the country with a number of new challenges because it’s security is closely tied to that of Libya and Syria. The American flag stood at half-staff at the U.S. Capitol yesterday in respect of Stevens and three other officials who were murdered Damage: The wreckage at the US consulate, one day after armed men stormed the place Syria has long provided a conduit for Iran to provide aid and weapons to its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, and has offered a safe haven for the Hamas leadership. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are Iran-backed enemies of Israel. If the Assad regime in Syria does fall, many in the West imagine that Iran will be left isolated and vulnerable, and Israel’s established enemies therefore weakened. However, quite the reverse may happen. There is every chance that the Assad regime would be replaced (as in Libya) by a Western-backed interim government of ‘moderate’ Islamist groups and former regime defectors. Such a government wouldn’t last long. Foreign jihadists have been flooding into the country. Once Assad is overthrown, they will jump at the chance to seize power and turn their firepower on Israel. Israel may then find itself confronting an even more determined, uncontrollable and fanatical enemy than any of the pre-Arab Spring regimes ever proved to be. The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi offers a chilling sign of what lies ahead, not just in Libya, but across the region. Burnt: The attack of the compound, pictured, took place on September 11, the anniversary of the Twin Towers Glass, debris and overturned furniture are strewn inside a room in the gutted U.S. consulate So what can we conclude from these troubling developments? Primarily, that the West has learned nothing from its experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Libya and Syria, Western governments have backed radical Islamist groups, and by doing so have failed to understand that loyalty bought rather than earned is a recipe for disaster. For while the Islamists are initially eager to take arms and funding from the West, they prove still more eager to turn and use those weapons against their former paymasters And while the Sunni jihadists in Libya and Syria are no friends of Shia-dominated Iran, their long-term desire to see the destruction of Israel and its American allies transcends such regional rivalries. Attacks by Islamists last month along Israel’s border with Egypt, the most brazen in decades, show that the danger posed by jihadists is not an intangible fear but a current – and growing – problem. The storming of the American consulate in Libya, moreover, coincided with a similar storming of the U.S. embassy in Cairo. Chris Stevens, right, attends meetings in Benghazi, Libya last year This shows yet again that, while the Muslim Brotherhood-led Egyptian government may be pro-West, the Egyptian masses are not. They remain as anti-Israel as ever. An Israeli attack on Iran, or a US bombing of the country at Israel’s behest, will galvanise the Arab world as never before. It will provide the perfect opportunity for radicals to launch a counter-revolution against ‘moderate’ regimes. It has been said time and time again that the first wave of Arab Spring revolutions were started by the self-immolation of a Tunisian street seller. Could Sam Bacile’s ill-conceived film about the prophet Mohammed similarly prove the catalyst that brings the most formidable enemies of Israel and the West to power? John R. Bradley is the author of After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts (Palgrave Macmillan)

