War

Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on defeating ISIS in the city of Palmyra.  The Syrian army reclaimed the ancient city of Palmyra from ISIS militants who had captured the city last May. Independent.co.uk reports: “Assad highly valued the help Russian air forces have provided and underlined that such successes as regaining Palmyra would have been impossible without Russia’s support,” Dmitry Peskov said,according to Reuters.

Belgian prosecutors have been forced to release a suspect they had charged with last week’s Brussels attack, saying that they didn’t have enough information to allow them to continue detaining him.  The man, known as Faycal C., is thought to be one of the terrorists involved in the bombings last week. Yahoo News reports: His home had been searched but no weapons or explosives had been found. “The evidence which led to the arrest of the man named as Faycal C has not been backed up by the ongoing investigation.

Submitted by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

It was not long after last week’s horrifying bombings in Brussels that the so-called security experts were out warning that Europeans must give up more of their liberty so government can keep them secure from terrorism. I guess people are not supposed to notice that every terrorist attack represents a major government failure and that rewarding failure with more of the same policies only invites more failure.

Ministers in Germany and Europe are demanding that more authoritarian powers are granted to government’s across the continent following the Brussels terrorist attack – saying that Europe needs its own version of the Patriot Act.  Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said that security across Europe needs tightening up and intelligence agencies, police, and the military need to be given more power to combat terrorism. “The most important preventative is information. We must exchange the information that exists”, de Maizière told broadcaster ZDF.

Belgium. Iraq. Pakistan.

Each of those countries was rocked by at least one horrific suicide blast last week. In Belgium, it was a crowded airport and metro. In Iraq, a soccer field. In Pakistan, a park popular with women and children.

The combined death toll from those attacks alone: more than 130.