Everybody STOP! Just stop the presses. Something is very, very wrong. There is so much conflicting "information" coming in it defies credulity. Here are just a few of the high points.
For three days I have been seeing stories that Barack Obama has rounded up 9,000 ISIS fighters from Mosul, along with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself, and is transporting them to Syria to fight Russia. First, the last I heard "Caliph Ibrahim" was in Sirte. While it is possible he has recovered from his "poisoning" and decided to commit suicide (since we advertised the attack), I find the idea of Barry overtly doing something like this to be implausible.
Next, this morning I watched a live stream from Kirkuk, where a ground fight was occurring between those in Kirkuk (including Russians) and the Islamic State. I know the people I heard on the audio were Russian because they were speaking Russian. After the live stream ended, I saw three different reports that it was ISIS and that during the attack fifteen women were killed, along with an Islamic State imam. Three different reports. One from Russia, one from Israel, and the other I sought out as confirmation: The Daesh Daily. Now, I am unfamiliar with this journal, but it appears to be on the up-and-up. I do not know for sure.
Then I saw tweets from Iraqis saying it was indeed the Islamic State. THEN reports began coming out saying Russia had performed an air strike, and that THEY were responsible for the deaths. I watched that live stream for two hours and never saw an air strike. While it is possible they struck after the stream ended, bear in mind the reported deaths came in BEFORE the stories about an air strike.
Next, WikiLeaks and someone calling himself "0Hour1__" on Twitter are in a turf war over the DDoS attacks. 0Hour says it was the Clinton Camp. WikiLeaks posted a tweet thanking its "supporters" and asking them to stop because they have "proved [their] point".
Finally, someone on Twitter posted a video this afternoon purporting to be Julian Assange emerging from the Ecuadorian embassy after having been surrounded by police this morning. The tweet was dated today. The YouTube video was dated today. I was very busy, so it took me over an hour to get through the first fifteen minutes. When I did, I discovered they were talking about Bradley Manning, Donald Rumsfeld, and the war in Iraq! This video is at least a decade old! Yet it purports to be from today.
I cannot say at this time what in hell is going on except for this: Disinformation. Pure and simple. Someone (or more than one someone) is trying to confuse the hell out of us, and he/they are doing a damned fine job of it. Here is my strong advice: Unless you have at least three independent sources, do not believe anything you see in the media until further notice.
UPDATE
Sergey Lavrov says that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, along with many Islamic State fighters, left Mosul "long ago":
As of this morning, Russia Today reports an American air strike hit a funeral procession thirty kilometers outside of Kirkuk, killing eighty people. As of this afternoon, Baghdad maintains it was an Islamic State ground assault.
Also this morning, "0Hour1__" tweeted out a meme implying that supporters of Donald Trump were responsible for the DDoS attacks.
Everything is as clear as mud.
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