Shouting: Conservative Muslim women protest with copies of the Koran in Casablanca, Morocco No coincidence attack took place on anniversary of September 11 Radical Libyan groups fiercely hostile to American and the West     WAS DEATH OF AL QAEDA LEADER ABU YAHYA AL-LIBI THE REASON FOR ATTACK ON U.S EMBASSY? A London think tank run by a former Libyan militant leader suggested on Tuesday that not only was the Benghazi attack 'well planned,'but that it may have been retaliation for an American drone attack that killed a Libyan leader of al Qaeda's core command group earlier this year. The Quilliam Foundation said that 24 hours before the Benghazi incident, al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, distributed a video to militant websites in which he confirmed the death of his second in command, known as Abu Yahya al-Libi, and urged Libyans to avenge his killing. Quilliam, whose president, Noman Benotman, once was a leader of an anti-Gaddafi militant faction said that according to its sources, up to 20 militants had prepared for a military assault. Quilliam said the assault on the Benghazi Consulate took place in two waves. After the first wave, U.S. officials arranged an evacuation of the Consulate by Libyan security forces. As the evacuation was taking place, a second wave of attacks was launched against U.S. officials. He ordered increased security at U.S. embassies around the world, and a Marine anti-terrorist team was dispatched to boost security for U.S. personnel in Libya. But as tensions rise outside Libya, the response to a film produced in the U.S. that depicts the prophet Mohammed in a unflattering manner is still sending shockwaves through the Muslim world. Today the protesters in Sana'a were in the embassy's grounds but did not enter the building housing the offices. Before storming the embassy compound, the demonstrators removed the embassy's sign on the outer wall and set tyres ablaze. Once inside the compound, they brought down the U.S. flag and burned it. Yemen is home to al Qaida's most active branch and the U.S. is the main foreign supporter of the Yemeni government's counter-terrorism campaign. Overnight there were further clashes outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt,  as well as protests in Tunisia, Sudan, and Morocco. In Cairo, protests continued into early hours of this morning near Tahrir Square, the site of Egypt's massive uprising last year. With further street violence and demonstrations expected, Britain, the U.S. and their European allies stepped-up security at their embassies and consulates. In Tunis, the Tunisian capital, police fired teargas and rubber bullets into the air to disperse a protest. Around 200 protesters burned U.S. flags and chanted slogans such as ‘Obama, Obama, we are here for the triumph of Islam’. Meanwhile, further details have emerged about the Benghazi attack - Mr Stevens and information technology specialist Sean Smith were killed during an attempt by U.S. forces to evacuate staff from a safe house, Libya's Deputy Interior Minister Wanis Al-Sharif said. U.S. consular staff were moved to the safe house after an attack on the consul building. A plane with U.S. security units arrived from Tripoli to evacuate other staff but militants discovered the location of the safe house, he said. 'It was supposed to be a secret place and we were surprised the armed groups knew about it. There was shooting,' he said. A senior Obama administration official ran through the timeline, saying the attackers opened fire about 10pm local time and within 15 minutes they had gained access to the compound shot. They attacked the main building which held three staff, Stevens, Smith and a regional security officer and which caught fire. 'They became separated from each other due to the heavy, dark smoke while they were trying to evacuate the burning building. The regional security officer made it outside, and then he and other security personnel returned into the burning building in an attempt to rescue Chris and Sean. 'At that time, they found Sean. He was already dead, and they pulled him from the building. They were unable, however, to locate Chris before they were driven from the building due to the heavy fire and smoke and the continuing small arms fire.' It is believed a 'small, vicious group' of attackers used the protest as a diversion, although questions remain over whether the killers drummed up support for the march or simply took advantage of it, an official told CNN. Graphic images taken at the scene show civilians making desperate attempts to pull the diplomat to safety. But their efforts were futile. The doctor who treated him said he died of severe asphyxiation, which caused stomach bleeding and that Mr Stevens had no other injuries. Gunfire erupted at the Benghazi compound at 10pm on Tuesday night and with the attack coming in two waves, Libyan and American authorities did not regain control again until 2:30am. A US. State Deparment official said Mr Stevens and his team 'became separated from each other due to the heavy, dark smoke while they were trying to evacuate the burning building.' At some time between 10:15 p.m. and 11:20 p.m., Mr Stevens was taken from the main building by Libyans to the hospital. But the diplomat was not seen again by his colleagues until 12 hours later when his body was brought to the Benghazi airport from the hospital. In response to the attacks, the U.S. has launched a major military manhunt to find the terrorists responsible, announcing they are sending warships to the coast of Libya in an apparent terrorist hunt, and American drone aircraft are also expected to join the search for potential targets. Violence is spreading across the Muslim world and currently up to 5,000 protestors are trying to storm the U.S. embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana'a. The White House has said it is keeping an open mind as to the reason for the Tuesday's strike in Libya, but it is investigating whether the attack in Benghazi was planned in advance by terrorists. The assault had initially been thought to have been a spontaneous reaction to protests over an anti-Islamic film, but there is now speculation it was a long-planned ambush on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack, or a revenge attack for death of an al Qaeda official in June in Yemen. A U.S. counter-terrorism official said the Benghazi violence was 'too co-ordinated or professional' to be unplanned. U.S. officials said one destroyer, the USS Laboon, moved to a position off the coast of Libya, and the USS McFaul is en route and should be stationed off the coast within days. The officials say the ships, which carry Tomahawk missiles, do not have a specific mission, but they give commanders flexibility to respond to any mission ordered by the president. The destroyers have crews totaling about 300 each. There have been four destroyers in the Mediterranean for some time. These moves will increase that to five.

