Investigators Claim U.S. Failed To Prevent Civilian Casualties In Airstrike On Syrian Mosque

Several organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Forensic Architecture and Bellingcat, have investigated the U.S.-coalition bombing of a mosque in Syria last month. All found that the U.S. failed to prevent civilian casualties and suggested the attack could constitute a war crime.

MintPress News Desk
By MintPress News Desk
Volunteers dig through the rubble of a mosque following a reported airstrike on a mosque in the village of Al-Jineh in Aleppo province late on March 16, 2017.

DAMASCUS - On March 16, U.S. military aircraft bombed a location southwest of al-Jinah, a small village in Syria’s city of Aleppo. The U.S. military has maintained that it was targeting a meeting of al-Qaeda members in a partially-built community hall. But accounts from local residents and survivors, as well as separate investigations by three

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The New York Times Mocks Skepticism Of The Government’s Syria Sarin Claims

The New York Times and other major media have ruled out any further skepticism toward the U.S. government’s claim that Syrian President Assad dropped a sarin bomb on a town in Idlib province, reports Robert Parry.

Robert Parry
By Robert Parry
Editorial cartoon by Leon Barritt, circa 1898 shows newspaper publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst pushing against opposite sides of a pillar of wooden blocks that spells WAR. This is a satire of the Pulitzer and Hearst newspapers' role in drumming up USA public opinion to go to war with Spain.

In the old days of journalism, we were taught that there were almost always two sides to a story, if not more sides than that. Indeed, part of the professional challenge of journalism was to sort out conflicting facts on a complicated topic. Often we found that the initial impression of a story was wrong once we understood the more nuanced

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Al Jazeera, CNN & BBC Cover Up Genocidal Crimes of US – Backed Syrian Rebels

Through selective reporting, the omission of facts and reliance on dubious sources of information, media outlets have sought to twist the facts and whitewash crimes committed by the rebels.

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
A gunman passes by the buses that were destroyed by Syrian rebels in a blast at the Rashideen area, a rebel-controlled district outside Aleppo city, Syria, April. 15, 2017. Scores of civilians were killed in the explosion that targeted buses carrying civilian evacuees from two towns besieged by rebels nearby. (Thiqa News via AP)

DAMASCUS-- (Analysis) This week, Syria saw one of its most deadly attacks against civilians fleeing al-Qaeda-held areas in Al-Fu’ah and Kafrayah through a government-rebel civilian swap. Rebels targeted and killed 126 people, including dozens of women and children, after a blast hit a convoy of evacuee buses Saturday. The evacuees, all of whom

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US Sending Troops To Somalia For The First Time In 24 Years

The new deployment will be the first time US ground troops are officially deployed to Somalia.

Jason Ditz
By Jason Ditz
U.S. Marines load ammunition and weapons on a truck in Mogadishu, Somalia's, Bakara Market December 2006. A Marine stands holding a M60 machine gun, left, pointing it at a crowd of Somali civilians standing at the right. (Photo/Expert Infantry via Flickr)

In October 1993, during the Battle of Mogadishu (the Black Hawk Down incident), 18 US soldiers were killed and 73 wounded, with a pair of Black Hawk helicopters shot down. The US responded by ceasing military operations, and within a few months had withdrawn all troops from Somalia. Today, they are headed back. The new deployment, which US

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‘Beyond a Red Line’: Trump Might Just Launch Surprise Attack on Syria

Despite no hard evidence yet about who is behind horrific chemical-related massacre, president indicates he will just do whatever he wants.

Jon Queally
By Jon Queally

Does President Donald Trump assume his administration can just launch a surprise, unilateral military attack against Syria? "I'm not saying I'm doing anything one way or another, but I'm certainly not going to be telling you." —President Donald Trump. The clear impression he left during a Wednesday afternoon press conference at the White

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Russia Reports Discovery of Rebel-Held Chemical Weapons at Site of Idlib Gas Attack

Russia has reported that the Syrian military has destroyed a warehouse where chemical weapons were produced and stored before exportation to nearby Iraq. The warehouse was in the same town targeted by a chemical gas attack early yesterday morning.

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
This frame grab from video provided on Tuesday April 4, 2017, by the Syrian anti-government group, the Edlib Media Center, shows victims of a suspected chemical attack, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, northern Idlib province, Syria. (Edlib Media Center, via AP)

  MOSCOW-- In the aftermath of yesterday’s chemical gas attack in Syria’s Idlib Province, numerous governments - including those that have funded and armed rebels in an attempt to overthrow the Syrian government - have accused the Syrian army of being primarily responsible for the attack, despite no independent confirmation of their claim and no

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