‘I Saw My Father Dying’: A View From Aleppo’s Government-Held Side:

Even as Syria and Russia threatened an all-out assault on the rebel side of Aleppo, saying Friday was the last chance for people there to exit, they had been unable to put down a counteroffensive by a mix of Qaeda-linked and United States-backed insurgent groups.

Three Qaeda-linked suicide bombers attacked a military position with explosive-packed personnel carriers on Thursday, …

Sources: U.S. intel warning of possible al Qaeda attacks in U.S. Monday

Sources told CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton that U.S. intelligence has alerted joint terrorism task forces that al Qaeda could be planning attacks in three states for Monday.
…

‘I Saw My Father Dying’: A View From Aleppo’s Government-Held Side:

Instead, they are trying to break the siege, with Qaeda-linked groups and those backed by the United States working together — the opposite of what Russia has demanded.

Sources: U.S. intel warning of possible al Qaeda attacks in U.S. Monday

The source said there has been pressure on al Qaeda and its affiliates AQAP and AQIS (al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent) to regain relevance with its mission.

What is the message the U.S. government is sending with such accounts? Are we to love al-Qaeda or fear it?

Or are we to fall silent in awe of the sheer genius of Obama's strategic planning?

h/t Mark Ames

P.S. That AQ and CIA "rebels" mercenaries are one bunch is, of course, not new. We wrote about Your Moderate Cuddly Homegrown Al-Qaeda since October 2013. What is new is the NYT, the house organ of the U.S. government, now openly reporting it. What is the message in this?

News & views NOT related to the U.S. election …

(For election comments please use the previous thread.)

For me, as a non U.S. person, the major issues of the U.S. presidential elections is always foreign policy. There Trump is not hawkish at all. He has somewhat confused, unlearned blustering positions on foreign policy but is basically a cautious, risk averse businessman. He consistently criticizes the war mongering in Washington DC. Hillary Clinton is a run-of-the-mill warmongering neoconservative compatible with the imperial "mainstream" of the power centers in Washington and elsewhere.

Trump has called up this contrast again and again (as do I). In a speech (vid at 53:20 min) in Grand Rapids Michigan on October 31 he again highlights these points. Some excerpts (taken from this partial transcript part 9, 10):

Hillary led us to disaster in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya. … Hillary and our failed Washington establishment have spent $6 trillion on wars in the Middle East, and now it’s worse than it’s ever been before.

Had Obama and others gone to the beach, Obama could have gone to the golf course, we would have been in much better shape.

We shouldn’t have gone into the war, and she thinks I’m a hawk. Oh, Donald Trump.
…
Imagine if some of the money had been spent, $6 trillion in the Middle East, on building new schools and roads and bridges right here in Michigan.

Now Hillary, trapped in her Washington bubble, that’s blind to the lessons, wants to start a shooting war in Syria in conflict with a nuclear armed Russia that could drag us into a World War III.

Okay, folks. She – I’ll tell you what. She will get us into World War III. She will get us into World War III. I will tell you that. She’s incompetent. She will get us into World War III.

The arrogant political class never learns. They keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. They keep telling the same lies. They keep producing the same failed results.

Trump may well be lying when he says he does not seek a conflict with Russia or anyone else. Trump surely lies on other issues. But those are mostly rather obvious lies and some are even a bit comical. He is playing Reagan on economic issues, promising tax cuts that can not be financed (and which Reagan had to take back in the end when he introduced the biggest tax hike ever). On many issues we do not know what Trump is really planning to do (or if he plans at all). But he has never given the impression that he is hawkish or willing to incite a war.

Clinton on the other hand has a proven record of being a proactive hawk. She is willing to go to war and to kill people because the U.S. can.

Cont. reading: Reward Clinton’s Hawkishness Because Trump’s Foreign Policy Is Uncertain?

The Russian president Putin declared another unilateral ceasefire in east-Aleppo for Friday:

"A decision was made to introduce a 'humanitarian pause' in Aleppo on November 4 from 9:00 am (0600 GMT) to 19:00," the chief of Russia's General Staff Valery Gerasimov said in a statement on Wednesday.

Gerasimov said the decision was approved by Syrian authorities and was meant to "prevent senseless casualties" by allowing civilians and armed combatants to quit rebel-held eastern Aleppo.
…
Defence ministry Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that Russia had ceased air strikes on eastern Aleppo for 16 days, following criticism over a Russian-backed Syrian government assault that has killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed infrastructure, including hospitals.

This is probably the last ceasefire on offer before al-Qaeda and CIA proxy forces in east-Aleppo are attacked in full force.

These head-chopping "rebels" rejected the Russian offer:

Rebel groups in Aleppo dismissed Russia's latest offer, with one of the groups describing it as a media stunt for "public consumption."

Yasser al-Youssef, a spokesman for the Nour el-Din el-Zinki rebel group, said Russia "is not serious" and its latest initiatives "don't concern us." He added that the Russian leader's comments do not reflect the reality on the ground.

The great "rebel" attack from Idleb in the west on Aleppo to open a corridor to the government besieged "rebel" area in east-Aleppo has failed. Local fighting is still ongoing but the main attack has stopped. Most of the major hardware of the attacking "rebels", tanks and multiple rocket launchers on trucks, have been destroyed by the Syrian and Russian artillery and air forces.

The Syrian Army and Russia have assembled major fresh forces in Aleppo. Syrian special forces are preparing for a big attack and Iran supported groups as well as some Russian units are on the ground. On Friday the Russian aircraft-carrier Kuznetsov will arrive on the Syrian coast. It adds some 30 fighter planes and attack helicopters to the assembled land based air forces. The carrier is accompanied by several destroyers and frigates as well as submarines. These add to the air defenses but can also launch salvos of cruise missiles.

But this whole build up may have a different purpose than an all out attack on east-Aleppo.

Cont. reading: The Syrian Army’s “Election Campaign” – Al Bab Or East-Aleppo?

News & views …