 

Remembrance: UC Berkeley Alpha Tau Omega House members hold a vigil for U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens at their ATO house in Berkeley, California

The U.S ambassador, right, was killed in Libya and was a member of the fraternity which commemorated his death

'I HAVE A HOLE IN MY HEART': DEAD AMBASSADOR'S MOTHER PAYS TRIBUTE TO SON SHE LOST IN LIBYA

The family of U.S. ambassador killed in the brazen attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya remember his fearless nature and remarkable composure.

Christoper Steven's mother, Mary Commanday told New York Daily News: 'He did love what he did, and did a very good job with it. He could have done a lot of other things, but this was his passion.'

'I have a hole in my heart,' said his mother.

Stevens' stepfather Bob Commanday, 90, of Oakland, said the diplomat would tell his mother his assignments in the Arab world were 'no more dangerous than Oakland.'

'He was selfless,' said his younger brother Thomas Stevens, an assistant U.S. Attorney in San Francisco.

'He got along with everyone he met because he was interested in them, not in himself. That's what made him a great diplomat.'

His family last saw him about four months ago, Mr Commanday said, when they threw him a farewell party in the San Francisco Bay area.

His brother was not surprised to hear that Stevens risked his life to help his staff.

'He's loyal. He doesn't bail out,' Thomas Stevens said. 'The thought of driving away was not consistent with who he was.'

The doctor, Ziad Abu Zeid, said Mr Stevens was brought to the Benghazi Medical Center by Libyans on Tuesday night with no other Americans, and that initially no one realized he was the ambassador.

The doctor tried for 90 minutes to revive him.

While it is not known exactly who was responsible for the rampage, a London think tank with strong ties to Libya said Mr Stevens could have been the victim of a revenge attack by al Qaeda.

U.S. officials said the attack began at roughly 10pm local time on Tuesday, with Ambassador Stevens, Mr Smith and one security officer trapped under fire in the burning consulate building.

'They became separated from each other due to the heavy dark smoke while they were trying to evacuate the burning building,' one senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The security officer made it outside, and returned with help to search for the missing U.S. diplomatic personnel.

The assault 'came to avenge the death of Abu Yaya al-Libi, al Qaeda's second in command killed a few months ago' in Pakistan, think tank Quilliam told CNN, noting the rocket-propelled grenade launchers used in the attack did not normally appear at peaceful protests.

'The military assault against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi should not be seen as part of a protest against a low-budget film which was insulting Islam – there were just a few peaceful protesters present at the event,' Quilliam said in a statement.

'Indeed, there have been no other demonstrations regarding this film in Libya. We at Quilliam believe the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was a well-planned terrorist attack that would have occurred regardless of the demonstration, to serve another purpose.'

Officials also reportedly voiced their concern that the attack was timed for the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which were commemorated across the U.S. on Tuesday.

'We've been talking for years about the desire of al Qaeda, radical jihadists to celebrate the anniversary of 9/11,' Pete Hoekstra, former chairman of the House intelligence committee, told FoxNews.com.

'All my background, all of the conversations that I've had over the last 18 hours, lead many people to believe that this was just more than a mere coincidence.'

He added that Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri recently released a video calling on militants to attack Americans for revenge for the death in Pakistan - and that the anti-Mohammed film could have been a cover.

Mr Stevens was a career diplomat who spoke Arabic and French and had already served two tours in Libya, including running the office in Benghazi during the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi.

Five other U.S. ambassadors have been killed in the line of duty, the last being Adolph Dubs in Afghanistan in 1979.

President Obama condemned the attack and paid tribute to the late Ambassador Stevens as he ordered increased security at diplomatic posts around the world.

