China Aims Advanced DF-16 Missiles At Taiwan, Damascus Hit With Surprise Attack By Syrian Rebels

China aims advanced DF-16 missiles at Taiwan: minister

China is aiming advanced medium-range ballistic missiles at Taiwan as part of a growing military threat towards the island, Taipei's defence minister said Monday.

The announcement came after Taiwan said for the first time last week that it is capable of launching missiles at China as it warned of an increased invasion risk.

China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be brought back into its fold, by force if necessary, even though the island has been self-governing since the two sides split after a civil war in 1949.

Ties have worsened since Beijing-sceptic President Tsai Ing-wen took power last year, ending an eight-year rapprochement.

The DF-16 (Dongfeng 16) is capable of precise strikes against Taiwan and has been deployed by the Rocket Force of the People's Liberation Army, defence minister Feng Shih-kuan said.

Feng told lawmakers the development comes as China "strengthens its weaponry modernisation and military hard power".

He did not say how many missiles had been deployed or where.

Taiwan has said China is targeting the island with around 1,500 missiles -- this is the first time the defence ministry identified the DF-16 as among them.

Damascus hit with surprise attack by Syrian rebels

Syrian rebel groups launched a surprise attack on regime forces on the eastern outskirts of Damascus on Sunday, according to opposition groups, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Syrian state media.

Clashes broke out in the Syrian capital, which has not seen such attacks in months, if not years, said SOHR Director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The rebel fighters began the attack from the district of Jobar in northeastern Damascus, an area split between rebel and government control. The rebel factions seem to have prepared for this offensive, Rahman said.

Since the start of the conflict, the Syrian regime and allied militias have held a very tight grip on the capital. The opposition only has a few pockets of control around Damascus, including a part of Jobar.

The assault was led by Islamist groups including Ahrar al-Sham and the recently formed umbrella jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that includes Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.

Syrian state media reported that Syrian forces had repelled an attack by jihadist fighters, who also used tunnels to attack government positions.

NSA Documents Prove Surveillance of Donald Trump & His Family

Michael Zullo, formerly the commander and chief investigator of the Cold Case Posse (CCP), a special investigative group created in 2006 in the office of Joseph M. Arpaio, formerly the sheriff in Maricopa County, an Arizona State Certified Law Enforcement Agency, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, provided sections of the database to Infowars.com.

 Infowars.com have obtained credible information from law enforcement sources regarding individual records of U.S. citizens under National Security Agency (NSA) electronic surveillance in the years 2004 through 2010 – a database that suggests both Donald J. Trump and Alex Jones were under illegal, unauthorized government monitoring during those years.

The electronic surveillance database, provided to Zullo by a whistleblower in 2013, was apparently created by the NSA as part of the NSA’s illegal and unconstitutional Project Dragnet electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens, first revealed by news reportspublished in 2005, as further documented by the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.

Sheriff Arpaio and Chief Investigator Zullo have identified dozens of entries at various addresses, including both Trump Tower in New York City and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, under which Donald Trump was apparently under NSA electronic surveillance from 2004, during President George W. Bush’s term of office, through 2009, the first year of President Obama’s presidency.

While attempts have been made to deny such domestic surveillance, reports from the New York Times in 2014 showed the Central Intelligence Agency had done just that by spying on a senate panel investigating the agency’s use of “enhanced interrogation.”

In a 2016 article from The Guardian entitled, “‘A constitutional crisis’: the CIA turns on the Senate,” it is likewise noted just how drastic and widespread the CIA’s domestic surveillance operation was.