FAR-RIGHT extremists are reportedly furious with Donald Trump, calling him a ‘traitor’ and a ‘coward’, after the outgoing president pleaded for calm following his impeachment for inciting the violent storming of the US Capitol last week.
Faced with an unprecedented backlash after he goaded his supporters to march on Congress, Trump released a video message last Thursday calling for peace and no more violence as preparations get underway for tomorrow’s (January 20) inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
‘I unequivocally condemned the violence that we saw last week. Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country, and no place in our movement,’ Trump said in the recorded message.
His once-ardent backers feel betrayed and abandoned by the president, who incited them to ‘fight like hell’ in order to overturn his election defeat.
A review of thousands of messages across multiple social media platforms by Huffington Post has revealed that the tone against the president is shifting amongst his base. Some have gone so far as to call for Trump’s arrest and execution.
‘So, he basically just sold out the patriots who got rounded up for him,’ one individual wrote in a 15,000-member pro-Trump Telegram group.
Comments like that have flooded sites frequented by the extremists.
A growing number of Trump supporters, who might hope to disrupt Biden’s inauguration, are denouncing the outgoing president and rejecting his recent calls for peace, HuffPost said.
‘Alarmingly, many of those who are irate about Biden’s supposed electoral theft are still plotting to forcibly prevent him from taking office – with or without Trump’s help,’ it added.
‘We don’t follow you,’ another Telegram user wrote, addressing Trump, following the release of his video message. ‘Be quiet and get out of our way.’
The Proud Boys, a pro-Trump neo-fascist group that helped storm the Capitol, also posted a message with Trump’s video that said: ‘The Betrayal of Trumpist base by Trump himself continues.’
Law enforcement authorities are urgently warning of armed protests being planned by far-right extremists and white supremacists in all 50 state capitals in the run-up to Biden’s inauguration.
The Capitol complex has been locked down and over 20,000 members of the National Guard have been deployed in Washington to assist with the security.
A new joint intelligence bulletin from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and US National Counterterrorism Centre has warned that politically-motivated extremists will likely pose the greatest domestic terrorism threat this year.
- The US-led military coalition, purportedly formed to fight the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, has sent a new convoy of trucks carrying military and logistical equipment into Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah, as Washington seeks to keep its grip on Syria’s energy resources and loot the country’s natural reserves.
The RT Arabic television news network, citing local sources, reported that a convoy of 35 trucks drove over the Waleed border crossing into Syrian territory from Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdistan region on Saturday.
The sources added that the vehicles entered the Kurdish city of Qamishli, and were carrying logistics as well as fuel supplies for US military forces in Hasakah and the neighbouring province of Dayr al-Zawr.
The US military has stationed forces and equipment in northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oilfields in the area from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.
Damascus, however, says the deployment is actually designed to plunder Syria’s resources.
They also point out that the US military transfer of Daesh prisoners to the Iraqi/Syrian border is just a pretext for its continued occupation of Syrian territory and to launch future attacks on the Syrian Army.
The US first confirmed its looting of Syrian oil during a Senate hearing exchange between South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in late July last year.
On July 30, during his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pompeo confirmed for the first time that an American oil company would begin work in northeastern Syria, which is controlled by militants from the so-called anti-Damascus Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The Syrian government strongly condemned the agreement, saying that the deal was struck to plunder the country’s natural resources, including oil and gas, under the sponsorship and support of the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, three Turkish soldiers were killed in northwest Syria on Sunday when a group of militants attacked their military base.
Turkish military forces had reportedly evacuated seven ‘observation posts’ in northwestern Syria, and re-positioned to areas controlled by Ankara-backed militants.
Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network reported that the incident took place in the northern sector of the beleaguered Idlib province.
On October 9th, 2019, Turkey launched a cross-border invasion of northeastern Syria ostensibly to push Kurdish militants affiliated with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – which Ankara brands as a terrorist outfit – away from its borders.
Two weeks later, Russia and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding that forced the YPG militants to withdraw from the Turkish-controlled ‘safe zone’ in northeastern Syria, after which Ankara and Moscow began joint patrols around the area.
Turkey has since wrested control of several areas in northern Syria in addition to other Kurdish-controlled areas.
Damascus views the Turkish military presence on Syrian soil as an attack on the country’s sovereignty.
- A top United Nations official has warned that designating Yemen’s Houthis as ‘terrorists’ by the outgoing US administration is a death sentence on hundreds of thousands of people.
In a post on his Twitter account on Saturday, Jake Sullivan, US president-elect Joe Biden’s choice for US National Security Advisor, said the last-minute designation of the Houthi Ansarullah movement ‘will only inflict more suffering on the Yemeni people and impede diplomacy critical to end the war.’
Similarly last Friday, 25 members of Congress, led by Gregory W. Meeks, chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, wrote a letter to Pompeo about the short-sighted decision by the outgoing US administration.
They warned of the disastrous consequences and demanded information as to how the decision had been rushed through in the final days of Trump’s presidency.
‘Designating the Houthi movement a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) will make it much harder to deliver vital life-saving assistance since, even with humanitarian waivers or licenses for certain assistance provided by the Treasury Department, many aid organisations will be unable to continue their operations due to legal liability and financial risk involved,’ the letter read.
‘Therefore, we again express our deep concern with and opposition to the intent to designate the Houthi movement as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation.
‘Licenses alone cannot ensure Yemenis don’t face further obstacles accessing food, medicine, fuel and other necessary goods and services, and thus, we will be urging the incoming Biden administration to fully reverse the designation.’
The American lawmakers further warned it ‘will not help resolve the conflict nor provide justice for the violations and abuses committed during the war; it will only compound the crisis for millions of Yemenis fighting for their survival.
‘This move in the last days of the Trump administration will undoubtedly make what the UN says is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis much worse and push thousands of Yemenis towards greater peril.
‘The fact that the Trump administration rushed this decision ahead without regard to consequences to Yemeni civilians or providing necessary waivers for life-saving aid is morally reprehensible.
‘It also makes UN Special Envoy Martin Griffith’s already difficult job as peace negotiator that much harder and impedes the only viable pathway to ending this brutal war,’ Meeks emphasised.
Saudi Arabia launched a devastating military aggression against Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allied states, and with arms and logistics support from the US and several Western countries.
The aim was to return to power a Riyadh-backed former regime and defeat the Houthis who have been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in the country.
The war has failed to achieve its goals, but killed tens of thousands of innocent Yemenis and destroyed the impoverished country’s infrastructure.
The United Nations refers to the situation in Yemen as the ‘world’s worst humanitarian crisis’.
The Riyadh regime enjoyed close ties with the Trump White House, but Biden has vowed to ‘end the sale of material to the Saudis where they’re going in and murdering children.’