'It's especially tragic that Chris Stevens died in Benghazi, as it's a city that he helped to save,' Mr Obama said outside the White House.

With 'characteristic skill, courage and resolve, he built partnerships with Libyans... and he worked tirelessly to support this young democracy.

'He was a role model to those who worked with him and to the young diplomats who strive to follow in his footsteps.

Reinforcements: The USS Laboon has also been sent to the coast of Libya, one day after Ambassador Stevens' death at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi

Destroyer: The USS McFaul is en route and should be stationed off the coast of Libya within days

Condemnation: President Obama, joined by Hillary Clinton, speaks in reaction to the killing of the US Ambassador to Libya on Wednesday morning

Tribute: President Obama ordered flags to be flown at half-mast across the country, including at the White House, as seen above

'These four Americans stood up for freedom and human dignity. We grieve with their families but let us carry on their memory... I have no doubt that their legacy will live on.'

He added: 'The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms this outrageous and shocking attack. There is no justification to this type of senseless violence. None.'

In a statement, Mrs Clinton added: 'I had the privilege of swearing in Chris for his post in Libya only a few months ago. He risked his own life to lend the Libyan people a helping hand to build the foundation for a new, free nation.'

Loss: Chris Stevens, pictured in Tripoli in June, was a 21-year veteran of the foreign service and determined to bring democracy to the people of Libya

Making a difference: Mr Obama said it was tragic how Mr Stevens, left, died in a country he had helped save

She said they were still trying to contact the next of kin for the other two men.

The attack came amid violence in Libya and Cairo, which had been sparked by a 14-minute trailer for a film called The Innocence Of Muslims posted on YouTube.

In an original English version and another dubbed into Egyptian Arabic, Mohammed is depicted as a fraud, a womaniser and a madman, showing him having sex and calling for massacres.

Mission: President Barack Obama is set to deploy a team of 50 marines to Libya after a bloody attack. The elite team will be sent to guard the compound in Benghazi which was left ravaged by firebombs during the attack

Fire damaged buildings in the compound: In a high-risk strategy that risks inflaming tensions further, President Obama is set to provide ‘all necessary resources’ to safeguard diplomatic personnel worldwide

Destruction: A burned-out car smoulders at the scene. It is unclear if this vehicle was used by Ambassador Stevens and his team as he attempted to escape

Revolt: An armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi, Libya

Anger: Dozens of protesters scaled the embassy walls, and several went into the courtyard and took down the American flag from a pole. They brought it back to the crowd outside, which tried to burn it, but failing that tore it apart

There is now speculation over the identity of the film's producer who works under the pseudonym of Sam Bacile.

Bacile had told reporters that he was an Israeli Jew who financed the project with $5million from 100 Jewish donors.

None of those statements have proven to be true, and Israeli officials later confirmed that there is no citizen of their country with that name.

Speaking by phone from an undisclosed location on Tuesday, 'Bacile' remained defiant, saying he intended his film to be a provocative political statement condemning the religion.

'This is a political movie,' said Bacile. 'The U.S. lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're fighting with ideas.'

'Islam is a cancer, period,' he said repeatedly.

YouTube has since blocked the video in Egypt and Libya.

But it can still be seen elsewhere, including the U.S. as the video sharing site says the clip doesn't violate its policies.

The Google-Inc. video site took the unusual step Wednesday of publicly commenting on the video, a practice it typically tries to avoid.

'We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions,' YouTube said in a statement.

'This can be a challenge because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere. This video - which is widely available on the web - is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube. However, given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt we have temporarily restricted access in both countries. Our hearts are with the families of the people murdered in yesterday's attack in Libya.'

Lebanon's Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah claimed the film was an attack on religious belief, reflecting Western policy and branded it an 'immoral act which represents the highest degree of aggression against the highest human right ... for respect of beliefs and sanctities.'

In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai slammed the film and, fearing another anti-U.S. backlash, ordered the YouTube site to be shut until the video is taken down and the U.S. Embassy in the capital Kabul appealed for help in 'maintaining calm'.